Yesterday Lotus, D, myself and our cousins A and her daughter--also adopted from china-- R went to a big amusement park. (Not Disney, but in the same vein.)
Since it was hot we confined ourselves to the water part of the park which was a lot of fun. There was a big raft ride and since we could all go on the ride together we waited on the line. R started saying she didn't want to go on the ride about halfway up the line. It looked too fast and some of the people screaming did not seem happy to her. R is six and is noted for changing her mind--a lot. She wasn't certain of it though so she went up up up on the line.
When the time came to get in the raft, R had made her decision. She DID NOT want to go. It was too fast.
L on the other hand wanted to go with all her three year old heart. She looks up to R and adores her. Why didn't she want to go?
The person helping us get in the raft convinced R to get in and try it.
It was a great ride. A great ride for me, Lotus, D, and my cousin A.
R hated it and started to cry all the way down. Lotus was loving it--well until the end when a wall of water splooshed over her head and she inhaled half of it. She did not like that and started to wail. We shook our finger at the water and gave it a time out and Lotus was fine.
R was not. She was really really upset and wanted her mom to know it. I felt bad. A felt bad that we had pushed her to do it.
I felt bad about it until I got home and told my friend about it.
He was astonished--not that she hated it, but that we felt bad for making her. He said that there will be times where she must go forward in spite of fear and instead of apologizing we should have praised how she got through it--crying and all. Sometimes the option to back out won't be there.
Now I don't know which was right.
I felt terrible when she was sobbing--but maybe I should have handled it differently. Would I if it were L?
Would you have felt terrible if she had loved it? No. So I wouldn't feel terrible if she tried it and hated it. You only feel guilty because she had a bad time. But sometimes we need to have that bad time so we know definitively what we like and don't like (vs. what we think we like or don't like).
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