Motherly Advice

No, I am NOT announcing that I will be a grand mother.....but that would be a cute way to do it! ha  I am here to give you some motherly advice.  If you don't follow this advice, you may turn this adorable crying child into this.....

A spoiled brat!

And we certainly don't want to live with that or be around that type of child.  What is my advice?  Very simple.  Do NOT promise your child a treat for every time you leave them with a baby sitter or for every time you take them to a store and they are well behaved.  Why do we always feel the need to reward good behavior?  What ever happened to expecting good behavior as the norm and punishing when there isn't good behavior?  You might say accentuate the positive.....well I say, that is spoiling a child for something they should be doing anyway.  We need to teach our children that polite, mannerly behavior is expected  - not rewarded - and bad behavior will not be tolerated.  Crying and making a scene will not get the child anywhere unless it is to time out.  Treats started out as something to give on special occasions.  We have taken that way too far.

Along this line is another bad thing we are doing these days......we are making our children think they are all winners.  There are no losers in life.  That is not true.  There ARE losers in life.  Only those that work hard and achieve are winners.  Don't give every child a trophy.  Let there be winners and losers.  Teach your child how to lose gracefully.  When they grow up, there will not be anyone there telling them they are winning even when their performance at work is less than acceptable.  Teach them the hard lessons in life in small doses as children.  Give them a reason to strive to be successful. 

The hardest thing in life is to be a parent to your children and not just their friend.  They are precious little angels and you cannot give them enough love and attention, but it needs to be balanced with reality.  Always count to 10 before you speak out in anger or hand out punishment.  And, never have punishment that punishes the entire family or punishment that you really can't follow through on because it is too tough.  Think before you speak and speak in a calm, loving manner when correcting.  Oh, and never ever spank a child with your hand.  The child will relate the punishment to the parent.  Use a wooden spoon if you have to spank.  There will probably be very few times in life you would ever have to use it.

Don't ask me why I chose this topic.  Maybe working in Whitney's classroom getting it all ready for these little angels, might have tilted my brain in this direction.  ha  Or, maybe the Lord knew someone needed this.

Have a Blessed day!