13

“I saved your life! I should be able to choose for just one day,” my seven year old declared.

He had a point.

Less than an hour before, he had pointed at the trail we were hiking down and asked, “What is that?”

Seeing only an interesting rock formation running alongside the dirt, I started expounding on said formation before he interrupted me. “No, what is that?!” he screeched.

Following his finger, I saw a very large, orange and brown snake enjoying the sunshine as it stretched out across the trail.

“That is a copperhead. Turn around and walk away slowly,” I said, near gasping.

My kids obeyed me immediately – for once. (Good to know they actually can in a crisis.) We made our expeditious retreat and didn’t stop until we were well on a different trail. While I had seen signs at the nature center saying that people had seen copperheads, I never expected to almost step on one while hiking.

Despite the near-death experience, the rest of the day was a pleasant jaunt. We passed under waving boughs of pine, sketched in the dirt with sticks, and spotted small fish darting about in a stream.

Or at least most of it was a pleasant jaunt.

But now, in the last bit of a long hike, my older son and I engaged in an absurd argument about which way to go. Looking at the topographic map, my older son insisted that we needed to backtrack slightly to haul butt up an enormous hill because it was somehow “easier.” I insisted that we needed to go down the path we were on, which was clearly shorter and less of a climb. He truly believed that his map-reading ability was superior to mine, even though I pointed out I was an outdoor educator where people literally paid me to lead hikes. I had some legitimate safety concerns, although they weren’t high alert. After two miles of hiking, my four year old was clearly exhausted. The sun was getting low in the sky. More than anything else though, I just didn’t want my older son to “win,” getting his way once again out of sheer stubbornness.

But his point struck me. He was right. He had earned some level of expertise, of being allowed to take responsibility.

I finally sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “Fine, we’ll go that way,” I muttered and picked up my younger son.

After walking uphill for a far shorter period of time than the argument took, we were on the main trail behind the nature center. All of my concerns looked pretty ridiculous. I was pissed because it turned out that the argument didn’t matter a whit. I could have let go of it far, far earlier than I could. But I sighed, pointed out to my older son that not all adults will put up with arguing with them the way I do, and got everyone in the car.

Most days, most of us won’t be arguing with a kid who may have literally saved our life less than an hour earlier. But it was a reminder to me to pick your battles. To be willing to take a little bit of a risk when perhaps the choice the kid wants isn’t the “best” choice, but isn’t a terrible choice either. To give your kids credit for their expertise even if you have more from it. And perhaps most importantly, to think about what is really a “big deal” and a “little deal.” So often, what feels like a “big deal” to us, of setting a precedent, so often isn’t. The big deal is being there with them at all.