Taking the initiative (Anna)

The other day at the library, Emma went over to the DVDs, picked up a few and looked at them, then handed me a Bob the Builder DVD and said "I want this one. Please." As far as we know, she has never watched Bob the Builder before, and borrowing DVDs is not a routine part of our library trips, but she seemed pretty sure that that was important. So we borrowed it.

She's watched it once or twice. And then tonight, she said, "Mumma. I need to watch Bob the Builder." I looked around for it, and then I said, "Sorry kiddo. I can't play it on my computer since I don't have a DVD player. We need Mummy's computer for it and I'm not sure where it is. Maybe later." I went back to cooking dinner. Emma said, "Where Mummy's computer?" I said, distracted, "Um. Not sure. Maybe it's upstairs. I don't know. We'll find it later, ok?"

A few minutes later, Emma pottered upstairs. Caroine was up there and Emma regularly floats between the two of us, so I wasn't too worried. A few moments later, I heard a bit of a thud and I called, "You ok, Emma?" She replied, "It's a bit too heavy, Mumma. You carry it?"

I went to find her halfway down the stairs, carrying Caroline's computer, which she had successfully found and dragged down half a dozen steps. "You carry Mummy's computer down the stairs 'cos it's heavy, and then I watch Bob the Builder," Emma instructed me. It was on the tip of my tongue to scold her, but I didn't. We just walked down, started up the CD and she is now watching her DVD.

Theoretically, I suppose, I should have been annoyed at her for trying to carry the computer (which she could have broken) especially down the stairs (which is potentially unsafe), but actually I was kind of proud of her. Without any fuss, she pragmatically used her own initiative to solve the problem I had identified so she could do what she wanted to do. She did what she could, and then enlisted my help when she needed it. And not once did she sqawk, cry or have a tantrum to get what she wanted.

Personally, I think it's a good example of why we shouldn't always be supervising and micromanaging our children's every move. Would I ever have given her permission to go up the stairs and retrieve a computer by herself? No, I would not have. It could have been a disaster, I suppose, but it wasn't, and I probably should have been watching her more closely, I suppose, but I wasn't, and she technically shouldn't have tried to do it by herself, I suppose, but she did anyway.

Kind of, strangely, *sniff* proud of her.