While I was taking my 5 year old daughter we swimming, my 3 year old son stayed home with my wife and the newborn. TV was definitely an option just in case things got too hectic (and my wife is also sick so it is a much needed safety net). Let’s just say the TV came on pretty quick.

Luckily the newborn was sleeping most of the time, but one thing that my 3 year old son said during the middle of watching TV was that he was Chick Hicks and that Chick Hicks was his favorite car. My wife was very surprised, especially because my 3 year old son loves Lightning McQueen. He loves the color red, he loves being fast (which he actually is a blaze of lightning that doesn’t get tired), and he loves all of his Lightning McQueen cars (he has maybe a million of them and counting). What my son said afterwards was most surprising - he loves Chick Hicks because he felt like he is bad like Chick Hicks.

My wife immediately tries to help my 3 year old son understand that everyone makes bad choices, but that doesn’t make them bad. That doesn’t make them Chick Hicks. Even though he hits his big sister and is a bit mischievous (he takes after me in that department), he is nowhere as bad as Chick Hicks. Chick Hicks does some pretty bad things (and for those that go beyond the movies, the 5-minute stories really outline how bad Chick Hicks actually is before he becomes…SPOILER ALERT…a reporter in Cars 3). I think the scolding that my wife and I do when he hits is really affecting him and we need to find other ways of communicating healthy behavior for attention and showing dissatisfaction with things.

I had a talk with him about his comments too and I don’t want him to feel like he isn’t a good kid, because he’s a great kid. He told me his favorite color is green though after our chat, so maybe things haven’t quite sunk in the way that I want them too. We will just need to keep working on it so that he knows he is always Lightning McQueen in our eyes - the crazy car with great potential that learns how to make better decisions over time!