A World Beyond Ruth

Three-year-olds are selfish like fish are wet. Like grass is green. Like...well, you get the picture. Selfishness is just a part of what makes a kid a kid. They just think everything is about them--all the time. Jeff and I have had many a talk with Ruth on this subject, but still she doesn't seem to get it. Today, though, I think I finally made some progress--at least I like to tell myself that I made some progress. I was cleaning out some old magazines when I had one of my best parenting ideas to date. I decided to have Ruth to do a project, which involved sissors and glue, so Ruth was instantly hooked. I gave her the old magazines and I wrote family members names on separate pieces of construction paper. Then I told her she could cut out any pictures she wanted from the magazines and glue them to the paper as long as they were things that the particular person would like. She really had to put herself in the place of the other person to come up with "approved" items. At first, she was only finding things she liked, but after a while I didn't even have to supervise and she was able to fill the paper, front and back, with items she thought the person would like. And she really did a great job. (Plus, it kept her busy pretty much all afternoon)! And tonight when we were discussing where we'd like to go for dinner, she actually asked Jeff where he'd like to go, instead of just blurting out her favorite place and assuming that's where we'd go. I'm certain we still have a long way to go to get the selfishness completely under control, but I feel like we at least took a significant baby step forward! And any forward motion in this arena is a very good thing!