Last month this Mom and her children came to our house. She set up her children to play in the hall and we sat to chat. My children were doing school.
One of my children was schooling in the room next to where we were meeting. This child interrupted to ask me a question. I answered and asked that child not to interrupt again. At least two more times this child interrupted. Yes, I was embarrassed.
I did not make a big deal about this while my friend was there, although my wheels were spinning trying to think of a way to help this child get that I meant it when I said “do not interrupt us.” (Remember my children are in their teens, when they were younger I would have excused myself and dealt with the problem immediately, as teens I tend to wait until later to address issues.)
This seems like basic training, obedience 101. What went wrong?
I don’t know.
All I know is that some days are like that. What I mean is, some days it appears that all training is lost. The truth is it is not lost; training just needs to be recovered.
That afternoon was an eye opener, when I spoke to the child afterwards, that child didn’t know why they had interrupted and admitted that they knew they weren’t supposed to. We talked about how it was not respectful to our company to keep interrupting and it was disobedient to blatantly go against what I had stated. They apologized and we moved on.
Since that day, I have been on high alert to little acts of disobedience, trying to regain any lost ground.
Seems to me like it might be a good time to have this friend over again and see if we can experience an uninterrupted visit.