Learning Obedience

We are studying character qualities in school this year.  I vividly remember doing a program in school called "Character Counts" and I thought it was the cheesiest, worst waste of time ever.  I was ten, what can I say?

I hesitated doing this to my children, but in the end I decided that I can't expect my children to understand what it means to be a person of character if they didn't know what character was in the first place.  So, enter our character study.  It's been pretty fun actually, and I have to say that I love being able to say things like, "What is obedience again?  Was what you just did obedience?"

So, this post is on obedience.  I don't expect my children to be little robots who just say (now use your best "robot" voice), "Yes, master.  Whatever you say, master."  But, when given an instruction, we do expect them to do it.  Preferable without telling us what they think about our instruction. 

I had a moment today when I saw the beautiful fruits of all of our hard work.  Veronica and Gianna were in the school room arguing about something.  They were in the typical, "stop it", "no, you stop it", "no, you stop it", "no, you stop it", part of the fight when Nica took it to the next level, volume level, and yelled at her sister.  This mother went down the stairs, looked at the sweet red-head and said, "We do not yell at our sister.  You need to take a little break and go sit in your chair in the family room.  Do you understand?".

It was made clear that yes, she did understand and off she went.  Not happily skipping, but dramatically stomping to her chair.  Okay, good.

I was helping Gianna with a craft that she had gotten for her birthday when it dawned on me how obedient Veronica was.  She was sitting in that chair, not fussing or saying a word.  By-golly I was going to go in there and tell her what a big girl she was for doing just as she was told.

 So much for that!