It doesn’t matter what rules you set forth for your children, once they hit the teen years, they become perfect mirrors of you. They speak the way your speak, they have many of your opinions, and if you are unhealthy, chances are they are too.
This fact has been driven home for us this summer. My husband and I have spent the entire summer trying to get my kids off the couch and outside. We push them out the front door and they come back in the side door, just like they did when they were five years old. We finally found success in promoting more fitness for them when we got into the act.
My husband had some success with my son stretching and lifting weights in the evening but he doesn’t really have time to do it regularly enough. Without my husband, my son remained unmotivated. My daughter picked up her level activity with a summer camp she attended for a few weeks but until I got up and started walking daily, she refused. After a week of walking with my daughter, my son decided he was missing something, and now he and the dogs come for the trip too.
I have wanted to stay in bed so many mornings since we started walking. But realizing that I was doing it not only for my good health and habits, but theirs as well.
This does not stop with the small area of physical health. There are so many things a parent must demonstrate, especially in teen years. My kids have my temperament, which can sometimes get bad. My kids rooms are no cleaner than my own. My kids willingness to learn is no stronger than my own thirst for knowledge.
Of course this isn’t new information. The old sayings “The apple doesn’t fall to far from the tree”, and “Like father like son” had to come from somewhere. Still it needs repeating because we so often forget how closely our kids are watching and how many things they pick up from us no matter how small the nuance.
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