Exceeds Expectations
Can I tell you what our family did on half term? On a sunny Wednesday a few weeks ago we drove down to Finsbury Park where there’s a shop called “Sylvanian Families” that was having a closing down sale. Now if you don’t have young kids you may not know what Sylvanian Families are, though some of you may have played with them as young children, they have been going since 1985. They are small plastic figurines shaped like all sorts of animals: rabbits, cats, dogs, penguins, kangaroos. Each animal has a name and is part of a family. Our kids love them, and spend much of their pocket money on them!
Well we got chatting to friendly shopkeeper
Rocky at the Sylvanian Families shop and business was booming. I said it must
be a great job because everyone loves coming to your shop. He said it was
indeed a very happy place to work, though occasionally some children have a
meltdown. When this happens, interestingly in his mind, it’s usually the “parents’
fault”, not the kids!
If the parents say to little Danny
or Jenny, we are going to the Sylvanian family shop and you are allowed JUST
ONE THING, they are in big trouble if they don’t specify what that one thing
is. Is it one small animal figurine for £9.99 or is it one massive giant box
with the Royal Hotel for £199.99? It’s all about expectations. If you don’t specify,
it’s not surprising if they are disappointed if they expected a big present and
get a much smaller one!!
I think for adults too, life is
often about expectations. Relationships, happiness, health… What did you expect from life? I guess we all
expect that life should be easy and straightforward, and then we have a
meltdown when things don’t go our way.