The Four Agreements for Children

Many Moons ago, I began to blog on a series focusing on the Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. Since beginning this series, I found out I was expectant with Child #2, have since given birth and celebrated her first birthday. I am now back on the Mommy writing circuit, and with new gusto, I might add.

Taking advantage of nap time, I embrace my role as Mother at Home. One of the ways I am embracing being Mommy at Home, is by spending more time with the kids and less time obsessing about what the house looks like. Both of my children are mobile vortexes of toy movement, so I don't even think about cleaning up toys.

One of the concepts We (my husband and I) have been working to teach our 4 1/2 year-old is that words are magic. Whatever we say can actually happen. So we need to choose them carefully. This comes in handy now that he interacts with other children at preschool. He has to be around lots of other opinions and we need to teach him that only his opinion matters (about himself.) He comes home from preschool some days and says in a downtrodden voice, "Casper said I was a little kid." I ask him, "Do you think you're a little kid?" He'll give me a long-winded 4-year-old answer, which essentially comes down to "No, I don't think I'm little." He gets to decide what is true about him and what's not. He got downright mad at me this morning for saying he was funny! Apparently, he didn't want to be. I had to sidestep an outburst in the parking lot at school. "Okay, you're not funny!" Then I gave him a hug and told him we should both have a good day, and maybe shouting isn't the way to go.

So, while I am trying to teach him, as well as set an example, I feel like I am running out of parenting tools. One of the more helpful tools has been to spend time reading with Carrick in the evening. While I read to him, I wish I had a children's book(s) illustrating for them the concepts of the Four Agreements.