Perseverance

It's strange how children tend to listen to other adults like their aunts, uncles or teachers more willingly than their own parents. It's like God made them our children to test us parents more so that we can be better people/parents (looking at the positive side!).

It's always been an uphill battle daily for me to get Caitlin to practise her musical instruments. While she enjoys the lessons, practising is another thing. She finds it hard to put in extra effort to learn something new as she is impatient and wants to get it right at the first time itself.

However, it was surprisingly different yesterday. That's where the part about listening to other adults instead of parents comes in. At chapel session in school, they were taught the lesson of perseverance. The teacher showed them Horton Hears A Who. It's a movie she's watched before. We took her to the theatre to see it and she enjoyed it. I remember sharing with her the moral of the story too; even with the other Horton story we read together - Horton Hatches The Egg. But I guess it somehow didn't hit home when it was me telling her.

After she told me about her lesson about perseverance with Horton, I took the opportunity to remind her about it while we were practising the piano. It hit home this time and on her own accord, she just kept practising one piece repeatedly. She could tell she was improving slowly with more practice and was happy about the outcome. Later at night, she did the same with her drums. She was happy. So was I.

This morning, she said "I'm going to have perseverance again today." It was a heartwarming moment. I hope this attitude can continue forever!

P.S.  I'm reminded to have perseverance too, I guess.