Remember to Notice All the Good Behaviour!

Marjorie and Lettice Wormald, by Arthur Hughes

I found this poem in a book of childhood verses I have, and it struck a chord with me. I notice that there are days when my kids are playing wonderfully together for 30-45 minutes, but at the end of that time, trouble happens.  It can become a bad habit to notice the five minutes of trouble, and not praise the half-hour of kind and happy play.  This is something I have been trying to change lately. Here's the poem, from a child's point of view.

If Mother Knew

(From " In This Our World", Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

If mother knew the way I felt, 
And I 'm sure a mother should, 

She wouldn't make it quite so hard
For a person to be good!

I want to do the way she says;

I try to all day long; 

And then she just skips all the right,

And pounces on the wrong!

A dozen times I do a thing,
And one time I forget;

And then she looks at me and asks
If I can't remember yet? 

She 'll tell me to do something,
And I 'll really start to go;

But she 'll keep right on telling it
As if I didn't know. 

Till it seems as if I couldn't —
It makes me kind of wild;

And then she says she never saw
Such a disobliging child.

I go to bed all sorry,

And say my prayers, and cry,

And mean next day to be so good,
I just can't wait to try. 

And I get up next morning,
And mean to do just right;

But mother's sure to scold me
About something, before night 

I wonder if she really thinks
A child could go so far,

As to be perfect all the time
As the grown up people are 

If she only knew I tried to, 
And I 'm sure a mother should, 

She wouldn't make it quite so hard
For a person to be good!