Every year since my son Shane was 2 he has had a very strong opinion about what he wanted to be for Halloween.
This year he couldn’t make up his mind, but he knew he wanted to be something scary. Well, I didn’t think that was such a good idea for many reasons & keep in mind this wasn’t just skeleton scary he wanted to be blood & gore, gross scary.
Not sure were this came from but I tried my best not to encourage this by not committing. Instead my husband & I tried to encourage him to be something else.
I want my boys to feel confident & proud when they have an idea, I never want to be that parent that has perimeters of how & who they can be but….. there are those times we have to be parents, a fine & delicate balance.
So the Sunday before Halloween we knew we had to decide, it was crunch time. Hours of negotiations, finding costumes we could agree upon only to find them sold out.
Finally he says, “How about I be Shaun White?” You would have thought our favorite team had just won the Super Bowl. We stared yelling & screaming, telling my son, Shane that his idea was one of his best yet! We made him feel soooo good & he deserved to feel good, he solved the problem on his own and found an amazing solution, one that I knew no one else would have.
So a lesson learned, don’t be in such a rush to find an answer, sometimes the best answers take time & the best part- my six year old taught me that!
Happy Halloween!