How They Hear...

Last year, my son played quarterback for his flag football team. He was responsible for knowing the offensive plays and the positions each player should be in during a particular call. He managed the game well, and developed a take charge attitude on the field. Unfortunately, BJ did not translate this attitude very well into his 1st grade classroom. He had many fits of anger with the teacher to where he would literally yell at her whenever he felt that she was out of place. Needless to say, BJ didn't play football this year as we attributed much of his anger issues to the game he became unnecessarily attached to. However, the anger did not subside. For the most part, he was back to the lovable, mild mannered BJ that we all have grown to love, but he still had lapses of yelling at his teacher. I became so livid with his display of disrespect that I began to yell and I'm not a yeller at all. This goes on for a period of time and I become overwhelmingly frustrated and I couldn't get through to him. I didn't know what I was doing wrong as a parent to where my son would come out of himself and behave in such a manner. Then it hit me, well, Tasha pointed something out too me during our latest discussion of his conduct. He misses me! Now, I know that sounds crazy, but I all of sudden realized that while BJ was out learning those plays, conducting the offensive routines, I was the encourager...the coach. However, I was not only coach, I was the videographer for the team and I spent a ton of time video taping and editing, which took me away from him. I wasn't getting paid for doing this, I simply volunteered because video is a passion of mine, but my greater passion should be my kids. So BJ could't here me when I would try to correct him because I wasn't speaking his language anymore. I'm not talking about English, I'm referring to BJ's Love Language. Tasha discovered a book some time ago entitled "The 5 Love Languages of Children" and we had come to realize that BJ's Love Language was "quality time". He simply desired to be close to me and I wasn't giving him what he needed. See, the football was supposed to be our time, just him and me, but I had invited the entire football organization into our moments and that didn't translate very well. I thanked my wife, prayed for forgiveness and hugged my son then began to speak his language once again. After that, the conduct marks just stopped, well at least for yelling at the teacher. The other issues require a different language! Don't forget to spend time with the kids learning how they need to be spoken to. It will only make your relationship that much stronger.