This afternoon, my oldest son came into the kitchen holding a painting that he spent a good chunk of time on. He was upset because his younger brother told him that he hated it. Blake has been in a particularly foul mood the last few days. He had wanted Blake to apologize and wanted his brother to come to a different opinion using the reasoning that Aiden had worked really hard on his project. I brought the boys into the kitchen and decided that now was the best time as any for a Mom lecture. 🙂

I told Aiden that while he did work hard on his painting and that he did try his best, it was ok if someone still didn’t like it. All that mattered was if HE liked the work he did. If he was proud of his accomplishment and he tried the best that he could, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of it. Throughout his life he will come across all walks of people. People that he may not mesh with on a personality level or that simply didn’t like him for no other reason than they just didn’t. I told him that was ok. It was ok to not be liked. What would not be ok was if he changed who he was or what made him proud in the effort to be liked. Everyone has a difference of opinion, if he went around desperately trying to get everyone to like him, he would not be able to get anything done.

As for Blake, he insisted that he was only joking when he told Aiden that he hated his painting. We sat down and talked about how jokes are supposed to make people happy and laugh. If we spend the whole time trying to hurt someone’s feelings, it would no longer be a joke, it would just be mean. I told him it was ok to not like something, and that I didn’t want him to lie in an effort to *gasp* get someone to like him.( See what I did there? I went full circle! Way to go Mom.) But that there is a nice way to say you might not like something, and a dick way to say to it. I told him the next time someone showed him something that they were really proud of, instead of telling them that he hates it he could tell praise them on their hard work. “Hey, it looks like you worked really hard on that. Way to go!”

Who knows if these little Mom lectures will stick. If I’m lucky these memories may pop up from their subconscious just in the nick of time in the effort to get them out of a sticky situation. While I am trying to raise thoughtful and respectful humans, I also want to raise fearless and self confident warriors. Life’s ultimate balancing act. In the end only time will tell.