What Life Lessons Are You Teaching Your Children?

We don't stop enough to reflect upon the messages we send our children through our words and action, even the expressions on our face.

Yet, our behavior impacts our children's understanding of themselves and the world they live in every single day.  

What we say means far less than what we do.

A SHARED BAD HABIT

A common habit we all struggle with is using our smartphones around our children.

The smartphone scenario looks like this: we're texting a friend or maybe we're reading a long post, and than our child asks us for something.

We, however, continue texting or reading while the child begins to whine. We continue looking at our phone, and we tell him to wait until we're done.

Once in a while, this scenario is not a problem. But the real problem is that this scenario can play out many times during the day. It’s become a bad habit of ours!

Wouldn't you throw your phone away in a heartbeat if you thought your child would grow up to think that your phone was more important than his needs?

Yet, this is the message our children will receive from us if we prioritize our phones.

I'm using the smartphone as an example, but you can replace it with any bad habit that you want to stop doing which will make you a better parent, teacher, or person.

I'm not suggesting we should cater to our child's every whim—absolutely not—but spending too much time on our phone is like sitting around watching television all day. 

Most of us would consider watching a lot of television negligent and indulgent and lacking self-discipline because we know better.

But somehow the smartphone habit and other bad habits slip through the cracks, and we don't think twice about them. 

TIME FOR SELF-REFLECTION

Yet, we need to reflect on our habits because with time they become lessons we teach our children, for better or for worse.

Minutes add up to hours; hours add up to days; days add up to months; and, before you know it, the years have passed.

It’s a good idea to take a inventory of our habits whenever we feel like we have gotten off track. And this doesn’t just include the things we do, but the things we say as well.

Am I setting a good example for my children? Am I using my limited supply of time in my life wisely.

If the answer is no to some things, we can work to replace those bad habits with good habits.

THE GOOD-HABIT FORMING PROCESS

Begin by being crystal clear about what the bad habit is and what the good habit is that will replace the bad one.

Start with one bad habit, conquer it, and then choose another. For example, if you decide that you want to spend less time on your phone and more time reading, put your phone out of sight, and put your book on a table where it will remind you to pick it up.

Set a time when you will read and make sure your phone is away and your book is in plain site. The more obstacles you remove to adopting the new habit, the easier it will be to follow through with your intention.

Environment matters most. Create an environment conducive towards succeeding in your new habit, and then take one step at a time. Read one page. When that becomes easy, read two. When that becomes easy, read three.

You want to make your new habit almost effortless in the beginning as you build it into your life. Work up to reading 20 pages a day (or 10, depending upon the book).

A TIP

A word of advice: don’t try to tackle too many bad habits at once because you will only overwhelm yourself and overwhelm leads to defeat.

It's not until our children are grown and have developed their own values and beliefs that we discover some of ourselves in the conclusions they've adopted about life. 

We'll naturally become more effective parents if we become aware of the little things we do that add up to the big lessons we teach.

With this in mind, what bad habit would you like to conquer to become a better parent?

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 22+ years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling