Have you ever found yourself listening to your children converse with each other and felt that their conversation taught you more than what books or your years of experience could have?
Upon watching Heaven, my daughter, play in her toy kitchen, my five year old, Isaiah, says to her: "Heaven let me show you how to make an egg. You take oil and make it hot, then you put the egg and leave it for few minutes and then flip it and leave it for few minutes again and it's done".
And here I thought he's only watching me and was completely clueless that my five year old has gotten the process of making eggs down packed at the age of five - something I had only learned to do in my teen years, embarrassingly .
Isn't it really that simple. To teach them, just let them watch you! Oh the responsibility of modelling! Are they really our little mirrors? We as parents know this. Yet we seem to be not very conscious of this incredible parenting tool we carry with us. Perhaps we think our words of instruction are more powerful. And they are, but how we live our lives in front of our tiny ones is even more influential!
It doesn't take much to catch them stepping into our shoes. It is amazing to think that each moment we spent with them, we are in fact engraving a habit, a viewpoint, an attitude, a philosophy or a value in them. And the end product of our imprinting will appear in front of us in a matter of few years, if not sooner.
Upon watching Heaven, my daughter, play in her toy kitchen, my five year old, Isaiah, says to her: "Heaven let me show you how to make an egg. You take oil and make it hot, then you put the egg and leave it for few minutes and then flip it and leave it for few minutes again and it's done".
And here I thought he's only watching me and was completely clueless that my five year old has gotten the process of making eggs down packed at the age of five - something I had only learned to do in my teen years, embarrassingly . Isn't it really that simple. To teach them, just let them watch you! Oh the responsibility of modelling! Are they really our little mirrors? We as parents know this. Yet we seem to be not very conscious of this incredible parenting tool we carry with us. Perhaps we think our words of instruction are more powerful. And they are, but how we live our lives in front of our tiny ones is even more influential!
It doesn't take much to catch them stepping into our shoes. It is amazing to think that each moment we spent with them, we are in fact engraving a habit, a viewpoint, an attitude, a philosophy or a value in them. And the end product of our imprinting will appear in front of us in a matter of few years, if not sooner.
So true! All the more reason to practice good habits in front of our precious ones.
ReplyDeleteI agree :)
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