Test your patience Skills

I have mentioned before the 3 Ps to help Fathers bring up their kids.  Patience, patience and yet another helping of it. 4 would be better.   With that in mind, I bring you the first "test your patience" skills with a real life scenario.  Let us begin.

1.  You are about to cross a semi busy street at the cross walk.  But the street is not busy enough to merit a traffic light.  It doesn't really even have a stop sign for the cars.  Your young toddler wants to run across because she wants to do everything by herself these days.  Do you
     a) let her run across
     b) force her to take your hand and cross with her
     c) hold her gently by the coat or wearing apparel and check both ways and make absolutely sure nothing is coming.

2.  Your child is now crying because she wanted to cross the street by herself but you didn't let her.  Do you
     a) grab her by the arm and pull her along because you are late for your destination
     b) start yelling at her in public that she cant cross the street by herself
     c) for the time being let her cry and walk either a little bit in front of her or behind her

3)  Now you come to the next crossing.  A busy street with a light change and a walk don't walk light for pedestrians.  Your child is crying and the walk light turns green, but she doesn't want to cross.  Do you
     a) pull her across the street because you are late
     b) stand with her until she has quieted down a bit and coax her to cross the street, though she may still not want to.  Even offer to hug her.  She always likes a hug.  
     c) start yelling at her and or pick her up and carry her across the street

4)  The taxi driver has yelled at you for crossing against the red don't walk sign with your child, do you
     a) yell back at him
     b) just smile at him and keep on your way

5)  Last one.  On the same walk your child is worked up now and starts to cry for something completely stupid like she doesn't want to pick up her sister from school.  She just wants to go home and she will cry if she has to pick up her sister.  Do you
      a) Start yelling at her again and pull her along
      b) Again walk a little ways ahead of her or behind her, preferably ahead so you keep moving toward your destination, but don't get too far ahead of her.
      c) Run way ahead of her so she gets afraid and she doesn't know where you are.  But you wont be late for your destination.  

Here is the story.
I was walking with my younger daughter from her preschool via the playground for a quick tour of duty on the slide and swing.  I said it could only be a short romp in the playground because we had to be at her sisters school at 4.30 to pick up her sister (a later day because she had a class outing).  Even with that 15 minute playground stop we would be late for her sister, but... it was only fair.  Luckily after only ten minutes she wanted to go home because it wasn't nice out and it was getting dark.  Of course we had to pick up her sister still.  4.25.

We came to a street without a light and I was trying to see if there was a car coming.  My daughter wanted to cross by herself and started to run across the street.  I couldn't see so well around parked cars and barely grabbed her back in time as a car was coming across our path.  Although you hope cars will stop at intersections... they don't always, or only slow down.  Man oh man, that was actually a close call.  If I had had a son, he probably would have run faster and BAM.  As it was I was able to catch her by her hood and hold her back. 

But as a result, does she thank me for saving her life?  No.  She starts crying because I didn't let her cross by herself.  Well, I wasn't about to explain it there at that moment.  So I just kept walking a bit ahead of her as she continued to cry.  Yes folks, I am her father, yes she is crying, but really, I didn't hit her or anything.  I am a good father.  Usually.

We come to the next street to cross which is busier.  4.30 now.  She is still crying from me not letting her cross the street by herself.  The light turns green for pedestrians to cross but she is back a couple steps crying.  So I had to go back and I grabbed her arm and rushed her across the street holding her arm.  Forcibly.

In the middle of the street I notice that the pedestrian light is now red and there are cars starting to come.  But I think they are left turners and not from the straight street. That is I still had the right of way and the light had just turned to red and I still had time to cross.  But now I couldn't remember. I thought for sure the light was still green when we started to walk across.  Wasn't it?  Now I cant tell for sure in hindsight.  It couldn't have changed colors so quickly.

A taxi driver yelled at me crossing and told me to watch out.   I was so angry and flustered that I yelled back at him.  However, my mind wasn't working and couldn't work properly under pressure and I yelled at him "The light was red".  Doh.  I meant to say, the light was green and I had the right of way for crossing.  But I got it wrong.  So what I yelled at him made no sense whatsoever.  This elderly woman looked at me rather angrily.  Well, Man, couldn't he see that I was crossing with a little kid?  I had the right of way no matter what.  Didn't I?  I wanted to yell at the woman too as it seemed she was looking at me and saying, "where is the child's mother? This man is an ogre".   Argggghhh.

Just about to the school, but we are late.  She is crying still.  "I don't want to go to the school to pick up my sister.  I don't want to go to the school to pick up my sister".  A full block of this and you just know that everyone thinks you are a sh... uh a rather bad father.  "Yes yes, I am her father, yes she is crying. Its OK.  I can handle it.  Lets go honey."  "I don't want to pick up my sister, I want to go home".  "Yes, we will go home.  Just about there.  I am just going to whistle a little, no nope, I wont whistle, that will look bad.  Yes yes she is my daughter walking five steps behind me.  Doesn't she have a nice crying voice?  Zip pee dee do da, Zip pee dee day.  My oh my what a wonderful day."

Well we got to the sisters school ten minutes late, but it really didn't matter as they had just gotten back from their outing and they weren't ready yet.  So, no problems, no worries.

Answers to the quiz
1 -- C.  But mind you she will still probably cry no matter how little bit you hold her.  But you really ought to cross holding her hand.  So find the best way to cross safely with as little bodily contact with your child as possible, at the same time as being as close as possible to grab her away from an accident.  After all, a bit of crying is better than a crashed, smashed toddler.   But if you can cross holding her hand, just do that.  You really want a safe child when crossing the street. 
2 -- C.  You lost your patience with A and B and you failed and will only make her cry more.
3 -- B.  I chose A.  That really was a bad move all around and as a result I lost not only my patience, but my awareness of the situation so that I wasn't sure what the color of the pedestrian crossing was, if I actually still had the green to go.  Bad move space cadet.
4 -- B, yep.  I chose wrong again and ended up looking like a fool for it.  I should have kept my cool and just tipped my hat at him or waved or something peaceful.  Instead... Bzzzzz, bad move space cadet.
5-- B.  This time I was able to keep my cool and my patience and even though I felt like the worlds worst father, I handled it.  Anything else, A or C would have again made me look bad at best, end up in the police station at worst.

So I got two right, two wrong and the first one, I'm not sure.  I think I handled it rather in between.  So 2.5 correct, 50%.  I still need A LOT of work on those 3 Ps.  6 years of fathering and I still am only at 50%.   Patience, patience.  

Going to get some pictures up on this post in the next week, but right now I ll just put it up without.