The best thing since sliced bread....

Early, early morning.... BLAH!  I was awoken at 4 a.m. because I had NO covers.  Hannah was awake as well so we just laid there snuggling until it was a respectable hour to get out of bed.  As I lay there gazing upon this perfect thing called my daughter, my heart swelled with love for her.  I whispered to her, "Hannah, if I tried for the rest of my life, I could NEVER explain to you how much I love you."  She said, "I love you too Momma."  Then I said, "I think you are the best thing since sliced bread."  She just smiled and snuggled in closer.

I was just talking with my friend Lori about this yesterday.  About how I try so hard to pour as much positive, as much love, as much cherishing into my children as possible.  I remember being a first year teacher and attending a seminar where I was told that it takes ten positive comments to outweigh one negative comment.  I have tried so hard to remind myself of that while parenting.  There are SO many negative things we NEED to say to our children:  "You forgot to turn off the light." "You missed a spot." "Do NOT hit your brother!"  Making sure to get in ten positive comments per negative can be a daunting task!  But I am a sucker for the daunting tasks, so I try HARD to make sure that my children know I think they are the best thing since sliced bread.

When I was a teacher and I struggled with a difficult student, I would employ the "catch 'em being good" theory of teaching.  I often use this theory with my children too.  See I have found that when you praise a child (or any person) all they want is MORE and MORE praise from you.  So if you "catch" someone doing a few good things and you recognize those, they want to do more good things to get more recognition.  I employed this yesterday with Elijah.  He was NOT interested in reading, but that is really not a choice I'm willing to allow.  So I started out reading some of the words I knew he would have to sound out to read and paused when I got to REALLY familiar words.  As he read the familiar ones I cheered and effused about how great he was!  Before I knew it his attitude had changed RIGHT AROUND, and we were zipping through that book!

I'm not sure why this is on my heart today.  I'm not sure if someone reading this needs to hear it to help them with their relationship with a child, a student, a friend, a husband.  I don't know, but I know this:  people like to be praised.  People like to be appreciated.  People like to be built up.  Stop and THINK!  Is there someone in your life you are struggling with right now?  Can you "catch 'em being good?"  Or could you even just remind yourself of the good things about them and then tell them those things?  Positive words and affirmation are like rain to parched ground.  Try to shower those in your life with some today!