Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, in 4th grade there was a marker in our classroom that smelled just like barf, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a story about dinner in the Darnell house.

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What I Learned Yesterday:
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness.

Said more accurately, it was the age of foolishness, THEN it was the age of wisdom. A couple of nights ago we had a big blow up in our house. Well, honestly, I had a big blow up. I don’t lose my cool a lot, and I certainly don’t lose it as badly as I did this week. It all happened around dinner time.

It started out pretty normal. The kids were picking at each other, Kari was getting the food ready, and I was getting the drinks ready. Normally the kids will stop picking at each other once we pray and start eating. If not, we may have to remind them once to keep themselves to themselves and focus on eating. Not that night.

It was one thing after another. Addison was scooting an empty chair with her feet, Colby was picking out his favorite parts of the food and then complaining that the rest of the meal wasn’t good, they were messing around with each other, poking, putting feet in the other person’s lap…you get the idea. I was getting increasingly frustrated.

I finally had enough and I raised my voice. I yelled at them. One of them claimed that it was all the other person’s fault. Of course it was. It always was. Nevermind the fact that the person passing the blame was slouched over in their chair with their legs in the lap of their sibling. No, that was completely not their fault.

Kari and I were done eating and had washed off our dishes and the kids still had quite a bit left. Dinner was taking 2-3 time longer than it should have. I warned them that they’d be going to be early if they didn’t stop messing around. My Falling Skies podcast was now about 15 minutes from starting and so I gave them one final warning as I left the room.

Not even 5 minutes passed before I could hear them goofing off. I came into the kitchen and they were not doing what they’d been instructed to do. Instead, they were running around in circles in the middle of the kitchen. I lost it.

I yelled pretty much as loud as I can. I told them that they were going to bed early and expressed how upset I was at their refusal to obey and not behave as they know they should. One of the kids, the same one that refused to own their behavior earlier, started offering up excuses and telling me that they’d done nothing wrong. It was all their sibling’s fault. Needless to say, I refused to believe the excuses and it just made me more upset.

Knowing that I would be better off to step away and cool off, I came into the studio and made my final preparations. It was now 5 minutes to podcast time.

I felt bad. I don’t like yelling at the kids, especially as badly as just had.

I took a few deep breaths and went back to the kitchen. My son was there making his lunch for school. I hugged him and apologized. His sister was out on the back porch crying and talking to Kari. As soon as the podcast was over I shut down the studio, found my daughter, and told her I was sorry.

Last night, dinner was different. We had all gained a bit of wisdom from our foolishness the night before.

As we sat down, Kari told the kids that we were not going to have a repeat of the previous night. They agreed. There was no fighting, no poking, no chair moving, no leg wrangling. My daughter even sat in a different spot just to make sure she didn’t get herself in trouble.

We had a nice meal. We talked about respecting each other and about thanking those who have gone through the effort to prepare the meal we are eating. It was nice. Once dinner was over, both kids made their school lunches and the rest of the evening was smooth.

Here’s what I learned.

I know most of us lose our temper sometimes and yell at those around us. We have to be willing to admit our mistakes and own up to our behavior. How can I expect my children to own their own behavior if I don’t own mine.

It helps to lay the ground rules.

Last night we started off dinner by telling the kids that we would not have a repeat of the night before. We reminded them of the rules of dinner. Did they know those same rules the night before? Yes, of course. But we get lazy. We get lax. We get careless. We need reminders. Sometimes those reminders come by making fools of ourselves.

There are lessons in success, but there are often greater lessons in failure. I’m not a perfect parent as the first story clearly illustrates, but I’m a firm believer that when we make mistakes, the worst thing we can do is make another mistake on top of it.

I could have bypassed apologizing to my kids but I would have missed an opportunity to teach them a character lesson. They would not have benefited the way that they did by seeing me humble myself to them and admit I was wrong. I hope they’ll have the courage and humility to do that too.

I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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