Don't let kids + cars = screaming

Our dad struggles like all of us :). With 3 kids of all ages, it can be a challenge at times. Here's a story about how he turned a moment of potential stress and turmoil into a relationship growth opportunity between him and his three-year-old daughter.

First, our dad, had a great love for cars. This was his escape on weekends to take care of the cars: cleaning or buffing them, changing the oil, rotating the tires, or other maintenance. As he would take such good care of them, the cars would last a very long time, so having a new one in the garage was a rare, but special treat for him. He knew that the garage would protect this new acquisition, this carefully considered prized minivan that was researched through Consumer Reports to make sure it would have the best efficiency and longevity to last a very long time. Plus it would of course be the safest available to protect his precious cargo-his beautiful three children.

That's why that Tuesday afternoon discovery he found in the garage could have turned into a disaster in the family, but read on to see what happened.

When he arrived home from work and opened the garage door to check on his new car and make sure that the closed garage did its duty in protecting it, he found quite a surprise. One of his daughters had somewhat methodically, written her name almost all the way around the brand new car, with black permanent marker! Of course he could immediately identify the culprit because it was his 3-year-old daughter's name that was crudely inscribed, at just her height. Immediately all of these thoughts raced through his head. "I just CANNOT have any nice stuff at all as long as I have kids," and "why can't these kids just respect their parent's things", or "What have I done wrong to deserve this?!" The anger and frustration welled up inside of him, and he stormed into the kitchen, ready to take care of this very grave matter and put a stop to this type of behavior right away. So as he burst open the door and in a loud voice shouted "Just WHO is responsible for the writing on the brand new car?!!" His eyes looked down and met his daughter's, who looked up back at him, with her own mixed-up feelings and emotions all clearly going on inside her little three-year-old mind. "I so don't want to disappoint my daddy" and "I hope I didn't hurt daddy", or "I wish I could just run to and hug daddy like I always do when he comes home, but now I can't because he's mad at me".

And with that look into his eyes, hubby just took a moment of pause. He's not sure how long it was, but it was just long enough for him to think, to reflect, and to transform that tremendous anxiety-producing moment into a moment of calm resolve. He took a breath and then finished his sentence. "Because whoever it was needs to come with me right now and practice her 'Y's!" You see, his daughter's name was Amy, and like 3-year-olds sometimes do, the "y" had been written backwards. So the two of them dutifully went out to the car, and finished writing the "Amy's" the rest of the way around the car, but this time, with a loving father guiding little Amy to correct the direction of the tail on her "y's"

There would be other cars for my husband. But there would be no other Amy's. And his relationship with his Amy was more important that any car. In just that split-second when he took that moment of pause, he turned that anxiety-producing situation into a relationship-transforming moment. That's why we say that we just need to focus on staying calm, and the great parent we really are will just take over the situation and we'll often surprise ourselves at how we can transform our relationships with our kids in the process.