A lot to learn

I can learn a lot from listening to my daughter.  But I have to shut up and not just preach at her.  Tonight, she was very frustrated about her piano lesson.  She kept making mistakes and getting more and more frustrated.  When that happens to me, I tell myself to calm down.  I get control of my emotions and then things go better.

But when I see her getting out of control feelings, it is not all right for me to go to preaching to help her get control.  Even though I do it because I care about her, it comes across as uncaring and cold. What she suggests is that I ask her why she's feeling this way and listen.  Then I can ask her how we can fix the problem and go through it with her step by step.  This is what her Mom does and she loves it.  She feels truly cared for that way.

So I told her I would try.  I told her I could learn a lot from her.  I told her it was alright for her to ask me to stop preaching when she feels that's all I'm doing.  And we went through it step by step.

There's a lot I can learn from my daughter.