What Parents Do In Moderation….

What parent’s do in moderation, children take to excess….

Now, that does put a little pressure on us as parents, but for me, that’s been a good thing. A while back I overheard one of my sons telling a ‘little white lie’, mostly to avoid hurting a friend’s feelings, but it was one of those “excuses” that wasn’t entirely true. In 30 years of parenting, it’s become one of my favorite mantras- “What parents do in moderation, children take to excess”.

I felt very convicted….and humbled… when I heard him make that ‘not-entirely-true’ excuse, because I knew that I had done the same thing more than once.

As a Christian, I am diligent to always speak truth the best I know it, but I admit that sometimes to avoid embarrassing situations or offending or hurting someone’s feelings, I do find myself omitting incriminating details, or manipulating the situation….truthfully, of course… to sound different than it really was. A humbling example would be my tendancy to be late, thus often highlighting an actual obstacle like excessive traffic as the cause, but really, if I had left earlier, that completely true obstacle, traffic, wasn’t really bad enough to make me as late as I was.

I now find myself being very careful to be completely truthful in all things, but before you think too highly of my intentions, I’ll be the first to tell you I slip up more than I’d like. Of course, there’s still the truths that don’t need to be told, like what you really think of someone’s new dress or haircut.

However, one of the best teaching opportunities we have as parents is letting our kids know just how human we really are. Talking to them about our slip ups and how we could’ve and should’ve said or done something differently is one of the richest teaching moments we can embrace. It’s also good for our ‘humble index’!

So the next time you notice your kids doing something you know they learned from you, make that a teaching moment….while humbling, it’s a opportunity to do “the bonding thing” that has a richness not found anywhere else. Running a business with them or along side them will certainly give you more of these “teaching moments” than you will probably want…I guarantee it!

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