They Make Us Better

I have to admit, I am super proud of my 5 and 4-year-old this morning. I heard them talking early in the morning, and I knew they were up already. Got myself ready, I walked towards their voices. I was expecting to see them playing in bed, or sitting on the potty or something, that’s what they do in the mornings when I walk over.

To my surprise, I found my kids on the floor, looking under the bed. “What are you guys doing?” I asked. My 5-year-old daughter replied, a bit sad, “Mommy, we were fixing the bed, and I realized I lost one of my Minnies, I can’t find her!” I looked at the bed, they really did fix the bed, almost all the way! Awwing that my kids finally are growing up, I helped them straighten out a couple of corners of the blanket they couldn’t reach.

I asked my daughter, amazed, “how come you guys made the bed today?” She replied, “you said to us last time, that we need to fix  our beds every morning.” Words can not describe my feeling. Last time I told them that was 3 days ago, when they had to go to their dad’s house. I am surprised and proud that my 5-year-old still remembered and is really doing it. You can imagine the rest of the morning “get ready battle” was a breeze.

It’s very true. Nowadays people are just way too lazy to do what they know they should be doing in the first place. People feel entitled to things, that they feel like it’s other people’s job to tell them what to do, and then they would do it, only if they want to. I am still in the process of planting the idea in my kids head, that no one is entitled to anything, if you want something in your life, you need to work for it, earn it. You need to be a good person, always make the best choices you can possibly make, not because you want that ice cream as a reward, or afraid that you would be punished otherwise. These so-called green (good) choices and red (bad) choices should never be linked to green rewards or red rewards. In other words, you should never be a good person based on the motivation that you want to be rewarded in any way! I focus on talking to the kids, when they make a bad choice or decision, aiming at letting them know why it was a bad choice and what harm that bad choices may cause. It feels like sometimes I am talking French to my kids about this, but it’s a process, a journey, I want them to really feel the routine and structure, and later on, they would automatically implement this thinking process before they make a choice.

I want my kids to learn from their mistakes, why certain behaviors are not acceptable and why they ended up making mistakes rather than doing the right thing. The last thing I would ever want is, the kids get punished and they don’t even know why! I hear that a lot, it’s sad to see their faces get all dull and tell me they got punished, but could never remember why…Parents, the goal is not to punish your kids, the goal is to let them understand why what they did was wrong, and teach them how to be a good kid and grow up a good person! We all have double standards, if we like to admit or not. I see myself in them. From time to time, my kids would talk to each other the way I talk to them. I had to have a couple talks with my kids, letting them know why I was telling them sometimes it’s not their position to talk to others certain way, because I talked to them this way..

It’s hard to parent. We love our kids so much, we don’t want to hurt their feelings by saying no, we don’t want to crush their confidence by telling them they can improve, we don’t want to make them feel less loved because we truly think some other kids are smart or beautiful or well behaved…But the truth is, WE are the parents, WE know better than kids (hopefully!) and WE need to have the FULL control of the situation, not the kids. That being said, WE need to lead by example, especially the things we tell them that they need to do.

I do believe that kids are true blessing, they make us to be better version of ourselves.