Manners

Love is Patient, love kind.

Ever been to a wedding a hear that bible verse before? Better yet, have you been to a wedding and not heard it before? I was thinking this morning about that verse and how relevant it is for marriage, but maybe even more so for parenting.

Last night I was trying to launch a new website for work when my wife screamed downstairs, so off I went. As I reach the bathroom I hear “but we don’t use that much toilet paper to wipe our butts!” That is never a good sign.

I grabbed the plunger and off I went to try and loosen up the toilet. Honestly, it was not as bad as I had feared. It took maybe a minute? But what it showed me was a difference in how I handle things and how I was raised.

Growing up, I would have gotten in trouble for stopping up the toilet. Maybe grounded? I stopped for a minute, found Baby B and hugged him and told him that he did a good job of wiping his butt and then we went to the bathroom and I showed him how to get toilet paper off the role and not use as much as he did.

Love is patient, love is kind.

Could it have been bad, sure! But I have had to fix that once before for Baby A, so it isn’t the end of the world. Could I have gotten upset, sure but why? He was trying and didn’t do something intentional. So why react like he did? Instead, I used this as a time to show that I was proud of him and that he did a good job.

Parenting is hard and sometimes, we do have to get upset with our kids. Sometimes, it is hard to be patient, but they are learning and they are trying, so why shouldn’t we show a gentle and loving side to them?  If we teach our children to show love toward others, to be patient toward others and most importantly, be kind toward others, we will have done a great job as parents.

Love is patient, love is kind.

Read more

I was on Facebook over the weekend and saw the headline pop up in my news feed: 20 Tips for Creating a Family-Centered Life and it immediately caught my attention.

I think that in this day and time, even with the best of intentions, it is often hard to have a family-centered life. But, and this is important, but with a little effort, a lot of the things that were listed are definitely attainable.  I think that this list of 20 is awesome and could have gone even higher, but I wanted to reflect on some of these items individually.

1.    Mom and Dad have a consistent date night alone together at least once a month.  – This is HUGE! Parents, before you were parents, you were a couple. You have to have adult time. You have to remember why you came together in the first place to create this family. Without each other and working together, you become seperate units that will wake up one day and question why you are even together.

3.    Entire family gathers for dinner at least 3 times a week. – I grew up in a home that when I was young, we ate every night at the table and as my family grew apart, so did dinner time. My wife and I have it a point, to sit down with the boys every night at the dinner table while they eat. We try to eat at that same time as well, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. But if nothing else, we are there together, asking the boys questions, engaging with them and hopefully setting examples for when they have children. We usually put on some music, something low key, often times Jim Brickman.

9.    Dad prays with each of his children before they go to bed each night. – I FAIL at this one, big time. This is something that I have really struggled with and have tried to do better about. But this is a big one and one that I really want to do better on.

10.  Weekly church attendance. – Again, as a family we have FAILED this one. We were really diligent about this for the first 2 years of the boys lives, but the last 8 months, we just have falling into a pattern of not going. And a bad pattern at that. We’ve made excuses, but really at the end of the day, this is on my wife and myself. We’ve talked about doing better, but we have to talk less and get back into the habit of going.

12.  Dad’s job does not keep him working a lot of late nights or weekends. – When I am home, I am home. No work on the weekend or night, unless it is an emergency and thus far, there have not been any emergencies that could not wait until the next day or at least until after the boys goto bed.

13.  Entire family has at least one week of vacation time together per year.  – This is really important. This years vacation might look different, but we are still planning on getting away for a few days. It is important to have family time and even more importantly than that, to have family down time away from home.

17.  Dad personally knows all of his children’s teachers and is involved in the PTA. – I’ll go a step further than just school. I think that it is crucial for Dad’s to also goto their children’s doctor appointments. I’ve been to every Dr. appointment, except for 2 and I’ve been to every Parent Teacher conference for the boys. It is important as Dad’s to be involved in our children’s lives, because how can we expect to raise them, if we are missing information and not informed.

A family-centered life is an important foundation in my children’s lives. I hope that they will one day recognize how involved I am and will do the same when they have children.

 

Read more

When was the last time that you said Thank You to someone? When was the last time that some one did something nice for you out of the blue? Did you thank them or did you walk away?

Being humble is an important quality in a person in my opinion, because being humble, keeps you grounded and focused.

One of the things that I really want to instill in my boys is being humble. It is really easy to get to a point in life that your priorities change or that you forget about others.  My wife and I have been fortunate to be able to provide a pretty decent life for our boys and I want them to understand that not all children are as lucky. And I want them to recognize, that when people do things for them, how important it is to say thank you and recognize the person that is doing something for them.

So will you say Thank You to someone today?

Read more

Growing up in a small town, larger than Mayberry, but not by much, I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Andy Griffith. You see, I am from North Carolina and was one of the millions that learned life lessons from Sheriff Andy Taylor. I grew up in a small town, where you said hello to people that you walked past, said yes sir and no ma’am, and you were taught to respect others.

As an adult, I now live in a much larger town than Mayberry. And kids today are told not to speak to others as they walk by, and that it is exceptable to say yeah, instead of yes sir and that respect, well, what is that?  Maybe it was because the town that I grew up in, like Mayberry, was a small town of about 10,000 people? Regardless, the times have changed and maybe not for the better?

Those were and are valuable life lessons that I learned as a child and that have stayed with me today and these are the things that I plan on teaching my boys as well. Even though it has only been a few days after the passing of Andy Griffith, I miss him for the same reason that I miss a friend, because he was always there. He was always on tv, teaching Opie valuable life lessons with a gentle and soft voice. I miss Andy already, for the same reasons that I miss the days of Mayberry.

 

Read more

I was raised in an Army home, enough said right? I was raised to say sir and ma’am and call adults Mr. or Mrs. and then their last name. So to say that raising our kids with manners is important is an understatement.

In this day and time, I feel that our society has gotten away from manners. Children walking around calling adults, including their parents, by their first name. To this day, I still say sir to my father and I am 35 and a father of two little boys. I still say yes ma’am to my mother. Come to think of it, I say sir and ma’am to most everyone that I come in contact with and I do it, because I really do not know any difference.

Will I ask my children to use good manners and sir and ma’am, you bet I will.

Read more