Heartbreaking Tears

The other night, we took the gang out to Friendly's for some dinner.  They were pretty rammy and we were just about at our wit's end when Josiah decided to climb across the top of the table.  I held him back by the arm and said, "Josiah" very sternly.  He slumped back into his seat and behaved.  

His head was turned away from me and I figured he was playing with one of his cars, but Amy said, "Look, he's crying..."  Sure enough, big crocodile tears were streaming down his cheek.  He worked to quickly brush them away and didn't want to show us that he was crying.  I gave him a hug and told him that he just couldn't behave like that in a public place and that we never climb on tables and he calmed down.  Yet he never made a sound.  He just sat there too proud to admit that he was crying.  I have bo idea where he learned it, because neither of us jave ever done that.

We don't raise our voices in our house.  I think too many families yell and scream at their kids and at the end of the day, all the yelling just isn't effective.  It's intimidating and frightening and indicative of a parent that's lost control of their emotions.  Parenting is grace-driven and requires an enormous amount of patience.  All of us will fail and lose our patience with our kids at times, but it has to be the exception rather than the rule.  I think Josiah was reacting to a level of intensity in my voice that he wasn't used to that frightened him.  It was unsettling and ultimately emotionally overwhelming to his sweet spirit and the tears flowed.  I'm so thankful for that sweet little man and the wonderful spirit within.  He's just the sweetest, kindest child.  We're so fortunate to be a part of his story!