Thoughtful Thursday: We are responsible..

Truly... kids do learn from other children, what they see.. what they hear.. 

But REALLY... our children learn from US first.

One thing I realized I was doing is that I used to cut my eye a lot and my boys when I'm telling them off.. and.. low an behold.. Jeremiah would be cutting his eye back at me! 

My blood would BOIL whenever I saw that because it's so rude-- but I taught him that?

So-- when I realized.. when I'm telling them off now, I just look them dead in their eyes. Once I'm done, I'll say 'Do you understand?' and when I get a reply I'll say 'thank you' and then give them a hug. No walking off and cutting eyes anymore. Oh my goodness.. children pick up literally everything that we do.

And this is just it... even certain things that I say.. if they go and repeat it, it's not that they learnt it elsewhere.. it was FROM ME!

So really certain behaviours that they adopt is from us, and sometimes we don't even realize it's coming from us. 

So since that cutting eyes incident.. I've been so aware of what I do and what I say around the boys. Even TONE... they copy.. it is so deep it's unbelievable.

This parenthood.. it's serious out here! We hold such a huge responsibility!