Attitude – a powerful word when it comes to raising kids
With our lives, we influence our environment, other people. This is true for all our relationships. Yet the strongest impact we have is on our family, on our own children.
In this, none of us is powerless. No matter what thoughts or feelings we have about that matter – we all are really powerful people and we do have a great responsibility to do the right thing with this power.
Our words, our attitude will make a great difference!
There is a saying that tells us: “The way you speak to your children becomes their inner voice”. I would go beyond that. One could say: “Your attitude towards your children becomes their attitude they have against themselves.”
You can see that from an early age.
Let’s say, you have a baby who is starting to eat with the spoon. It will make a tremendous difference whether you let that baby eat, encouraging it (with your whole attitude and your words) for trying – or you anxiously prevent the baby from spoiling the food and making a mess by learning.
The first Baby will learn to eat – happy and secure that it’s a capable baby.
The second Baby will learn to eat – insecure and scared if it’s really good enough to do it properly.
This is true for all of our children, whatever age they have.
It’s even true for our spouse – it does have a great impact on the way we see him/her!
The way we see our children, the way we deal with them, will be part of them when they grow up.
All your attitude to see the best in your child, to be proud of whom it is, all your affirming words, all your patience and all your effort to understand its heart will bring fruit in its time.
One day, while reading my Bible, God was talking to me through Isaiah 55:10
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven and do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater”
Reading it I realized that our words, our attitude toward our children are like rain… sometimes like snow. Snow lies there and it doesn’t seem to water the earth at the moment. It produces the feeling of cold, icy material on the ground. But this snow will not stay there eternally. One day, it will melt, it will water the earth – and bring forth fruit!
That’s exactly the way it is with all our investment into the lives of our children.
Yes we can spoil our children. We can mess them up by not setting boundaries, by showering them with material things instead of our presence.
However, we cannot spoil them by giving warmth, empathy, a listening ear or a compassionate heart. We can’t spoil them by picking up a crying baby, loving a toddler in the midst of a meltdown, approaching a distant child with a warm, loving attitude, responding to a challenging child by avoiding power-battles and reaching out to it in a sovereign attitude, affirming what we know to be its heart.
This is what I mean by showering our child’s soul.
And it goes even further than that: Showering our child’s spirit.
Many well-intended Christian parents that want to raise their children on biblical values teach their children scriptures from the Bible. That’s awesome. It‘s the word of God.
However, did you know that, telling a child by your attitude and by words that it is awesome and wonderfully made, is as well (and sometimes even with bigger impact) implanting God’s truth in their spirit? Based on that truth, they will have an awesome foundation for their own personal relationship with God!
So let’s become their inner voice. Let’s become their attitude they have toward themselves when they are adults. And let’s do that with wisdom, love and with the understanding that our lives have a powerful impact on their lives!!
