As life, school and work goes by time can get away from you and when you have a 5 year old and a 3 year old, sometimes your patience and clarity can also get away from you. As a parent you want to teach your children, to help them grow and to create memories that will last them a life time. When my girls asked to go to a splash park, something that they have never experienced before, I knew that I wanted to make this happen for them. So on a day that I actually had off I let them choose between going to the splash park or the playground and they chose the splash park, as I expected. So we all got ready, everyone was excited, and we drove to our local community splash pad. It was a new environment for all of us, with a large playground and a huge outdoor splash area that was full of kids, as would be expected on such a hot day.
Well, things did not go as planned. Where I was expecting them to immediately jump right in and have fun I was instead met with frozen statues. My oldest who loves to climb said that she didn’t like the playground because it was just climbing stuff and no slides and my youngest who loves water refused to go anywhere near the splash pad. They were frozen in a state of shyness with frowns on their faces that honestly aggravated me. I finally had a day off and was able to do something that they have been wanting but they were not cooperating. I tried to encourage them to go into it, even carried them into the splash pad and slowly getting them wet, played with them which they enjoyed and laughed at but as soon as I tried to let them play amongst themselves or go interact with other kids they froze. When encouragement didn’t work I told them we would go back home but they would cry that they didn’t want to (I don’t blame them) but they still refused to move an inch and just stood frozen. I was getting frustrated and neither of us were getting any joy out of the situation.
Honestly, I was upset and felt like the whole purpose of my taking them out was a failure. I wanted to show them a new place and let them have new experiences and meet new people but they were having none of it. Nothing I tried worked to get them to go have fun. They complained about there being too many kids. Complained about the equipment. And refused to go to anywhere near the water. I honestly wanted to just pack things up and go back home but I took a breath and then asked them if they wanted to go to our usual playground instead and they immediately perked up. So I packed them back up in the car and we went on our way.
The drive towards our usual playground I was thinking about the situation. I was frustrated with the whole outcome while simultaneously worried about whether I was failing them in some way. Since I homeschool I worried that maybe I haven’t been giving them enough socialization with other kids, even though I know that they have plenty of interaction with other kids and normally make new friends very easily. We got to our usual playground and they cheered. We get to the playground and it was like they were completely different children. They ran and played. They introduced themselves to other kids who were there and started to play games together. It was nothing like what we had experienced earlier.
That was when I realized that while I am older and understand the joy and excitement of trying new things or visiting new places for them everything is new, and new can be scary. Having a new environment in addition to a gaggle of new people and kids was too much and was overwhelming. I heavily suspect that if there had been even 1 other person or child they knew there then they would have warmed up to the environment eventually. But having both the environment and the people being strange was overwhelming and frightening. But when we went to the playground they were used to, even if there were still other children they didn’t know there, the environment was familiar so they felt safer.
Making memories for our children is something we want to do as parents, but when things don’t go the way we expect them to, we get frustrated and discouraged when what we need to do is take a step back. Take a deep breath and assess the situation and listen to what our children are telling us, which will not always be through verbal communication. It was really a learning experience for me and will be something I know I will need to continue to work at. Just because a plan or a day didn’t go the way you wanted or expected it to doesn’t mean it was a failure. The failure would have been if I had let that frustration in that moment actually ruin the outing and come home instead of changing plans and going somewhere that they wanted to go to and enjoy.
You never fail until you stop trying.
Albert Einstein
Little Piece of Quiet 