“Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.” –Carl Jung
Good Morning!
Some of you may have heard the old adage “do as I say, not as I do”. This was often said by adults when I was growing up. I think that it was meant to be humorous but there was a bit of truth to it. As a child I was often told not to do things by adults that they themselves were doing – very confusing…
I realized pretty early in my parenting that the “do as I say, not as I do “phrase was not going to work. Back in those days I was a pretty impatient driver, (ok, to fess up I still am a pretty impatient driver), and sometimes words that little ears should not have heard came out of my mouth. Which of course, I then told my children that those words were not “nice” words and they should never use them. I naively believed that they would of course do what I told them to do. Skip ahead to Grandma’s visit and yes, you guessed it, those not “nice” words came out of the mouth of my children. Grandma was shocked and I was mortified I did eventually learn to keep my words “nice” when I was driving but the whole incident taught me a valuable lesson. The lesson that it really does not matter what you tell your children, it matters what you do and what they see.
So…live the life you want your children to be. Forget the talks and forget the lectures. Instead, show them what you want them to be with your talk and with your actions. That that is what they will take away with them, that is what they will grow up to be.
Have some fun today!
peggy
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.