The Best Of...

I think the hardest part of interacting with other human beings is trying to bring out the best in people.

Of course the human beings you interact with most is your family. It's so easy to get frustrated with the annoying traits of your spouse and children. And really it all boils down to getting them to do what needs to be  - or let's face it, what YOU want to be - done with out the rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth. Such as getting chores done. You ask nicely, you plead, you bully, you threaten, you bribe, you whine, and on and on until finally they do what you want. It always starts out as a simple statement, "Please get (insert task here) done." And you walk away expecting them to get up and accomplish that which you commanded. You return a half hour later and find they are still engaged in the activity they were doing BEFORE you asked them to start working.


You then find yourself in the pleading stage, then the bully stage, then the bribing stage, and any other stage you go through until finally you've spent nearly an hour trying to convince that person to do something that you yourself could have done in five minutes.

You know it's a complete waste of time but there's something in the back of your mind that says, If I'm a good parent/spouse then I can teach them to accomplish this task.

But, am I a good parent/spouse if I can't bring out the best part of this person I'm trying to convince to accomplish this task without being pleading, bullying, threatening, bribing, etc?

I certainly don't feel like it by the end of the fight.

The best example I can come up with is my son, Mini Flash. We've given him a job that he gets paid to do. It's not a chore he does around the house and then gets a reward for doing, it's an honest to goodness real job in our office. In the beginning he did great but now it's like pulling teeth to get him to even do the simplest parts of his job.

I wonder to myself if it's my (or my husband's) fault because we are not using the right tactic to help him see what he does for the office has value. I'm not bring out the best of him.

Mini Flash has asked to do other jobs around the office and I've said no because he hasn't done a very good job doing what we already have him doing. He seemed to respond to that but then come time to do his job, he's slow, inefficient, complaining, and mopey.

What bothers me most is, we only get Mini Flash on the weekends. He lives with his mom during the week and we get precious little time with him. I feel like we spend most of the weekend arguing about what he needs to be doing.

I don't feel like I bring out the best of him when he's here. But I'd really like to.