“Mom, school starts tomorrow and I have to have my big crayon box. Have you seen them? I can’t find them.” Justine continued to wander in a haphazard fashion through the living room. She had been looking all over the house for a bright yellow box of 96 Crayola Crayons.
“Where have you looked?” Anamarie said.
“Everywhere. I’ve looked in my room, in the red room, the living room, the kitchen and the TV room. Everywhere, and I just can’t find them.”
Anamarie smiled because she knew the box was sitting on a shelf at her daughter’s eye level in a bookcase in the living-room. “Walk straight ahead and look.”
Justine was about two feet from the bookcase, looked straight ahead, up, down and then at her mother intensely, “Where? They’re not here. I can’t find them!”
“Just look straight ahead.”
“Mom, they are not here.”
“Justine, you are going to laugh soon. I want you to now tell yourself that you can find your crayons.”
She paused, changed her thought, looked ahead and gasped. “Those were not there before!” She kept looking at Anamarie and then back to the bookcase and started to laugh. “They were invisible! Those were not there before!”
Anamarie laughed, “This is the most perfect example of whatever you tell yourself, your brain will make you right. If you can’t, you’re right. If you can, you’re right. It is so important to tell your brain what you can do.”
Have you ever had a situation like this happen to you or one of your children? Please post a comment if you have a story like this you can share!
