On Saturday, my son came home from his archery lesson wearing a silver medal around his neck. He'd apparently won it over accumulated weeks of competition. I congratulated him but his eight-year-old sister was upset. She started to cry and complained, "It's not fair, I've been to going to ballroom dancing for as long as Logan's been doing archery and I've never won a medal! Logan gets everything first. I'll never win a medal!" And so on and so on. (I think when he took it off, she might have even flung it onto the carpet and stomped on it, but that was done on the spur of the moment).

What did we do? We did lots of talking to her, explaining that ballroom dancing is set up differently to archery and you can't compare two totally dis-similar sports, she might win a medal when she enters a dancing competition some time, and above all and most importantly, we suggested that she try to be happy and pleased for her brother and that she knows in her heart that Jesus would be sad to see her act in such a way! Yes, I knew while I was saying it that this is something parents often say but children find very hard to take on.

I felt tired and frustrated, wondering if my husband and I had made a crucial omission in our parenting to make her react like this. But then I realised this is just a natural human reaction that she was born with, just like everyone else. We didn't plant it in her. But it's this sort of domestic event that makes me understand that the behaviour we would have preferred to have seen, (in this case, Emma being excited for Logan's sake and admiring the medal), is actually the more unnatural response. Whenever people, adults and children alike, choose the unselfish action, it is evidently a learned response. We can surely get ourselves to the stage where praise for others is genuine with no envy, but it's not an easy transition. And that highlights the responsibility that we have as parents and role models to our children. In so many ways, it's a matter of helping them to re-mould their whole mindset. 

What did Logan do while Emma was doing her block? At first he said that when they gave him the medal, the thought flashed through his head that Emma would be mad. And he teased her, holding it up and saying, "I'd like to thank my sponsors and agents," to make her even angrier. I suppose that's a natural response too.

Later in the day, Emma's friend who does ballroom dancing with her phoned, and Emma rushed off with the phone crying, "Guess what, Logan won a medal!" as if it was the news of the day. So I think she really was impressed, and I hope that's a positive step toward genuine pleasure for the other person.