Free Advise

Have you ever heard Hal Runkel Thursday mornings on 97.1 with The Morning Zoo? He's a family and child expert that has coined the term of "Scream Free Parenting." I may not agree with all his philosophies on child rearing but for the most part he has some pretty interesting things to say. So I decided to sign up for his free daily emails a few months ago and here's one that I received recently...

"God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest." ~J.G. Holland

We have it backwards in our culture as parents. We think that we are doing our children harm if we aren’t able to give them the things in life that we didn’t have. In reality, we do our children harm if we don’t provide them the opportunity to develop the things in life that we can’t give them. You may be able to give them the shiniest toys and the newest gizmos, but you can’t give your child self esteem, discipline, character, or compassion. Those are things which must be earned by them alone. We do real injustice to our kids when we don’t expose them to things like delayed gratification and hard work. Make the choice today to give your kids the things in life that will last a whole lot longer than an Xbox360. It won’t be a popular choice in their eyes. But since when is parenting a popularity contest?

His advise is pretty levelheaded and can be quite a challenge to implement but overall I'm very impressed. If you want to learn more go to:

http://www.screamfree.com/site/PageServer?pagename=tip_of_the_day_signup