Tooth Fairy Strikes Again

My youngest son lost his 2nd tooth in three weeks and the tooth fairy comes again with another crisp $5 bill which I am sure he will want to apply either toward Amazon credit for more Kindle Fire apps or possibly toward something else.  The funny thing is we give my son Pizza money for his pre-school every Friday and he insisted on paying with his own tooth fairy money for his Pizza, he wanted it to be out of his money and took pride that he paid for it the other week.  We let him because he had that sense of pride that comes with paying for something yourself even though we told him that he didn’t feel like he had to pay his own money for school lunch.

Both of my kids have good traits when it comes to sharing, my oldest son wanted to treat his best friend to a hot chocolate at school the other morning to return the favor when his friend did the same for him a few weeks ago.  He instinctively wanted to return the favor just because he wanted to and it feels good as a parent to see your kids display positive traits that you can see will stay and last with them growing up.  We always try to instill them to be humble, and share and be kind above all things.  My kids only see equals in everyone, they know no judgment of others.

The biggest key to parenting is that you have to practice what you preach, kids are imitators and they will mirror a parents habit.  If you show compassion, kindness, care and truly show you have respect for people then they will pick up and consider it the norm.   Personality of course plays a factor, but it is much harder to preach (and get it to stick) something that you don’t yourself practice.  I just thank goodness my kids don’t swear at all because they know it’s wrong and I occasionally let a good swear out (okay, more than occasionally).

-Justin Germino