We have seen the enemy and he is us

Today's idea is to pay attention to yourself.  It sounds selfish, but read on.  When a situation begins to escalate (and though I'm talking about at home, this is true of everywhere else also), you need to be aware of yourself enough to step on your own brakes and bring that situation to a stop.

As a dad, my role is not to win arguments but to train up my child in the way they should go.  To help them work through the difficulties they are experiencing.

Too many times, I am the cause of the problems of my child's bad reaction.  If I spoke to them or treated them the way I am trying to train them to speak and treat others, I would not receive the negative reaction I get.  I would say that in all my years of teaching, in a vast majority of situations where a child got in trouble for disrespecting a teacher, the teacher was guilty of disrespecting the child first.  Sometimes that was me.  It wasn't until I came to realize that I had to be in control of myself before I could be in control of my classroom, that this became less of an issue.  It sounds like an obvious thing to say, and it makes sense, but I had never really thought of it in that way before.

So, here's an idea, pay attention to yourself.  We have seen the enemy and he is us.