My son had a science lesson a few weeks ago about the traits we inherit and traits we acquire. It was fun for our family to see which traits we have in common and where we differ. For example, my son is the only one in our house who has blue eyes, and I am the only one with attached earlobes. I didn’t even know there were attached and detached earlobes, and now I am very self-conscious. A few of us are double jointed, and we all have dark hair. My daughters inherited my bad eyesight, and my son got his 20/20 vision from his father. We enjoyed comparing our inherited similarities and differences.
But those inherited traits we give our children are the ones over which we have no control. I am realizing more every day that it is the acquired traits that require our parenting skills. Our kids watch us more than we think, and what we tell them to do will never be as important as how we live our own lives. I remember as a child hearing, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Yet we know that our kids model our behaviors—the good, the bad, and the inappropriate.
I remember one bath time when my middle daughter was about four. I dropped the shampoo bottle into the tub and said, “Damn it!” I tried to not make a big deal about the bad word, hoping maybe she hadn’t noticed, but a few days later we were driving down the road with my mom in the car. My daughter dropped something she was holding and yelled, “Damn it!” Oops. My mom looked stunned for a minute, but then I told her the story and she tried to hold back the laughter. She always told me that one day she hoped I would have a daughter who was just like me.
We make a lot of mistakes as parents, but we hope that our positive examples will trump most of the negative ones. One thing we strongly believe in and try to model is the importance of service. We are all involved in many community organizations, and just spent the past weekend volunteering at our regional AYSO tournament. The kids put in almost as many hours as we did, and were so proud that their hard work was a huge factor in making the tournament a success. We hope they notice the time we spend trying to make a positive impact on our community, and will do the same when they are on their own.
Because they need more from us than blue eyes.
Gone Fishing
12 years ago
Sometimes something will slip out that we don't want my younger sisters hearing. Instead of pretending nothing was said because I know they pick up everything, we make a big deal out of it. If my 18-year old sister says, What the hell? for example, I'll blow it out of proportion and scold her, "WHAT did you say?! That is not a nice word, never say that again." She of course will go along, nod her head, and apologize. All the while, my younger sister watches us like we're a couple of crazies :) at least we made our point.
ReplyDeleteBeing the humorous aunt, I taught my young nephew to say words like stesthoscope, calculator, staphylococcus, streptococcus, and the biggy, sphygmomanometer (a.k.a. the cuff, the part of the blood pressure doodad that fits around your arm, gets inflated, and makes your eyes water.)
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy how quickly kids pick up our bad habits and how slowly they pick up good habits from us.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget when the boys turned Jenky (sp) into Jenked-up. I loved it and now use it myself.
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