Week 6: Positive Time Together

Shared positive experiences are the foundation of good parenting.

I believe that if you teach your children to enjoy life-- and if they associate you with positive emotions and memories-- they will be much more apt to listen to you when you teach, they will be more likely to come to you with problems, they will be more likely to visit you when they're grown.

And if you take time to relax and enjoy your children, you'll be happier, you'll know them better, and you'll be more capable of offering them the guidance and direction that they need.    

It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day barking of orders... "Brush your teeth!  Get your backpack on!  Do your homework! Eat your peas!  Pick that up!  Do your chore!  Brush your teeth again!  Go to bed!"... But it's so essential to step back and spend some fun time together.  I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have my kids look up when we're doing something together, little smiles on their faces, and say, "I love you, Mommy."

This week, the challenge is to focus on just enjoying your children.  Try to do something every day with them that all of you like doing together.  Make it something you ALL enjoy.  (For example, I hate playing cars with my boys.   To me, it's the most boring thing in the world. But I love cooking with them, playing hide-and-seek, jumping on the trampoline, reading to them, dancing with them, writing stories, drawing pictures, and going for walks.)

You don't have to do anything fancy.  And it doesn't have to take mass amounts of time.  Five minutes is often enough.  Just be together.  And be happy together.

Enjoy!