Screech! I braked hard as a teenager cut me off from the opposite direction. I took a deep breath, trying to regulate my body after the adrenaline rush.
"Look at that!" I heard my daughter exclaiming in the back seat.
"Are you alright?" I asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror, quickly surveying for any signs of distress.
"I am," she answered, with her head turned in the direction of the almost out-of-sight miscreant. "But that was just too much!"
"I know, right?" I tried to laugh it off. "And he seemed just fourteen or fifteen years old. Not even an adult."
"Exactly! How are they even allowed?" Mahika exclaimed, outraged. After a moment's pause, she added, "Aaya, if I ever do that when I am older, smack me on my head!"
Not to pat our own backs, but I think we are doing something right as parents if our kid discerns the wrong and consciously pledges to never do it.
Kids are exposed to millions of good and bad things happening around them. If a kid understands the difference between the two, and consciously decides not to do the wrong thing — that is an achievement in itself. This is where we influence our kids without even realizing it. It's in these situations that test our mettle as parents: how do we react to wrongdoing, how do we behave with people, and how do we handle such situations?
A great amount of empathy, a moral compass that points north, and just a pinch of outrage at misdeeds should make a good recipe to raising our kids.
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