April 21, 2025 Practice What You Preach
“If yo"I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear..." - Edgar Guest
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Listen to, or read this meditation on audio:
The above quote by Reverend Edgar Guest provides a gentle reminder about a very important aspect of good parenting: in addition to telling or instructing our children, it is crucially important that they also see us doing the things, or not doing the things that we incessantly chide them about. Instruction and direction are certainly major activities for anyone who would fain to do the challenging job of being a good parent. Our tone of voice as we address our children, demonstrates a lesson that they will quickly pick up on; you are teaching what tone to take with someone perhaps younger than you are. Are you teaching the right lesson? How you handle emergency situations also becomes a lesson for them to emulate when they have emergencies. Do you panic? Are you calm? Do you act like an adult or like a frighten child? Whatever your reaction, you are teaching them how to respond in an emergency. Are you one who belittles others in their presence? An Aunt? An Uncle? A neighbor? Their teacher? Do you treat those persons differently when they are present? Is that a demonstration of how to be two-faced; smiling in their faces, and then talking about them behind their backs? Let's face it. Being a role model for your children, which is what parents should be, is not easy. Parents are human too, and yet must not ever forget that we, as parents, are teaching our children how to handle themselves in the world. Fortunately, our children are not clones, and so are not totally inclined to mimic everything we say or do. That fact, does not relieve us of the responsibility of modeling moral adult behavior. We should always remember that while our children are learning something from us as we are talking directly to them they are equally learning a lot as they observe us talking to and interacting with others. so much more could be sit on this really important topic, but I'll just close with this. Don't demonstrate what you don't want them to imitate.
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