Find inspiration in children’s words
Dear Dr. LeCrone: Your readers may enjoy some of the following stories, which are both inspirational and psychological in nature. – A Reader in Pittsburgh
• Learning lessons from our children. Some time ago, a friend of mine punished his 3-year old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the tree.
Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.” He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that the box was empty.
He yelled at her, “Don’t you know that when you give someone a present, there’s supposed to be something inside it?” The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy.”
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for forgiveness. My friend told me that he kept that gold box by his bed for years. Whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of a child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us as parents has been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children. There is not a more precious possession anyone could hold.
• The most caring child. Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge, to find the most caring child. The winner was a 4-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed into his lap and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to his neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”
• What’s in your heart? A 4-year-old was at the doctor’s office for a check up. As the doctor looked into her ears with an otoscope, he asked, "Do you think I’ll find Big Bird in here?” The little girl stayed silent.
Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat. He asked, “Do you think I’ll find the Cookie Monster down there?” Again the little girl was silent.
Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heart beat, he asked, “Do you think I’ll hear Barney in there?” “Oh no!” the little girl replied. Jesus is in my heart. Barney’s on my underpants.
• Discouraged? As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat behind the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of the boys what the score was.
“We’re behind 14 to nothing,” he answered with a smile.
“Really,” I said, “I have to say you don’t look very discouraged.”
“Discouraged?” the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. “Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t been up yet.”
Copyright c 1998 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.
