What's the Best Thing a Child Has Taught You??

If you follow me or have read a few of my blogposts, you would know how big of a fan I am of my son and how I keep reiterating that he is the biggest and the most important influence as well as teacher in my life. Undoubtedly, he has taught me many important lessons and literally, every day this beautiful, amazing and compassionate 4 year old boy teaches me a new and beautiful lesson.

I wasn't a very accepting person and had a judgmental side to me before I had my baby, but after having him, I have become more open, accepting and unbiased. However, this change was brought in me by the experience of motherhood and not exactly by something my son did or said so I don't think it is a suitable answer to this question. Before I forget, this lovely question which is stated in the title of this post is a contest initiated by @keciah who is one of the mothers who is a part of the #steemmamas server on discord which I am sure is a great community for mommies on Steemit. I just joined it and haven't gotten a chance to explore it yet, but I am pretty excited to be a part of it. This challenge requires anyone who has learned anything important from a child to share their experiences with everyone, make a post on it and get a chance to win a prize worth 4SBDs. You can read the contest post here.

I found this challenge really nice and since my heart is oozing with love for my son, I cannot help but participate in it and share with you an important lesson taught to me by my son.

My son is an extremely compassionate and sensitive child. He is 4 years old and is sensitive and caring to this extent that he got really upset with his class teacher when she asked one of his classmates to stop taking off her shoes and that she wouldn't help the kid put on the shoe if she took it off one more time. The little girl kept taking off her shoes after the teacher put them on every time and then the teacher told her that the next time she would have to do the task herself without any help from someone else and this really stressed my son and he kept telling the teacher how wrong it is for her to do that. He even went to speak with the little girl herself but she was adamant on roaming without her shoes. So yeah my son is really sensitive and worries too much about stuff and this did worry me a lot before, but after a detailed talk with @jaynie, I felt quite calm as she encouraged me not to pressure my son into being or doing things he doesn't want to do and let him move at his own pace because that's how he will gain confidence. I am doing that and the results are great.

So my son's compassion is rubbing on to me as well and I am beginning to become more compassionate and generous towards people. One of the ost important and best things my son has taught me in these 4 years is to stop comparing people to each other. In my society, elders have a habit of asking young kids who their favorite is. Like they would ask a child: 'Who do you like better: mama or daddy?", or 'Who is your favorite uncle?' or 'Who would you share more of your stuff with?', or 'Who do you love more?' and the likes.

The kids I have met so far before my son started answering this question always chose one person over the other and knowing a kid's answers is quite fun so I used to enjoy this game too and played it with many little kids I came across. however, the first time my son was asked this question: 'Who do you love more: your mama or your dad (he calls his father baba)?' and his answer was 'both.' He didn't take a second to think for an answer and instantly said 'both.' Many people asked him this question in different ways and every time, he did not choose a person over another. Be it his aunt, uncle, grandma, dad, mother or anybody else, he always said he likes/ loves everyone equally.

At first, I thought that this answer is because he does not know how to differentiate between his feelings for different people and cannot compare things. However, that's not the reason behind his answer. Now that he has grown wiser and smarter than before, he does know how to compare between things and if you ask him of his favorite fruit or game, he would give a clear answer so he knows how to assess things. However, if you still ask him who he loves more, he would say both his parents. He gives this answer because he wants everyone to be happy and is concerned about how his words will impact people.

His answer and compassion for people made me think of the many things we say in our routine without thinking twice and how our words affect people. Often, we say things that are trivial to us, but have the power to hurt someone else. If only we observe more care while speaking to people and take their feelings into account, we won't say mean and nasty things to them and would actually spread more kindness and love than we think we can. From the time my son taught me this lesson, I have been observing more care when talking to people and filter my thoughts before saying something to anyone and trust me, it works a lot. Now often I do not say as much as I used to before and when I analyze the thoughts I decide not to blurt out, I realize they were actually meaningless. So my son really did teach me to be more considerate towards people and speak nicely to them.

His answer also taught me that often it is the questions that we ask people that help create a bias towards certain people and that make us thing that one person may not be as good as another person. For instance, you may not be comparing two of your friends but if someone forces you to tell them which of the two is better, you may start focusing on the little shortcomings or things you don't like about your friends. Similarly, a child may not be thinking of whom he likes better: his father or mother, but if you keep asking him the same question over and over again, you force him to choose one over the other.

Also, my son made me realize that everyone is beautiful in their own way and comparing two people together is pointless because no two people are the same so they must not be compared to each other because doing that just dims their own unique light. We need to let people shine by focusing on them as individuals and not by outshining one by throwing the spotlight on another. Thank you sooo much Faateh for teaching me this beautiful lesson and for being such an important driving force in my life. You certainly are one of the biggest blessings of Allah on me and I couldn't thank him enough for having you. LOVE YOU!!