Children Live Within the Enviroments Created by Their Parents.

Have you given much thought to the environments where your children are living?  Your answer, obviously would be, "of course."  Parents sacrifice so they can raise their children in nice houses in safe neighborhoods, with good schools, cultural opportunities, and leisure activities.

Is that enough?

Providing for your child's physical, cultural and recreational needs is necessary and important.  When you do the best you can and provide safe housing with opportunities for your children, take a deep breath and feel satisfied with what you have done.

Remember, from a mental fitness perspective, it is important to focus and act to create the environments you want for your children.  Today I would like to reflect on the environments, which you create for your children.

Parents create many environments for their children. These environments mold and shape our children.  Unfortunately, we often do not think very much about these environments.  We, sometimes, forget that how we think, express our feelings, resolve conflicts, manage our affairs, relate, and live our everyday lives create learning environments for our children. 

We all know children can learn what we take time to teach them.  What we sometimes forget is that children learn by imitating and identifying with us, not just by what we say.  Children will imitate and can learn our quirks as well as our outstanding features.  Children will identify with us and try to be exactly like us.

Also, children learn intentionally and incidentally.  Children probably learn more incidentally than intentionally. 

Often, we don't think about the effect of our usual life style on our children.  We forget:

• If our house is cluttered, our children are living in clutter and learning "it is right" to create cluttered environments. 
• If our house is overly clean and structured, our children may be living in a too sterile environment and learning "it is right" to create similar environments. 
• If we don't have expectations and structure for our children, they are living and learning "it is right" to create environments without expectations and structure.

These are just a few examples.  There are way too many examples to be exhaustive, here.

My mental fitness tip for today is:  Focus on what your children are learning incidentally.  Focus and act to create the environment you want your children to live in and create as "normal for them".

Remember, You Also Live in the Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Comments

[local girl]

Great post. I never really thought about that way before. A real eye opener.

Thank you for sharing this with the Carnival of Family Life.

[Lisa]

What a great and important message to get out. I think parents often underestimate what their children are learning from their environment.

Here via the carnival of family life.

[AnferTuto]

Hola faretaste
mekodinosad

[MalkEvange]

Interesting article!
Where can I find more on this theme?