please don’t break your child

Single Dad Laughing just wrote something like I have considered writing on a number of occasions.  You Just Broke Your Child. Congratulations. Yes it’s long.  But it’s worth reading the whole thing.  He keeps referring to dads, but it applies equally to moms.  I took some of his comments as personal reminders about how I want to be. There are a lot of ideas about kindness, respect, and peace in relationships.

For example, he wrote, “Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child’s entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them?“  and I thought about how I always say “Good morning _____!” cheerfully to each of my children every morning when I first see them.  It’s the first thing I say to them every day.   Ian still crawls into my lap to snuggle when he first wakes up, something I’ve been treasuring lately as he is getting so big.  I didn’t consciously set out to say Good morning like this, but it has become a habit, and when I noticed it, I reflected that I like the positive tone it gives the start of the day.

So I’m doing my part to spread this around.