I never meant to teach my children gambling. I thought I was teaching my children about the ills of gambling.
Years ago on a family vacation, we swung by Las Vegas to catch some shows. We saw the famous Siegfried and Roy magic show with their amazing white tigers. The second evening we saw Cirque du Soleil acrobats perform aerial magic. My children were enchanted with the over-the-top entertainment. I thought the whole city was over-the-top and not always in a good way.
My husband wanted to try his luck at blackjack. Children were not allowed in the casino, so I made use of the sidewalk slot machines to teach my children a lesson on gambling. At a random sidewalk slot machine, I planned to show my kids that you only lose your money in these machines. I got a bunch of quarters to illustrate my show-and-tell lesson. I put in a few quarters. As no cherry/cherry/cherry ever lined up, I espoused how you just “fed” the gambling owners in Vegas but never received any “fruit” for yourself. I left out the part about the mob influence and focused on how money should be spent wisely…then the unbelievable happened.
After feeding one quarter, the machine went crazy! Quarters were flying out of that machine and falling onto the sidewalk! My son was smiling from ear to ear. He said, “It doesn’t look so bad to me, Mom!” Undaunted, I later took them to the kid gambling place, Circus-Circus Arcade. We bought a few tickets to roll the spinner at a booth where you could “win” a large stuffed toy. When it was my turn, I rolled the spinner and it landed on the largest plush bunny rabbit in the booth! Foiled, AGAIN.
This ended my lessons on gambling in Vegas. I needed a Zen master’s advice. Two hundred years ago a Japanese Zen master named Sono was respected for her wisdom in guiding people to peace and enlightenment. Regardless of a person’s frustrating situation, she taught this simple affirmation: say to yourself every morning, “Thank you for everything, I have no complaints whatsoever.”
Instead of beating up on myself for trying to teach “Thou shalt not,” I did learn a lesson for myself…discipline is much more powerful when you teach a child what TO DO, instead of what NOT TO DO.
I find many life lessons in the boomerang category – they reverberate between childhood and my Baby Boomer adulthood.
Pearls of Peace (PoP) quiz:
18. Did any of your lessons to children or students ever boomerang into you learning the biggest lesson?
19. What stories cause you to beat up on yourself?
Pearls of Peace: A Family Psychologist’s Circle-of-Life Blog 
I want you to know, Jan, I had a good belly laugh this morning as I read about your gambling teachings! Perhaps the lesson is, good things happen when you least expect it!
Sorry, no stories I can recall. I’m sure they are there somewhere among the cobwebs!
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One of my favorite stories happened years ago when I was a school psychologist in a Chicago suburb. I hurried over to one of my schools after a principal’s call to learn the details. It seems that two white mice were being raised in the foyer: one mouse was fed “junk” food, and the other healthy food. You already know the ending…the healthy mouse died! I learned a lot about listening that day and trying to bring a positive but realistic view on the whole sad event!!
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Our intentions are powerful but not foolproof. Some of our best lessons occur when situations have unpredicted results. I’m guessing that both the teachers and the students of the mouse experiment had plenty of “food for thought” postmortem!
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Your story is an example of how we are ultimately not in control of the effects of our efforts.
But we often don’t know how we have impacted other people or the world. So we do what we can to make our contributions anyway!
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Your resilient message of “making our contributions” is so needed today — in spite of not having control over outcomes.
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Fun post! I had the same experience teaching my children the ills of betting on the horses!
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Your lesson – I have found, echoes the most effective example of the method, ” SHOW and tell later.”
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Yes, the hindsight stories we choose to tell ourselves have great meaning. Like Aesop’s fables with morals, we can learn a lesson from any wayward situation.
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Laughed out loud at your gambling prowess. But a wonderful example of unintended consequences and being nimble when the unexpected happens. A good reminder to teach and model what to do, what not to do.
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