Transparency Tuesday: Parents. We have such an impact on our kids

There was a time I was at one of my friends' house, and they were just casually asking Jeremiah to get him a bottle-- it was a bottle of medicine.

He stood there looking around for whatever she was asking for. When it was taking a while, she asked to get him her phone-- he picked it up swiftly and gave it to her.

When she asked for the bottle again, (the bottle was in eyesight..) he was looking around. So I picked up the bottle and went 'Jeremiah you know what a bottle is! Waving it around his face'

He put his head down and didn't even want to look at anything anymore.

Then asking to get other things and him getting them-- we later realized he didn't actually recognize the word 'bottle'

And I really checked my own self, and caused me to get into perspective.

We don't realize the words that we use (I didn't until that day!) in general conversation, or even when we are instructing them.

It just made me conscious to make sure I use a lot of vocabulary-- a lot of descriptive language etc..

But what made me really think was how he reacted when I said to him, "You know what this is!" So it's like.. it made him afraid to get something wrong. And it just tells you how much we actually have an impact on our kids. More than we probably even realize.

That's another lesson under the belt for me-- and now I know how to deal with Jeremiah with particular things. He's got a very soft heart; it's not always doing tough love!