“Get down here right now!” That’s what a dad was screaming at his kid a few weeks ago at church.
We had just listened to a sermon on a topic like anger or something. The kid was in the second story playground and would not come down when it was time to go. The dad was getting mad, and loud, and started to yell because the kid would not budge. I said to myself, I’d never do that…
Never say those words.
Because, trust me, the moment you say something like that, the universe destines you to find yourself in whatever situation you just told yourself you’d never find yourself in.
And so I thought about that dad last Sunday when eleven o’clock rolled around and it was time for my two-year-old to come down from the second story playground and decided that he wouldn’t.
Like the dad from a few weeks before, who I now realize hasn’t been back since that playground incident, I was getting mad, and loud, and yelled, “Get down here right now!” Noah wouldn’t budge.
Two-year-olds don’t take well to demands from adults.
As I stood there, staring up at my son who stared back down at me with the eyes of a crazed fugitive on the run from the Law, I saw that there was a lesson in leadership that I could learn from him: You can’t make someone follow you, listen to you, or do what you want – unless they want to.
In one of my favorite books How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie wrote that, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” I love that. It shows how we can’t change how someone feels, thinks, or acts. It reminds us that they have to first be open to change before being asked to do anything. You can force people to do things, but that loyalty never lasts.
I told my son that we were late for church and he didn’t care. He laughed, as if he were saying You’ll need to do better than that.
I offered him a cookie that didn’t exist and it did no good. I told him I was going to eat the cookie and laughed back at him, trying to strike a blow to the one thing he holds dear. But no luck.
I told him we were going bye-bye as my wife and I confidently walked away and then hid around a corner and asked each other, “What are we going to do?”
Ultimately, I had to crawl underneath openings two feet high to get my son. He looked about as shocked to see me up there as one of the sweet church ladies watching the terrible scene play out.
I’m still not sure exactly how I could have made him want to come down.
But I do know that because I focused on my wants instead of his, because I didn’t find out why he didn’t want to come down, nothing worked. I need to remember this with people of all ages, too.