If you can't say anything nice.......

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as I did (I say everyone, as if I have a mass of followers, anyway, I hope you both...). I thought I was share my favorite picture from out Christmas.



This was the Princess Dress that her Uncle Josh and Aunt A got Allie. I believe that she would have slept in it had we let her.





This sums up how she felt about Christmas this year...... She is kissing her Dora doll that her Cousin Lyndsey got her. Every time she opened a gift she would exclaim "I Love It!"



So a couple of weeks ago, John and I made a deal to go all day without saying anything negative to or about each other or anyone else. Boy, was that harder than I thought it was going to be! However, by making it a conscious decision, we were blessed with a really good day, maybe even the best one in a while. It got me to thinking....... I know, it can be dangerous..... Why is it that we tend to face the most criticism, and deal out the most criticism, when we are around our family? Shouldn't our family, and our homes, be the safest place on Earth? Shouldn't we be recharged by our family rather than ridiculed? With most of us taking a big sigh of relief that the Holidays are almost over, no more rushing here and there, no more having to "endure" another family gathering; maybe it's time to decide to make 2011 a year that we live by Mom's rule "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." I wonder if we would look at the Holidays of 2011 with a little different view.

So that brings me to my most treasured piece of parenting advice. We should be very careful what we speak over our children. I have recently spent some time with a family of Generational Negative Nelly's. And No! I won't tell you who I am talking about. But this family has for generations spoken negative things over their children. I am not saying that they are an abusive family by any means. From most standpoints, they seems very normal and loving, but with ears open and mouth closed, you can pick up a lot. I don't necessarily blame the parents, because they are simply dealing with the low self esteem that they inherited from their mother and father. However, I think that each of us are responsible for how we choose to treat others. I think that how we treat our children, speaks volumes about how we feel about ourselves. After all, our children are the closest thing to "ourselves" as we get.

So let me explain the "things" I am referring to when I say be careful what you speak over your children. Have you ever had a child over to your house and when you told the parent how well behaved they were the parent responded "Well, you should have to spend an hour with them at our house!" Or how about, have you ever overheard a mother shopping with a teenage girl say "That shirt is way too little for you!" As parents, we have been blessed with the most wonderful gift on Earth, next to God's grace and salvation, don't you think we ought to treat it a little better than that?! I don't think that these parents are intending to bring harm to their children, but who said that you can't bring your child up to believe that they are God's gift? They are, aren't they?

I wonder what the world would be like if everyone were made to believe that they were special and important, just the way that they are. My Meme took every opportunity she had to tell me that I was perfect. I still managed to experience enough negative interpersonal conversation to level me out. I just think that there are enough people in the world to tell us that we are not good enough, shouldn't we get enough good things said about us at home to negate some of the bad things?