Parenting tips from your children?

My son, as many children do, has a very difficult time understand what it means to hurry. You say, "Hurry up, you have to leave in 2 minutes", and the pace of his eating stays exactly the same. You say, "Go brush your teeth lightening fast- the bell's going to ring," and he stares at you as though you are speaking another language. "I know she's trying to tell me something, but what....".

So, this morning, as he was doing his best impression of a tortoise eating his banana pancakes, his dad said, "Bud... you'd better hurry up. You've gotta go!" The fork was either moving so quickly it looked like it wasn't moving at all, or it really wasn't moving at all. Dad said, "Did you just do anything different when I said to hurry up?" He shook his head no.

Duh!!!!!

He was quickly hastened into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and told he had exactly 1 minute to do so. He knows how long a minute is. He has to read for 20 minutes every day, and watches the clock like a hawk to make sure he doesn't go over that 20 minutes by one second- he KNOWS how long a minute is! But, does he hurry?

Needless to say, both parents were quite frustrated by his slow pace and became quite short with him. AS he was rushed out the door for school, he turned, and in a teary voice said... "That's not how you teach your child to hurry."

I'll be looking forward to hearing how he thinks you should teach your child to hurry. I guess we've been doing it wrong all along. Parents, I will publish his words of wisdom so we can all stop being frustrated with trying to get our kids to hurry! Who knew we've been doing it wrong all these years!

Maybe I'll ask him how to teach your kids to want to do their chores, as well. Apparently my way isn't right, either.