If a child lives with criticism
He learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility He learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule He learns to be shy. If a child lives with shame He learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with tolerance He learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement He learns confidence. If a child lives with praise He learns to appreciate. If a child lives with fairness He learns justice. If a child lives with approval He learns to like himself. If a child lives with acceptance & friendship He learns to find love in the world. - Dorothy Law Nolte
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It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself.—Joyce Maynard
I don't know what planet I was on when I thought that when I became a parent, all the skills I'd need would simply come to me. It wasn't long before I realized that parenting, for the countless incomparable joys it has brought into my life, is hard work. Being a parent has meant adjusting my aspirations and priorities to match my new reality. Every day is a learning process as I adapt to the evolving needs of my children.--Katiuscia Giusti Children keep us in check. Their laughter prevents our hearts from hardening. Their dreams ensure we never lose our drive to make ours a better world. They are the greatest disciplinarians known to mankind.--Queen Rania of Jordan, Hello Magazine If I had my child to raise all over again, I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later. I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less. I would do less correcting and more connecting. I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I'd take more hikes and fly more kites. I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I'd do more hugging and less tugging. —Diane Loomans No one ever promised me it would be easy, and it's not. But I also get many rewards from seeing my children grow, make strong decisions for themselves, and set out on their own as independent, strong, likable human beings. And I like who I am becoming, too. Having [children] has made me more human, more flexible, more humble, more questioning.—Anonymous father When seen only as presiding over a child's growth, parenting can be frustrating and burdensome. However, when seen as an opportunity for personal growth for adults, parenting is one of the most creative and affirming experiences that life offers. It gives us chances to improve ourselves and broaden our own personal horizons as we model for our children the qualities we would like to see in them. For some of us, our own children give us a chance to become the parents we wish that we had.—Jack C. Westman, M.D. Originally published in Activated Magazine. Used with permission. Josie Clark
I grew up around creeks, lakes, and rivers, but when I was sixteen I went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and saw the ocean for the first time. At the boardwalk the night we arrived, I walked out on a wooden pier. As the first thunderous waves crashed beneath my feet, I grabbed the railing, terrified. Since then I have had a cautious fondness for the ocean. I've never been a strong swimmer, but I love the look of the ocean, the feel of sand between my toes, and even the weightless feeling of being lifted from my feet and carried about by gentle waves—as long as I have something buoyant to hang onto. So when we spent a summer near the beach and my two teenage sons developed a keen interest in boogie boarding, I could relate. I was happy to see them securely tethered to their boards a hundred yards out in the water, waiting for that perfect wave. But as time went on, they got braver and braver, insisting that the perfect wave was to be found further and further out to sea. I would sit on the shoreline watching the dots that were my sons in the midst of all that blue ocean and try to control my anxiety. Sometimes a mistake parents make is letting worry be the guideline for deciding what their children are able to do. If something causes the parents to worry, they won't let their children do it. Worry seems almost a necessary part of parenting. It is a sign of love and concern. It is also a warning signal that it's time to pray. I think worry can actually be a good thing when it causes us to channel our negative, anxious thoughts into a prayer that can help bring about a positive outcome in that situation. It is our responsibility to train our children and lead them in the right direction, but at a certain point we need to pull back and trust God to keep them from serious harm. As children grow, they need to be able to learn through an ever-broadening range of experiences; they need to learn to take responsibility for themselves, and they need to learn to pray themselves when "out in the deep blue sea." It gives them a sense of security, though, to know that their parents are "on the shore," still looking after them and still vigilant in prayer—like the time when one of my sons experienced a moment of sheer panic after a wave caught him off guard and knocked him for a loop, and the cord that tethered him to his boogie board slipped off. He thought he was going to drown, but he remembered that I was on the beach praying for him, and he called out to God himself. He knew in that instant he was going to be okay, and he was. As my kids grow up and move away, I think it's important that they know they have a mother who prays for them. That also reminds them to turn to God in moments of anxiety. I can't be there to hold them up, but He can. I can't meet all their needs or solve all their problems for them, but He can work miracles when they exercise their faith and pray. Excerpted from Activated Magazine. Used with permission. If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, But have not love, I am a housekeeper, not a homemaker. If I live for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, But have not love, my children learn of cleanliness, not godliness. Love leaves the dust in search of a child’s laugh. Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window. Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk. Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys. Love is present through the trials. Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive. Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, Then stands aside to let the child walk into adulthood. Love is the key that opens salvation’s message to a child’s heart. Before I became a mother, I took glory in my house of perfection. Now I glory in God’s perfection of my children. As a mother, there is much I must teach my children, But the greatest of all is love. —Author unknown (based on the Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 13) A partially deaf boy came home from school one day carrying a note from officials at the school. The note suggested that the parents take the boy out of school, claiming that he was "too stupid to learn."
The boy's mother read the note and said, "My son Tom isn't 'too stupid to learn.' I'll teach him myself." And so she did. When Tom died many years later, the people of the United States of America paid tribute to him by turning off the nation's lights for one full minute. You see, this Tom had invented the light bulb--and not only that, but also motion pictures and the record player. In all, Thomas Edison had more than one thousand patents to his credit. --God's Little Devotional Book for Moms * * * "My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me, I felt that I had someone to live for--someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me." --Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) * * * When he was a teenager, Jim worked for a grocer in Hamilton, Missouri. He liked the work and had plans to make a career of it. One night he came home and proudly told his family about his sly employer. The grocer had a practice of mixing low quality coffee with the expensive brand and thus increasing his profit. Jim laughed as he told the story at the supper table. His father didn't see anything funny about the practice. "Tell me," he said, "if the grocer found someone palming off an inferior article on him for the price of the best, do you think he would think they were just being sly, and laugh about it?" Jim could see his father was disappointed in him. "I guess not," he replied. "I guess I just didn't think about it that way." Jim's father instructed him to go to the grocer the next day and collect whatever money was due him and tell the grocer he wouldn't be working for him any longer. Jobs were not plentiful in Hamilton, but Jim's father would rather his son be unemployed than associated with a crooked businessman. J.C. Penny came that close to becoming a grocer. Instead he founded the retail chain that still bears his name. He shares the secret of his success in the title of his autobiography: Fifty Years with the Golden Rule. * * * One father confessed that he hadn't realized how dishonest he'd been with his son until he learned a hard lesson. His son received a very low grade in English. In spite of scoldings and extra study, it seemed the boy simply could not bring up his grade. One day he said to his father, "I guess when you went to school you got all A's in English." "What makes you say that?" the father asked. "Well, if you didn't do well," said the son, "you wouldn't scold me the way you do." The way he had corrected his son was a misrepresentation of the truth. "No, the fact is that I had a really hard time with English," the father replied. "Especially spelling." From that moment on the boy did better, freed from the impression that he was inferior and a failure. Seeing that his dad had the same problems, but succeeded, gave him hope. --Anonymous Originally published in Activated Magazine. Used with permission. Ruth Cortejos
We parents want our children to be liked and get along well with other children. I certainly did when my first child, Danae, was beginning to play with other kids. I tried to teach her how to interact lovingly, and she did well in most aspects--making friends, not fighting, being considerate and helpful, and even letting me play with the other children. Teaching her to share her toys was the biggest challenge. To give her more opportunities to learn this, we started inviting other children her age over to play. That small step was the key to helping Danae discover that it's fun to share with others--a lesson I needed to brush up on myself, as it turned out. One evening Danae had invited a friend, Natalie, to play with her. Natalie was one of her more frequent playmates, and their favorite thing to play with was the brightly illustrated deck of cards from a children's card game called Go Fish. Although the girls were too young to follow all the rules and play the game as intended, they liked looking at the pictures and finding the ones that matched. That evening, after Natalie left, Danae came to me and said, "Mommy, I'd like to give these to Natalie. They're her favorites." She held up three or four cards from the Go Fish game. I tried to explain that I didn't want her to give them away because then our set wouldn't be complete, but Danae persisted. "But I really want her to have them!" Again I tried to explain. "Danae, these cards belong to our Go Fish game. If you give them to Natalie, we won't have them anymore and the set will be missing pieces." "That's okay, Mommy, because I have the other cards." I thought perhaps she didn't understand that when she gave something away, it was gone for good, so I tried again to dissuade her. "If you give those to Natalie, you can't go and ask for them back tomorrow. Once you give them to her, they'll be hers." A look of concern came over Danae's face. For a moment I was happy that she seemed to understand. Then she smiled and said, "Well, that's okay, I want her to have them anyway." What could I say to that? I sat quietly for a moment and prayed. Then it came to me: I had been trying for so long to teach her to share, and now that she had learned that important lesson, I was trying to stop her. What was I doing? I was just about to make a very stupid mistake! What did it matter that our Go Fish game would be incomplete? It could be replaced, if need be. What mattered was that my daughter was learning the joy of giving, that she was thinking about others instead of herself, that she was trying to make her friend happy. Isn't that what life is all about? My daughter taught me a lesson that day, and it's one that I still get tested on. I now have three children, and fairly often one of them will come to me with a toy or stuffed animal in their hands and say they want to give it to one of their friends. My first thought is often how I can talk them out of it, but when I stop to think about it, I always come to the same realization: Things are not forever, but children are. The values I instill in my children today will be part of who they are tomorrow. Taken from Activated Magazine. Used with permission. Abigail Van Buren (1918-), "Dear Abby"
Oh, heavenly Father, make me a better parent. Teach me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, and to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them or contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me. Forbid that I should ever laugh at their mistakes, or resort to shame or ridicule when they displease me. May I never punish them for my own selfish satisfaction or to show my power. Let me not tempt my child to lie or steal. And guide me hour by hour that I may demonstrate by all I say and do that honesty produces happiness. Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. And when I am out of sorts, help me, O Lord, to hold my tongue. May I ever be mindful that my children are children and I should not expect of them the judgment of adults. Let me not rob them of the opportunity to wait on themselves and to make decisions. Bless me with the bigness to grant them all their reasonable requests, and the courage to deny them privileges I know will do them harm. Make me fair and just and kind. And fit me, O Lord, to be loved and respected and imitated by my children. Amen. I found this article the other day and I think it's something that every parent should read and put into practice. This article not only puts into words how I want to raise my daughter but also gives practical ideas and tips.
http://cardelean.hubpages.com/hub/Teaching-Children-to-Give-Back Sara Kelley
One of the most important things we can spend on children is time. It seems we parents often need to be reminded of that important principle. When our days are busy and our children are in school throughout the day, the short amount of time families have together in the evening and on holidays and weekends should be cherished and guarded as special "family time." That's our chance to show our children just how important and special they are to us. How we spend our time together and how much time we spend together should be important to parents and children alike. However, it's really up to us parents to make this time both fun and worthwhile for the kids. One thing that shows kids that they're special to their parents is when the parents make sure those times together are not interrupted. In many homes, the first time of the day the whole family gets together is at dinnertime. Dinner conversation is good, but it's not enough. Some parents with strong bonds with their children have found that the best way to ensure they stay close is by setting aside one hour after dinner as official family time and making sure it's quality time. During this hour, the parents agree to not disturb one another with any other business. That way, the children know they can count on having their parents' full attention. Whether it's an hour or more, it's up to each of us parents to make a conscious effort to put aside our work and other concerns and give our children our 100 percent. It may be inconvenient or seem a sacrifice, but if we will be consistent and put the necessary effort into it, it will make a noticeable, positive difference in their lives and our kids will love us for it! To make family time all it can be, get involved with your children. Don't just do the same thing separately in the same room--like watching TV--but get on their level and talk with them, make conversation, find out what they're thinking. Step out of your adult world into their world. Have fun. Relax. Learn to really enjoy your children. If you have both younger and older children, you will probably want to do different activities with each age group. Perhaps one evening Mom can play with or read to the younger children, while Dad does a special art or carpentry project with the older ones, or helps them with their homework. Then the next night the parents can switch roles. Or if you're a single parent, you may need to spend time with the younger ones first and the older ones after the younger ones are in bed. The point is to spend some quality time with each one. The main key to success is to have ideas planned out and organized in advance. You don't need lots of special skills or fancy equipment to keep your kids happy and challenged at family time. Just as your children are very special to you, you are very special to them. Spending time with you is what will mean the most and have the greatest lasting effect. Give it your best shot, and you and your children can all look forward to family time as a chance to do your favorite things with your favorite people! Taken from Activated Magazine. Used with permission. Catherine Neve
Believe it or not, young children like to help out. It's true! Children actually enjoy and take pride in being helpful until they are "taught" otherwise. It's only when they hear their parents or older siblings grumbling about "having to do" this or that around the house that helping out becomes a chore. If approached positively, helping out can seem more like play. It can also go a long way in building self-esteem and instilling other qualities that will greatly benefit the children in school and throughout life, such as self-discipline, initiative, diligence, perseverance, self-reliance, and being responsible. The kitchen is a great place for helping out. Preschoolers can help with simple meal prep, beginning with washing vegetables, spreading peanut butter onto sandwiches, or mixing cookie dough or pancake batter. The table needs to be set and cleared, and spills wiped up. Young children enjoy using hand brooms and dustpans, and they love getting under tables and into other places we adults have a hard time reaching. You can also let your little one sort and put away the silverware (or nonbreakable plates, bowls and cups) after the dishes are washed and dried. If you keep it fun and reward them with praise and recognition, they will be thrilled when they "graduate" to washing or drying alongside you, and eventually on their own. And it doesn't need to stop in the kitchen. Even toddlers can learn to help tidy their rooms, put away their things, and fold their pajamas or clean laundry. Nor does it need to end when your children reach school age. It was a milestone for my children when they were considered old and responsible enough to use the vacuum cleaner. Some children like to clean bathroom sinks and change the hand towels. Others like to rake leaves or mown grass, or help wash the car. Some older ones like to sew on buttons or do other simple mending. The list is endless--just look around! Assigning game names to household jobs is good "marketing strategy." The first such game I taught my children when they were little was "Ant Hill." They pretended they were ants and scurried around, taking every toy, block, or stuffed animal that was left out back to the "ant hill" (where it belonged). Even babies can learn to play this game, sitting in your lap or next to you as the two of you take turns putting blocks or other small toys into a box--then you praise, praise, praise! Some possible pitfalls and how to avoid them:
There are so many benefits to making work fun for children. Not only will they learn practical skills and develop character, but as you work alongside them they will also learn to work as a team and better appreciate how much you and others do for them. Originally published in Activated Magazine. Used with permission. |
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