Positive Reinforcement

To my mother and all the mothers that may stumble upon my blog, Happy Mother’s Day.

This is a story that will make my mom and the mother of my son happy so consider this Mother’s Day presents extra-credit.

As a parent, you aren’t always sure how you are doing. How things you are teaching your children are working (It is far easier to tell if they aren’t), but every once in awhile you get a little something out of your child that makes you realize that you are doing ok and that your child might actually turn out to be a pretty good egg.

Today Owen and I went to Parkersburg to return a movie and it happened to be about the same time as lunch so I decided we should stop at McDonald’s to get lunch. We went in, ordered Happy Meals (yea I got one too, the Mighty Kids meal is pretty good and ends up being about the right amount of food for me) and then sat down. We were enjoying lunch and Owen was playing with the Shrek figure that came with the Happy Meal when he said to me, “Daddy, thank you for bringing me to McDonald’s.” I know it’s not much, but it speaks volumes to me about what kind of little guy we are raising. I have been told by both his grandmothers and others that he regularly thanks them and tells them that he loves them and is overall pretty appreciative, and he had done that both with Renea and I.

I just guess that it hit me today that he is “getting it” and that to me that is a huge deal. It is nearly impossible to get that, “Hey dad, you and mom are doing a great job raising me,” from a 3-year-old, but this was about as close as it is gets.