My Son, His Diary, and the Parenting Lesson I Didn’t Expect

Sometimes, I am just in awe of what my kids do. I think I look down on their capabilities in certain things. I still assume that they can't do some things considering their age, but they keep surprising me on different occasions, positively though, and specifically my second son.

I think I have talked more about him here on Hive. Perhaps I am this surprised because when I was a kid like him, I wasn't intelligent enough to ask my mom certain thoughtful questions like he does to me, nor was I intelligent enough to start keeping notes in a diary just like him currently. However, the prayer of every parent is for their children to be better than them in everything, so it's not an error but rather something positive.

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About nine days ago, I wrote a blog on the privacy question in parenting. In that post, I explained that everyone craves privacy—children, adults, and even animals, if you can agree with me. Privacy and children is delicate, but I must admit that kids also need their privacy in certain things, and while I respect their little space, I am always sensitive to know when to come in.

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So my son has a diary where he keeps his personal notes. A boy of 7 years, I was wondering who gave him the idea in the first place because obviously I wasn't the one. I still feel it is not yet time to teach them things about dairy, and maybe it's even something they should know on their own as they age. However, I didn't know that my second son had already learned about keeping important notes. I didn't buy this diary for him, nor did he ask me for one. He just picked up an exercise book and started making notes on it and tagged it "NETO'S Diary"

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As a curious mom, I went to his school bag two days ago, picked up the diary, and started reading the notes. My lawd, it was very funny that I couldn't hold back laughter, hahahaha. I laughed so hard that early morning, and the little boy caught me reading his text in the diary. Surprisingly, he was very angry with me. He said, "Mom, why did you barge into my diary? This is personal, you know. You shouldn't have done that."

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He angrily snatched the book away from me and tore it. Did I break into someone's privacy? I apologized to him immediately because he felt I did when I should have respected his personal space. Now, I think badging into his school bag to pick his diary is not a problem as a mom, because I wanted to be sure that he wasn't writing anything negative, but what I feel I didn't do right is allow him to notice that I read it. Since it wasn't something bad, Maybe I should have lain low and kept observing what he does, then only stepped in whenever I noticed any red flag.

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I didn't overlook the incident even though it may seem to be just a diary of a little boy. His mood change sent a message to me as a mom, and that's why each day, I am open to learning better.

He has to know that he's safe, so he won't try to be hiding things from me. Again, even if I am reading his diary, he should have no idea. If not, he'll stop keeping a diary, and I won't really know what's going on with him, except the ones he tells me.

Each day, I see reasons to confirm that indeed, parenting demands a lot of wisdom, knowledge, patience, and more...

Images are mine.