There we were, at WalMart on a Saturday afternoon. Eliza and her brother Ezra each had two weeks of allowance and they were trying to stretch it as far as possible (which isn’t easy since they only had four dollars each). I was working on my skill of patience as each of them pointed out the things that they wanted only to find out that the item cost more than they had. At one point I tried to explain the
Many parents complain about how their children leave stuff all over the house. Parents either feel like unpaid servants or like broken records constantly nagging their kids to clean up after themselves. Some parents say that it takes less energy to clean up after their children then to get their children to clean up after themselves. Other parents complain that their children don’t move to clean up until they start yelling – and they hate the fact that they yell.
A common hope as parents is that our kids will do well in high school, go to college, and get an education so that they can compete in the world in which they live. Although this hope is logical, sometimes we are not as logical when it comes to passing this hope on to our kids. Love and logic teaches that one of the most powerful teaching techniques for parents to use is modeling. We model the behaviors that we
Do your kids ever ask questions that puzzle you? Not because you don’t know the answer, but because you are not sure of the answer to give them. I know of a father whose girl asked such a question. They went out one Saturday morning for doughnuts and his little girl chose the one with chocolate frosting and colored sprinkles. As she ate the doughnut she asked, “Daddy, why does this doughnut have chocolate on it?” This father was unsure