Matthew Shaves His Mustache – a lesson for everybody

The only band aid I could find was a neon pink one and since the blood was flowing Matthew had to wear this ultra girly color bandage with a wad of tissue under it. Not only was it very stingy but a bit humiliating – at least as much as a 5 year old can be embarrassed.

I am writing this to say that kids aren’t that smart. Seriously, they aren’t. Children have this knack for doing really not-so-bright things, even after we tell them not to and warn them what will happen. I am totally convinced that this is why children are meant to have parents.

The sad truth is that us parents don’t always make the brightest decisions either. Maybe we have learned not to shave side to side but there are a plethora of other life lessons that we have failed to master.

My daughter loves this saying and it really hits home.
“Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”

Now, Matthew isn’t likely to try to shave again until he is older and wiser. He made the comment that he cut himself because he forgot the shaving cream and I was quick to correct him on that. The truth is, pain hurts. When Matthew felt that stinging pain of consequence for breaking a rule (we typically don’t allow our little ones to play with sharp, cutting objects) the lesson learned was swift and very efficient. It would have been nicer if Matthew could have learned this lesson without pain but it wouldn’t have been as likely to stick.

Kids may not be all that bright but there are many a lesson learned that make us adults look like idiots.

Why do we adults have habits of doing the same things over and over again with unpleasant results every time, and never learn from our mistakes?
Drive too fast – get a ticket.

Drive too fast again – get another ticket

Drive too fast again – get yet another ticket.

Complain to friends that you have all these tickets to pay and how it really wasn’t your fault.

Or -

Spend money on fast food – wonder where your money went.

Spend money on gadgets – wonder where more money went.

Spend money on fancy things – wonder again where all the money went.

Complain to anybody who will listen how you can’t pay your bills – you just don’t know where all your money went.

Adults aren’t that smart. Seriously, we aren’t. Adults have this knack for doing really not-so-bright things, even after we are told not to and warned about what will happen. I am totally convinced that this is why adults are meant to have kids. We can learn a lot from them about how not to be stupid. Kids tend to learn from consequences much faster than adults. Which is kinda funny to me because a child’s typical consequence is swift and fleeting while an adult’s typical consequence is long and rough.

There are two lessons to learn from this.

1. Don’t be stupid and try to do the same thing over and over again thinking this time you’ll get a different, better result.

2. Train and teach your children while they are young because kids just learn better.

We are given a good number of years to train our children up, to learn from them as well as teach them. Make wise use of this time! These years go by very fast and before you know it they will be out on their own – their mistakes will be their own to make and their childlike wisdom will be fading fast.