AHA

Today I had an AHA moment with one of our kiddos. We were watching a video about being kind. In the video they gave examples of kindness to others. Like when you only have one candy left and you have a friend over, instead of eating it in front of him you should be kind and give him the candy. When the video was over our son turned to me and said, "NOW  I know how to be kind. You always tell me to be kind but you don't tell me how."

I love these moments in parenting. The moment where your kids say something that spurs you on to become a better parent.

We learned a long time ago in our parenting to give the moral reason why to our kiddos. For example, rather than say, "Don't say that. That was mean." Say "You need to use kind words. God says in the Bible to only use words that encourage each other and build others up." But today I realized that we need to also give more examples of how to actually practice these situations. Like, "Now instead of saying 'you're mean'  you could have said, 'Please stop doing that. I don't like it when you do that.' I have done this in the past, and I know it's helpful, but it takes time. And confession time here, I am not real good with things that take time. And so I have let it slide.  But my goal from now on is to do more of this. After all, tomorrow's a new day right?

What's been your latest parenting AHA moment?

Thanks to my mom

 for this sweet photo of Jaden and Eli