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Among our jobs as parents is to teach our kids how to manage disappointment. Or, as the “serenity prayer” says: To be granted the power to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can.
I’m not sure
that the serenity prayer’s author, American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, had cracked iPads in mind when he wrote this. But the principle applies. After all, a cracked iPad is the 21st-century equivalent of spilled milk – it’s not to be cried over.
My 10-year-old son recently had a string of bad luck. First he lost his wallet, which contained about $100 in Christmas cash. Then, the day after New Year’s, he woke up to the troubling news that his 15-year-old brother had accidentally cracked his iPad.
The one-two punch put him over the edge, and I suddenly found myself trying to console a weeping 10-year-old. He wasn’t exactly sobbing, but every time he closed his eyes a single tear would trail down his right cheek, which created the illusion of raindrops dripping from his bangs. To a parent, this is the worst. It means the crying is not hysterical, but that it comes from a place of honest sadness.