“Your character will feed your conduct no matter what the circumstances may be.”
This is one families’ “brand” that they used as they raised their children. I read about it on a "mom blog" and I really like what it says. Even if it is shortened to say “your character will feed your conduct” that just says so much and can be applied to every area of our life. I think we’ll be adopting this into our family.
We have several sayings we use in our family that ring out every once in a while and the kids know what we mean when we say them. “With priviledge comes responsibility” is the one most often quoted. We’ve said this to our kids since they were all little and then more when they began going away for church camps, choosing movies to watch or music to listen to, cell phone use, staying at friends houses and then dating, driving, etc., etc.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking with my dad and Anna(9) was in the room. We were talking about something and I told my dad “well, you know what our motto is…” and then proceeded to quote some random motto that applied to the discussion we were having. Anna immediately chimed in and said “No, it’s not! Our motto is ‘we don’t do lazy’!” This “motto” is one of my most recent, created by necessity, and I love it! It was so funny but also comforting for me to know that something occasionally sinks in.
If your family doesn’t have a quote or quick word to live by or brand or whatever you’d like to call it, consider making one. It may develop as your children grow as ours did or you may have one that your parents said to you or use ours if you like. Limit it to just a few though and don't over use them. If you have 20 of them or you quote it 20 times each day, it won’t have the same kick. Also, as parents, we must live out what we are wanting our kids to or our words are meaningless. Quoting one of these quickly to your child as they walk out the door or are having to make a tough decision just might make all the difference.
If you have one, please share…..
Saturday, August 16, 2008
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1 comment:
Great post, Andrea! I love it! Thinking about our "mottos" one of the ones we use is "Family first". This is our way of letting the kids know that we put family events and special moments over other happenings.
We also use "with privilege comes responsibility". I think there are too many parents out there who don't use that one. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that are shocked that our children do their own laundry, clean bathrooms, babysit the younger children, make lunch, change diapers, etc. I can't understand we someone would not want their children to have these basic skills.
I'll be mindful of any other mottos we have over the next few days...
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