A Teachable Moment

After going through the drive-through at McDonalds yesterday for a couple of Happy Meals, I gave the food to the kids in the back of the van to have a "picnic in the car" on our way to Target. Sometimes the Happy Meals are in paper bags and sometimes in the traditional carboard boxes. Well this time they were in the boxes and Micah was insisting that he needed "help, help, help, momma, help me." I asked Josiah to open Micah's box for him and instead of doing it for him, he showed him how to push the little tabs through and had Micah do it himself. Then Josiah said to me, "Momma, wasn't that a great idea, showing Micah how to do it, so he can learn to do it himself." I told him what an excellent idea that was, realizing how much I enable my children to be too dependent on me, or others for that matter. Micah will be 3 in October and he can already do alot more for himself than my other two at that age, but I think that is soley due to the fact that he has Josiah to emulate. I should get no credit for that. It does such a disservice to my kids when I take the easy way out and just "do it myself." I want my kids to be capable, responsible adults, so I better get with it now and be more pro-active at teaching them how to become capable and responsible. Josiah used that moment in the van to teach Micah, but little did he know the effect that teachable moment had on me.