Be A Fly on Your Own Wall

Children learn from a young age to read your body language. They know your loving face and voice, your comforting voice, your irritated voice and the infamous, 'I have had it tone!' From infancy child absorb all the visual data they can take in. What information do you think they are gathering from watching and listening in your home.

Try this. Listen to a normal day in your house. What moods, messages and cues would you learn just by observing and not having any knowledge of history on what is going on. Listen and watch with virgin eyes. What is on TV, the radio, what books are being picked up and read? How much yelling happens and what is it over? Is there a worthy conflict that you back down from? Your children learn by what you do and don't do.

Some people take a passive role in situations that are worthy of boundaries. This is also being learned by your child. I often tell people who are allowing abuse of some sort in their lives that what they are really doing is teaching their children that it is okay to be abused. They are going to grow up assuming that abuse is acceptable. Now most of you reading this don't have something as serious as that in your life. However, there are plenty of other silent lessons you are teaching your children all day.

Take a step back and be an observer in your own life. Listen to what you say and how you say it. Determine if it is achieving the goal you want. (Such as stopping a behavior or teaching a virtue) If you are not accomplishing your goal you are probably repeating an ineffective process to the frustration of all.

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said, "A fool is someone who repeats the same act over and over expecting a different result"

That quote transformed my parenting tactics.

Take inventory of tone, body language, effectiveness, and motive with your parenting. If something is going the wrong way, put on the brakes, regroup, and fix it. Commit it to prayer and God will show you where you need to fine tune.

Bless you all
Brenda