children’s character

I wrote this a while back and never published it. I suppose I was saving it for a rainy day. With BabyLoves here, and the world’s longest recovery, a little food for thought on character building that maybe someday we will be successful at! And no, I’m not going to quote Calvin’s dad from my favorite comic strip by Bill Waterson (still love reading Calvin and Hobbes), though he always told Calvin that doing X undesirable chore built his character. These are two Catholic sayings we grew up hearing that I think we’ll pass along to our children as well. I don’t think you have to be Catholic or Christian to appreciate them–as their properties of helping children become less self-focused are universally applicable through religious, spiritual, and moral beliefs of all kinds. 1) Offer it up. Yeah, does that one sound familiar, my Catholic friends? It means to stop complaining about something and instead, offer up your suffering for others. It’s like a Catholic version of sharing karma–like I’m suffering, but I’m going to channel my pain for someone else’s gain. This was frequently told to us when we whined in the car about not being there yet, whined at the dining table about not liking what was for dinner, or whined in bed because our sibling was hogging the covers. So is it just a polite, thinly veiled religious way of saying shut it to your kids? It could look like that, but I truly think it that…