Don’t sweat the small stuff – or putting it another way – don’t make life any more difficult than it needs to be.
Don’t sweat the small stuff is prompted by an incident which I witnessed quite recently when I was at my local swimming pool.
A toddler and mum were getting changed. They had been swimming and as part of their ablutions Mum was determined to wash this small child’s hair and toddler was even more determined that this was not going to happen under any circumstances.
Now as we all know toddler tantrums are very stressful for parents at any time, let alone when you are trying to get showered and dressed in a public place. So why I wondered was this Mum so determined to shampoo this small child’s hair.
Was she worried that this child would grow up never washing her hair after she had been swimming? OK chlorine in hair may not be ideal but it is not life threatening, and as far as I am aware it does not make your hair fall out.
In any event the toddler’s hair could be given a quick rinse and properly washed at home in a more familiar environment where creating a distraction might be a little easier.
The thing is that I am sure that this Mum was trying to do the proper thing by washing this little girl’s hair. But at what cost? If Mum does actually manage to successfully shampoo and rinse toddler’s hair, which I think is likely to be very difficult – is this not setting a precedent for future hair washing incidents. Not to mention dandruff.
As an objective onlooker I felt that the whole afternoon seemed to have been spoilt by this battle of wills over something so trivial. Would it put the toddler off going swimming in future I wondered?
Sometimes it really is not worth sweating the small stuff – life is difficult and challenging enough at times without making it even harder over something as trivial as a hair wash.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.