Thursday, February 11, 2010

TEACHING MY CHILD GOOD VALUES

They say that everything you need to know you learn at home. Well, I think you learn them in a lot of places. But home is where it begins, because from the moment life starts, everything is provided for you from who else...MOM! Mom is consistent, patient, thorough and wants to make sure she raises proper little gentleman's. (And...mom is always right!!)

So one of the very first lessons we learn is SHARING. This is such a hard concept for little ones to learn, but when there are siblings in the house it is just a given; you HAVE to share. Be it a bedroom, bathtub, bowl of popcorn, chips or yes; even a sucker. So Nicholas has taken to this concept quite well. He LOVES the little Dum-Dum suckers. I put him in his highchair because I don't want sticky fingers all over the walls or uneaten suckers stuck to the carpet or my pillow. Which has happened in the past. So Nicholas sits in his high chair and he shares his sucker with our dog Koby. Koby patiently waits for his turn to lick the sucker and they are just like two little buddies sharing. This particular sucker got dropped and stuck on Koby's back though. We didn't notice it till later when it was good and stuck. Value of sharing....CHECK.







Another value that mom teaches is the value of cleanliness. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"... a concept NO child understands. Teaching them to be clean in speech, dress, home and body. For a child, it always starts with cleaning the body first. They learn this first because mom is cleaning them SEVERAL times a day!! When buying paper towels, you have a stash for the kitchen and a separate stash for the child. (You go through the ones with the child a lot faster than the ones in the kitchen!) So at the end of the day, it's time for the major cleaning....the bathtub. It's the one time they won't fight you when you're washing them and cleaning their faces. Maybe that's because they are distracted with all the toys and bubbles from washing their hair. Every child has a certain innocence about them when in the tub. You can almost see their imagination working while they play, splash and blow bubbles. Or maybe it's just the uncontrollable urge to take cute naked pictures of them when they're so little. That way you know you have something to embaress them with once they're older and obnoxious teenagers!!


Next would be eating manners. At 17 months, you can't teach table manners; although we ARE trying to learn that you don't throw your plate of food on the floor just because you are done or don't want it. (I need more patience while trying to teach this one!) No for now it's teaching not to stuff your mouth and what things actually go in the mouth. It's funny how babies test things first by putting them in the mouth. This goes from lemons, dirt, shoes, pickles and on and on and on. Once they find something they like, you have to watch how much you give them or else they shove it all in their mouth. Where in lies the lesson, not to stuff your mouth with a good thing, binkies included!!

The value of exercise is one that doesn't really HAVE to be taught. It begins the moment they learn to crawl and continues with the walking. For my boys however, they never really "walked." Once they figured out how to keep their balance and take steps, they were RUNNING!!! Now my little guy has expanded his little "exercise routine" with climbing. At first it was just climbing, or rather sliding, off of moms bed. Now it's climbing in and out of the tub, onto mom and dads night stand, the coffee table and the big one...the kitchen table. Once he figured out how to do this, he was just so darn proud of himself. Made it hard to be frustrated at what now lies in store for me.




My favorite thing to watch them learn is the value of imagination and play. I don't think you can really teach imagination, you just sort of take them there whenever you read or play with them. Once they begin picking it up on there own, you just sit back, laugh and make sure you have the camera available in an instant! Nicholas' new favorite toy is actually one of my Tupperware containers. He puts it on as a helmet and...well, just watch for yourself!! The value of imagination and play at it's best in a 17 month old!!