Originally Posted by
bisous
For me it has been encouraging my kids to be readers. I look back on all the strife and struggles. I remember myself as a parent of toddlers trying to get them to do "enrichment" activities that took longer to put together than to actually play out. Those weren't bad things but they haven't come close to being as effective as taking them to the library regularly and just having books all over the house. …
The thing I haven't been amazing at is family dinner. We eat together every night but the quality of dinners has declined over the past five years and most nights we're eating at the counter rather than the table and I feel like my kids manners have suffered as a result. And this pains me to say but our quality of NUTRITION has also declined a lot in the past five or maybe honestly ten years. I feel acutely like I need to work on that!
What about you?
Yes to reading! We didn’t make it to the library often but I had newspapers and books sitting all over the place. For Ds3 it was comic books. But I didn’t care what they read as long as they read. in summertime, reading daily was a requirement before electronics. It worked! They aren’t all avid readers but they do like to read and are comfortable reading about and researching topics.
Famiky dinners here are nonexistent. My kids all know how to cook (bake, fry, grill, mix up salads, make a balanced meal) but we each eat at our own time. However, I’m very proud of family prayer time. It’s a chance fir everyone to stop what they are doing and come hang out together. We talk about what happened during the day, what the next day is going to look like, thoughts, things that made us angry, things that made us happy, people who are sick and need our help and prayers, etc. We put God before ourselves in a moment of calm and a chance to center. Sometimes we break out giggling. But it’s actually a treasured moment each night for all of us.
One other thing that immediately pops into my head on this subject. When Ds1 was a baby, a plumber or other tradesman was working at our house in St. Paul and gave me some advice that seemed so wise. He said to always follow through with what we said to our kids. When they were little and acting up, if I threatened timeout I needed to follow through with that threat. He said start out being faithful to my word when they are little and they will believe me when they are older. He was so right. When I tell my high school kids not to stay out past curfew or they’ll lose their phone and car, they believe me because I always follow through. God forbid drugs or alcohol become a problem for any of them. But if they do, I feel confident my kids will believe me when I say the consequences will be very harsh. Dh always had a problem with follow through and now he has a problem getting them to do what he says. He’s getting better because for the last 10 years he’s tired of saying, “Lisa, can you get the kids to mow/empty the dishwasher/ put away their clothes, etc. He asks them and they do a halfhearted job because they know that he won’t do anything to enforce it. Now the oldest 2 are in high school and do what he asks but the middle schoolers still fight him. Always being true to my word means my kids know they can depend on me to be true to my word.
Last edited by gatorsmom; 10-22-2021 at 06:40 PM.
" I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." Mahatma Gandhi
"This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn't solve any problems." Martin Luther King, Jr.