“The right thing at the wrong time is the
wrong thing.”
― Joshua Harris
There is much to be
said about the education that schools give our children. For generations people
have been asking why certain subjects are taught while other lessons are
ignored.
Many also ask why
certain life skills aren’t taught in school.
For those important
lessons that kids need to learn, but aren’t being taught in school, parents
have the following two choices:
Parents can teach
them to their kids on their own, or they can abstain, insisting that it is the
school’s job to teach such things.
One life lesson
that children and adults need to learn is timing.
When is a good
time? When is a bad time? How can one decipher?
My first
introduction to this was my teacher in elementary school, Mr. Paul Schwartz.
What made him extra special was the fact that in addition to teaching the
syllabus, he also tried to teach lessons on life.
As per the rules of
the school, students needed to get their parents to sign their graded tests.
Whenever Mr. Schwartz would give the tests back, he would tell us the
following: “For those of you guys who got a bad grade, you have 2 days to bring
back the test signed. If your parents are in a bad mood or angry, don’t ask
them to sign your test. Their anger might become directed at you. If they are
in a good mood, that’s better, but that’s still not the best time, as you don’t
really want to kill their good mood. The ideal time is if you can catch your
parent in a joking mood. I’ll give you 2 days, just to ensure that you can try
to catch them at the ideal time.”
That lesson was
probably more important than the content that was covered in the test.
I see this time and
time again.
Sadly I’m also guilty
of it.
We tell our
children “This is not the time!”, but do we give our children the tools for
recognizing when the right time is?
Do we put time into
our schedule so that they have a right time, or are we so busy that there is no
“good time” for them to come to us?
There is another
aspect of timing that is often ignored.
Timing is a two way
street.
Not only do kids
need to learn about “good timing” when it comes to communicating with their
parents, parents need to utilize “good timing” when conveying important
messages to their children.
Just like you won’t
remember things if communicated during a “bad time”, so too your children.
Perhaps the best
way to teach your child about “good timing” is through modelling.
Meaning that if we
want our kids to use good timing when giving us messages, we need to make sure
we use good timing when giving them messages.
Yisroel
Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice
which specializes in working with people of all ages helping them understand
their own thought processes, enabling them to improve their level of
functioning, awareness, social skills and more. He also lectures on the topics
of communication and child safety.
You
can email Yisroel at yisroel@ympicker.com
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