You get to hug your kids!

The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.
~Chris Pine

As a school administrator I often have to deal with situations where students make a poor choice or get involved in something we wish they hadn’t.  Part of our process is to investigate these situations and do our best to turn them into a learning opportunity for our students.  While no one wants their child to have to speak with a school administrator, and we wish that they would always make good decisions, the fact of the matter is… they don’t.

It is a kid’s job to make mistakes; however, the benefit of these mistakes is to learn from them and change behavior.  While many of the situations we deal with are serious, they don’t amount to true crises.  A true crisis is a situation that prevents you from hugging your child and is a life changer.  As bad as a situation may be, I consider it a win if we get to go home and hug our kids.  Too often we get caught up in the minutiae of these situations, and we miss the fact that we can go into our kids room and give them a hug and a kiss anytime we want.

I have often written about perspective in this blog, and this is another example of when we need to take stock of what is truly important and look at the big picture.  We all love our children more than we could ever express, and when they make a poor choice, we have a laser like focus on that situation.  If I have learned one thing as a school administrator it is there are very few situations that a child can’t rebound from.  As adults we need to help our kids learn from their mistakes, but also keep these mistakes in perspective.

We all know people who, due to circumstances beyond their control, will never hug their child(ren) again.  When dealing with a difficult situation I try and help distraught moms and dads to keep things in perspective.  In many ways it is a kid’s job to make mistakes.  As their parents it’s our job to maintain a healthy perspective.  Your weekend homework is to hug your kid at least 10 times.