What are You Watering Your Children With?
/Children are little people. Just like adults, they have feelings and emotions. The words you say and the things you do in front of your child matter because they make them who they are.
What Are You Watering Your Children With?
Children are sponges, soaking up everything they see and hear around them. Don’t believe me? Sit in a kindergarten classroom and watch how these little ones react to life around them. While you may hide certain things about you and your family, your children will not hide it when they are with others.
What Are You Watering Your Children With?
This IMAGE was shared with me last week and it speaks volumes! What we put into our children matters.
Do you water your children with:
Love or Hatred
– There’s a reason we have so much hatred in the world today. Hatred is instilled in people when they are little. They grew up hearing and seeing it and it festered until it grew into something horrible.
Several years ago, I had someone tell me that racism was only found in the south and that it was not in the northern states. HA! When we lived in Montana, there were racist remarks on both sides of the state. The western area we lived in did not like outsiders moving in. They considered everyone outside the valley an outsider. The eastern part of the state, we heard remarks about the migrant oilfield workers who came into the stores. All these men were trying to do was make a living for their families while spending hard earned money in the area. Racism is found everywhere!
For your children to know how to love others, you must teach it. You must show love in your actions and with your words for your child to show it as well with those around them.
Show LOVE Even When You Don't Feel Like It!
Do you water your children with:
Kindness or Belittling
– While kindness falls under the love category, it should have its own place in society. Kindness to others whether in actions or words, it starts a melting trend of a cold heart. Just as the Bible says,
Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. (Proverbs 16:24) Kind words build a kind heart.
Belittling children is something I will not stand for as a parent and teacher. When I hear my child is a “retard” or something else along the line, I get angry. When you make fun of your child because of their special quirks, I fight the urge to not like you. I will stand up and rebuke you for those actions. You will leave me knowing, I will do what is right for your child if that means putting you in your place. I will not allow children to belittle each other, nor will I allow a parent to belittle a child in front of me.
When your child continues to hear belittling and unkind words, they become just like you – an unkind person no one will want to be around.
Show kindness with your words.
You Will Never Look Into The Eyes Of Someone Whom God Doesn't Love
Do you water your children with:
Self-Control or No Self-Control
– When your temper flares and you throw a tantrum, your children learn it is okay for them to do the same thing. These moments will include hitting, pushing, name-calling, and things a lot worse.
Tantrums get your child nowhere except where they want to be – the center of attention. While many today disagree, tantrums warrant only one discipline, the warming of the hindquarters! Anytime a tantrum is thrown, a parent should give a spanking. When this happens, the tantrums will stop. You can not reason with a child during a tantrum!
As an adult, no self-control could have your child fired from a job, or land them in jail.
Self-control is a must and you must show you have it!
Do you water your children with:
Attentiveness or Distraction
– Attentiveness is a trait I’ve been working on teaching my students this past month. It is something that does not come naturally, it has to be taught at an early age and practiced daily the rest of one’s life. With all the technology strapped to our hands, being attentive is something most parents have forgotten to be with their children.
What does attentiveness mean?
It means we stop what we are doing and listen to the one who is talking. Children learn from you how to not listen. They learn it is okay to not give eye contact to those speaking. It’s okay to be distracted during a conversation. They learn to not ask questions about the conversation if they don’t understand something. If you are not attentive to your child, your child will not be attentive to you when you need them to be.
Just recently, the state of Georgia passed a hands-free law for driving and cell phones. Distracted driving has caused more accidents and deaths across the nation. Being a distracted parent can lead to problems and even death.
Let your child see you be attentive when they are talking to you.
Do you water your children with:
Discipline in Love, in Anger, or is it a Joking Matter
– When a child is scared of you that is not good. But when they fear (reverence) your authority and the methods of discipline you use, you are doing something right.
You should only discipline in LOVE. That means you may have to wait however long you need to calm down before moving ahead with a discipline. Your children should not be scared of you, but rather fear you.
Children know if you mean business or not and they will embarrass the daylights out of you when they let others know it.
When you laugh and joke while trying to discipline, the child quickly learns to not fear you and your discipline. They have won the battle you are trying to fight.
When I see a child flinch at my hand movement, I know they have been disciplined in such a way; they are scared of a slight movement. This is not good. There should be no spanking with the hand, but rather a paddle of some sort. They should see your hands and arms as loving and nurturing, not something that hurts.
Let your children know, you don’t like having to discipline them, but you do so because you love them.
Love, Kindness, Self-Control, Attentiveness, and Loving Discipline – What are you watering your children with?
