let the school year begin

For anyone out there who has school aged children, here are some great tips for how to make things a little bit better this year.

I especially like number 9, "Concentrate on their hearts more than their behavior" and I think it is so important to remember that. Sometimes as parents we shake our heads, and ask "what were you thinking?" or "why did you do that?" or my favorite "seriously?". The circumstances often make us want to scream and shout, often with much banging of our own heads on the wall in frustration.

Take a moment to dig deeper and find out where their heart was in whatever the particular situation is. I know that when we do that, we find that they didn't really mean to color on the carpet, paint the walls or cut a hole in the couch. Kids are kids, and they don't always know the consequences of their actions, it's a trial and error thing. Don't be too harsh on the errors, as they will have more opportunity to learn from these if we react in an appropriate way.

Except she did mean to cut a hole in the couch. She said so. And now, Eleanor is banned from scissors. And our couch? Suffered yet another war wound of living with a 6 year old.