Unconditional Love Through Your Behavior
Having tech problems. Sorry about the look of this.
How do children learn to correct mistakes?
By watching how you correct yours.
How do children learn to overcome their failures?
By watching how you overcome yours.
How do children learn to treat themselves with forgiveness?
By watching how you forgive yourself.
Therefore your mistakes, and your failures are blessings,
opportunities for the best in parenting.
The Parent’s Tao Te Ching, by William Martin
Have unconditional love for yourself on Valentine’s Day and evey day and you’ll be showing your child how to accept him or her self, their sucesses and their failures.
I received an email this morning from a parent who has been reading the Unconditional Love series. She had a sweet experience with her son that I thought you’d enjoy reading about. It’s how to use some of the things I’ve talked about over the last couple days. Enjoy.
“It’s because of you that last night while my son was brushing his teeth – well procrastinating obnoxiously in the bathroom to get his teeth brushed – I was so frustrated that I could have thrown something, but instead I leaned down and kissed his head and rubbed his shoulders and said, “you are being a rascal but I sure love you”. He stopped and smiled and then got his teeth brushed. My struggle has been knowing when to set boundaries and absolutely not let a behavior continue – versus – knowing when it’s only a reaction he’s after and if I act unaffected he’ll often stop that behavior anyway. It’s a very fine line though and it’s hard to look at the whole picture in the moment. You’re newsletters have helped.”
Happy Valtentine’s Day!
Oh. btw, I just created a Google+ “page” for Proactive Parenting. Come on over and join me there so you can be invited to the Google Hangouts that are coming soon! http://bit.ly/1ghoNrN