Otuwel - Part Two

so it really bothered me, isaac's seeming lack of empathy - really, really bothered me. a friend recently told me that not everyone is going to possess it. could this be true? ouch! do you agree? do you think it can be taught, or at least modeled and learned by osmosis?! i would love advice on this one. i will tell you, though, what we are doing in the meantime, that seemed really drastic at the time, but has turned out to be pretty wonderful. we broke it to the boys as positively as possible. we told them that we were not going to watching t.v. or play on the computer for one week. okay, that is huge - it's a very favorite thing to which all three of our children look forward, not to mention, something jeremy and i have humanly taken advantage of when we need a break. their eyes grew in disbelief at this news. i explained that we were going to do an experiment to see if maybe the lack of advertisements would help them not want so many things. we have a rule at our house that when a commercial comes on, you have to fast-forward, but there's no keeping them from the advertisements that pop up everywhere on websites. i think this is why isaac is forever telling me the pros and cons of netflix?! or that disneyworld is the place where all his dreams will come true?! i've realized that these advertisements, in addition to some of the programs, are capturing too large a part of my children's hearts, and maybe not leaving enough room for that empathy i so want them to have. so the week came and went, and unbelievably, no one really said much about it. so last saturday night, feeling pleasantly surprised and optimistic, jeremy and i decided to maybe try it another week. then the next morning, i awoke to this really loud and very dramatic, but very sincere sobbing from the boys' room. i asked jeremy what the heck was going on, as he's more alert in those wee hours. he told me that isaac had already been into our room to announce that the one week was up and that he'd like to have his computer time please. jeremy broke it to the little guy that we were going to try it one more week. he was once again devastated. oh, how it pulled at my heartstrings hearing those sincere little sobs! i called for him to crawl in bed with me and assured him that we could still watch t.v. and do computer once in awhile, but that daddy and i just needed to discuss it and decide on some new rules, so in the meantime, we were going to take another week off. as i wiped his tears from underneath those specs, i reminded him of the fun week he and his brother had without technology. he calmed down a bit and even seemed to entertain the notion, albeit somberly. it was fun to watch him process the whole thing. so tomorrow is saturday, another week has passed, and jeremy and i have decided that saturday morning will be t.v. and computer time (and junk food cereal morning). remember when we 80's kids were little and had saturday morning cartoons? we're kind of looking at it like that. getting back to basics. needless to say, oliver and isaac are very excited for tomorrow morning. so is phoebe, although she isn't sure why - isn't that a hoot? all this drama. and all because isaac asked if we could go to lunch after church.