This weekend I´m in León, a city I´m very fond of. This morning, passing by the cathedral, I found myself looking at this statue again, I find it so interesting:

It´s a father admiring the cathedral (which, in fairness, is a beautiful, impressive building) and trying to get his son to admire it as well, and the son (maybe around seven or eight years of age?) is looking away, completely uninterested.

Does this ring a bell? How often do we get frustrated because our children (or other people) don´t do what we want them to do or don´t like the same things we like? Luckily, this dad doesn´t seem very upset; maybe he understands that, depending on our age and the stage we are in life, our priorities differ, and "visiting stones" (especially with your parents) is not very cool when you´re a child or a teenager.

I admit that I have loads of expectations for my daughters. Over the years, I´ve realised two things: one, that some of those expectations are reasonable and some are not, and two, that if I don´t communicate them clearly, I can´t expect my daughters to read my mind and just know... Even for things that I may consider obvious, because what´s important to me is not necessarily important for others, and that includes my daughters.

Generally, we parents all want our children to "behave themselves", but what does that mean exactly? How do we translate that into specific behaviours? "Behave yourself" is such a generic and vague expression that children don´t know what to make of it; it´s much better if we give clear instructions so they know what´s expected of them at each given moment. Then, as they grow up, our strategy as parents also needs to evolve: less instructions and more dialogue and negotiation. Some things will be negotiable, some will not; let´s be flexible in what we can, and they will be thankful for it, and then they´ll be more likely to listen to us when it comes to the important things, especially if they understand the why.

All this reminded me of a Mafalda comic strip that I always liked. The great Quino and his wisdom, as always:

Here´s the translation: Miguelito is saying this monologue, supposedly talking to his parents:

• "Behave yourself!" "Behave yourself!" You cannot always behave yourself!
• Every child in the world behaves well sometimes and badly sometimes!
• Sure, wanting to be the parents of a child who never misbehaves is convenient!
• Wanting to be the parents of a child who never gives them work is easy!
• But it´s unsportsmanlike, and you should know that!