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It was always going to be a big day the first time that Callum cut the grass, because it was such a big thing in my younger life.

The grass at my mum and dads house, and where they still live, is very steep on the back garden and almost as steep on the front.

It’s not easy grass to cut.

As I got older as a teenager it became my responsibility to cut the grass, and my god did I do a terrible job of that.

We laugh about it now but it was stressful then. My Dad would come home from work and go mental because there were still big patches of grass that weren’t cut, and I just hadn’t put any effort into any sort of pride in my work or completing the job.

I see it in my kids now, this of course is a skill to be taught as well as learn to understand consequences and a work/reward balance.  

I was laughing out loud when Callum was using the lawn mower as he was trying his best and missing bits of grass (he’s only 10) because it was such a catapult back to my teenage years. I cannot wait to show my Dad Callum cutting the grass and watch him laugh when he remembers how bad it was when I did it.

It was in those days when I used to get the phrases like “they don’t teach you common sense at university” or how people would say they couldn’t believe I was doing dentistry because my brother was the one that could draw and was good with his hands. The fact was back then I didn’t enjoy cutting the grass, I didn’t see any point so why would I put any effort into that.

I’m pretty good at cutting my own grass now and pretty good at finishing the jobs that I see are important.

There is a pretty simple way to learn that though, don’t do the job properly then don’t get a reward. It’s no drama.

It would only take my Dad about 4 minutes to finish cutting the grass after I had done it, so he had managed to cut the amount of time taken to cut the grass down from an hour to 4-minutes at no cost; probably a good bit of business on his part.

Blog post number: 1753