Children do not see in gray, only in black and white.
Here I go complaining and criticizing and judging, and I have told them this is not the way, and, oh, it is so hard to live the way I desire my children to live, without this bend toward complaint and this critical spirit and this judging others from the sidelines, but how else will they see and know and really understand if not for the example I set?
“We don’t whine in this family,” after listening to a request for water that is impossible to fulfill where we are, and ten minutes later, I’m whine-complaining about the heat and how ridiculously hard it is to carry a double stroller packed with twin babies and lunch remains and a heavy camera up forty-five steps in 104-degree summer heat because Daddy didn’t want to trace our steps back to the air conditioned elevator, and how in the world will they understand that we don’t whine in this family if my words sound a whole lot like whining, too?
“You only have to ask me once,” after listening to fourteen demands for help opening their child-proofed pajama drawer (to encourage only adult-supervised dress-up) and then, five minutes later, demanding for the hundredth time that they put their shoes in the designated place instead of the middle of the floor, and how in the world will they understand that we don’t pester and nag in this family if this is what I do?
“We tell the truth” after one tries to sneak an extra stuffed animal friend through the church doors, even though I permitted them only one, and an hour later I’m pacifying the can’t-get-his-shoes-back-on littlest with “I’ll help you in a minute” when I really mean I’ll help when I’m finished packing up the twins and gathering their diaper bag, and how do you even answer when your 6-year-old announces it’s been a minutes and it’s time to help his brother and you’re not even close to being ready to help, and how in the world will they understand that our yes should be yes and our no should be no and that truth is the only acceptable communication in our family if I cannot do the same?
The old way of it, that do as I say and not as I do, it must become more than this, because these little ones are watching, always watching what we do, barely hearing what we say, and they will be just like us in the doing, regardless of the saying.
How will they learn the magnitude of speaking lovingly and truthfully and respectfully if they do not first see it from me?
Do as I do, that is our parent maxim, and anything less means our words become meaningless mist in a world full of dew.
[Tweet “Do as I do is the only parenting truth our kids understand. So we must do as we want them to do.”]
And when we fall short, because we all have and do and will, these little ones learn still from our awareness and our confession and their forgiving that follows.
Because we must see the wrong way to know the right.
This is an excerpt from We Speak Truthfully. Respectfully. Lovingly., the seventh episode in the Family on Purpose series, which will release July 5.
