Today I thought about things we talked about in Foster/Adopt training last night. The one thing that stuck out was that we are constantly asking our children to do something "right now". "Right now" could be in the middle of a video game (not knowing they are at their all-time highest level), in the middle of a phone conversation (could be, and probably is, important to them even if it's not to us), or just when they sat down to rest for a minute (yes, being a child is tiring too).

When we are asked to do one thing while we are in the process of doing another we sometimes get annoyed. We don't usually stop one task to tend to another unless it's an emergency. Funny how I sometimes thought what I asked my child to do was an "emergency" even though it wouldn't have been high on my to-do list. We wouldn't tell a co-worker to end a call "now" because we said so or stop typing a letter "now" because there is something more important we need them to do. I'm not saying I shouldn't have disciplined my children or required them to be respectful and attentive but I am saying that I should have given them the respect I usually saved for those outside my home.