- Go with the flow. Don't worry about every little thing.
- Play good music for them. Sing to them.
- learn how to talk to them about hard things. Help them understand by being a loving parent, and respect their processes.
- Give them original or family names, but short ones that are easy to spell, or ensure that they have good nicknames.
- Don't try to be too quiet while they sleep: they'll never be able to sleep through the night.
- Foster their creativity and imagination at every step: let them draw on their bedroom walls, dress themselves, read to you. Hang their art from every surface in your house.
- Tell them how much you love them and how beautiful they are every single day.
- Try not to yell at them; they're just kids.
- Teach them their phone number and their parents' phone numbers and how to call 9-1-1.
- Expose them to different cultures all the time: people, places, foods, music.
- Read to them. Read with them.
- Teach them to use money wisely. Don't spoil them (rotten).
- Don't hide details of your own personal life from them. How will they learn what not to do?
- Listen to them. Take the time to explain things to them.
- Be silly. Jump on beds. Run around. Play dress-up. Wrestle. Just play.
- Enroll them in music, art, sports, theater, dance, underwater basketweaving, something, anything.
- Make sure they go fishing with their uncles and grandpa.
- Love their father in front of them: dance together, have fights (but be sure to make up), hold hands.
- Take them to church, raise them in Christ, but let them decide for themselves.
- Take them camping, even in the backyard.
- Photograph everything.
- Let them believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny. These hold the magic of childhood.
- Have pets. Have farm animals. Give them responsibilities.
- Cook and bake with them all the time. Foster healthy eating habits, but let them know that ice cream is not a bad thing.
- Grow a garden with them to teach them to appreciate where natural, fresh food comes from.
- Travel with them. They'll be better at geography, they'll learn new languages and experience new cultures.
- Build a tree fort and a couch-pillow fort with them, maybe even a christmas-tree fort.
- Their toys should use use imagination, not always electricity, and should foster healthy body images.
- Encourage patriotism, instill manners, demand honor.
- Teach them to respect themselves and others above all else. Don't harbor sexist, racist, or other stereotype mindsets.
- Go to the library, museum, children's theater, and park often.
- Do their homework with them.
- Give them privacy, but make sure they know that trust must come with responsibility.
- Pray for them every day. Pray with them.
- Make things with them: macaroni cards and reupholstered couches and from-scratch brownies.
- Speaking of brownies: don't freak out when you find pot in their room.
- Be a shoulder for them to cry on, but be a role model they respect.
feb 23 2010 ∞
dec 5 2015 +
dec 5 2015 +