These wise words were spoken by my dear friend, T, who is an awesome Mom to three teens. She’s guest blogging today about the crazy similarities of raising kids and dogs.
I don’t have any animals despite the constant begging of all of my kiddos, “Please, please, please can we have a dog?” I love animals and am not against having a dog, but I am not ready to deal with all that comes with owning a dog, or cat, especially the hair and the accidental pee/poop issues in my house. Been there done that 3 times… I do want my kids to be comfortable and familiar around dogs, so… cue Mia stage right. I started by just hanging out with Mia and her dogs while my kids were in school. I picked up how she was training her dogs and how dogs need to listen to verbal commands when I had an ah-ha moment: wow, I just told Josh last night to go to his place until the kitchen floor dried. I guess I picked up some dog training lingo without even realizing it. I gradually began bringing the kids, one at a time, over to Mia’s to hang out with the dogs to dog sit, learn how to appropriately interact with the dogs, and then eventually take them for walks. My youngest LOVES dogs yet is still terrified when a dog is around. We recently joined a pack walk and Josh got to walk with Pony. He learned the proper way to handle a dog. He was gently corrected and told that he is the boss and needs to tell the dog what behavior is expected. Josh learned this by doing what he thought was right, realized it was wrong, and then corrected to achieve the desired outcome. Hmmm… this sounds very much like how I raised my kiddos, especially the oldest. I did what I thought was right as a new mom, realized I was waaaay off base, corrected and then moved on. Raising kids is sooooo much like raising dogs. You really don’t know what you’re doing until you screw something up. It takes time, consistency and consistency… and… consistency. It doesn’t hurt at all to have a great mentor coach or, dare I say, trainer?
Leave a Reply