When to teach a lesson

It seems that somehow when kids turn 10 years of age (boys at least in my case) they completely lose their brains. My oldest son is 10 and I'm not just "parent bragging" this kid is smart....very sharp indeed (must get it from his mother....LOL). Yet for as sharp as he is it has become increasingly more difficult for him to USE his brain talent!

Case in point this morning. It is Valentine's Day and the past 2 days school has been closed due to weather (we finally got some snow here in Central PA). I got the kids their Valentine's to give to their classmates on Monday evening when I got the groceries. They sat down on Tuesday with their mom and filled out all the cards, placed them in a bag and put them in their backpacks so that they would remember to take them to school. All set, right?

Well, this morning about a couple minutes after the kids got on the bus for school, as I was picking up the house and folding the blankets, etc in the living room (my family has been home for 2 days....the house is near totaled!) I noticed a plastic bag on the rocking chair RIGHT NEXT to the front door where the kids wait for the bus. Sure enough it was his bag of Valentine's that WAS in his backpack. For some unknown reason he removed it from his backpack and set it on the chair....where it remained.

So what does one do at this point? As a father of a 10 year old son who is consistently "forgetting" things, I wonder if this is an opportune time to teach a lesson.....responsibility for one's own stuff! It's not "my" fault that he left them on the chair. If I wasn't a stay-at-home, work-from-home dad and had (as many like to refer to it) a "real job," (yuk) then he'd be SOL. Do they rely on me too much and thus not take enough responsibility? Is it the "daddy's home, he'll take care of it" or "daddy's the safety net for me screwing up"...?? I pondered if this is that moment when that hard lesson could be learned. He'd be sitting in class, the teacher declares it time to pass out everyone's Valentine's, he goes to his backpack (which btw he has already removed his books from and STILL didn't notice anything missing) and suddenly realizes he doesn't have his to exchange. How would he feel if he couldn't give? I can imagine I would feel like such a heal that I was receiving and not giving simply because I left my brain in bed this morning. To top it off, he couldn't even give them tomorrow...or even Monday....it would be next Tuesday before he could exchange them as there is a Winter Break this weekend. So....what does one do in this situation? Teach a lesson or bail them out? Decisions, decisions....

So what did I do, you ask?

LOL....I'm weak! I got in the truck and drove out to his school to deliver them. Did I miss an opportunity to teach a lesson? Maybe.

One could choose to look at this in different ways. I'm choosing to view it as I'm thankful that I have situated my life that I have the ability to serve my family when in need. Maybe the lesson I was able to teach today was one of giving. That I didn't scold him or criticize him for forgetting. That I taught him the lesson of serving ones children.....serving one's family.

I think so.