Lately I have been feeling like I'm one of the few parents who cares about instilling respect in her children. When I refer to respect, I don't only mean respecting adults and others, I also mean the way that children speak. More and more I am observing the harsh and inappropriate way that children not only speak to each other but to adults. This leaves me wondering why they weren't taught that it is not okay to talk to others that way. Case in point, a few weeks ago my son shared with me that one of his cousins told him to "shut up" and referred to him as an "idiot." My children are not perfect and they do the things that kids do but, one thing I can say with certainty is that they have been taught not to use those words in their conversations or towards others. How do I even begin to address that with my sibling or any parent for that matter? Let's be completely honest, most parents don't respond too well to parenting constructive criticism, myself included. Now, … [Read more...]
Uninvited Guest
I am here to report that I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family! Everything went smoothly and there were no surprises. That is, except for one huge surprise, my Mother In Law crashed Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I said crashed because she was definitely not invited. There were a number of reasons for that including the fact that she lives out of state, that we haven't seen her in over a year, and that she hates me. I'm not exaggerating, the woman really despises me. It would stand to reason that she would go out of her way to avoid having to see me, however, she has always done everything within her power to be a troublemaker and to get on my nerves. Let me describe the scene to you, everyone was sitting down getting ready to eat the Thanksgiving meal together when my husband received a call from his sister that they were here in New York and they wanted to come over to the house. I knew this was a recipe for disaster because of our history together but … [Read more...]
