Attention!

A few days ago I learned an important lesson during school.

I was reading part of our grammar lesson from this book, and I realized that rather than paying attention to what I was relaying to them from the book, my children were working on the "homework" portion of their grammar lesson from another book.

In that moment, I saw the fruit of a strength-gone-bad. 

I tend to be task-oriented, and I like to multi-task when circumstances allow. I must confess that there are many times when my children have something to share with me, and I pretend to be listening intently while working one something else.

The truth is that I'm usually missing a large portion of what's being said, and being the smart people they are, they know it!

So, rather than getting upset with them for seeing a greater need to multi-task than to listen intently, I simply had each of them re-read (aloud, standing next to their chairs) a portion of what they had missed.

This was an important reminder for me that it's a good idea to stop what I'm doing and give my full attention to the speaker - even my grand storyteller, and even if my current task is "necessary".

They're watching. They're aaallwaays watching.