On the first Monday of the month for a while I’ll post a chapter from the book. If you love what you see here, you can get 100 more very much like it by picking the book up on Amazon.
Here’s a frustrating fact about parenting. Our kids don’t listen much, but they are always watching. It’s frustrating because that’s how they catch us when we don’t walk our talk.
I grew up in the 1980s, during which time there was a famous public service commercials on television about not using drugs. It featured a heated exchange between father and son. When the father asked “Where did you learn to do this?” about the son’s drug use, the son replied “I learned it from watching you!”
The ad’s a bit over the top, but that message applies to so much more than drugs. How your child wears a seatbelt in the car, they learn by watching what you do with your seatbelt. How your child thinks and talks about school, they learn from watching how you talk about your education and theirs. How they treat their romantic partners, how often they tell the truth, whether or not they text while driving. Whether they wear a helmet while riding a bike.
All of it, they learn by watching you.
Which means it’s our job as parents to live by example, demonstrating the safety habits and practicing the techniques we think are important. First they see us do it, then they help us do it. Eventually they’ll remind us to do it…and as adults, they’ll teach the same things to our grandchildren.
The Next Level
When I work with clients or present at events, the biggest questions I get asked is how to talk to kids about safety without scaring them.
I understand the worry. Many parents fear that discussing potential dangers will plant the idea of those dangers in a little one’s mind. I’ll go into that in more detail later, but for now…
When our kids see us, looking both ways when crossing the street, at first they don’t think about it at all. Later on they might ask about it. When we tell them we do that so we’re safer from being hit by a car, one of two things happens. In one case, they’ve already been exposed to the idea of that danger, and you give them a new tool to help prevent it. In the other, this is the first time they’ve thought about the risk of being hit by a car, and their first exposure to this potentially scary idea comes with the knowledge that you are already doing something about it, and teaching them a way to be safer, too.
That seems to me less scary and more empowering than any other way to discuss safety with our kids.