Don’t Do These Things in Front of Your Kids

When a baby comes into your life, a lot of things change. You introduce changes in your home in order to make space for the kid and you introduce some major changes in your financial plans to make sure that the kid’s future is secured. But what really changes is you, yourself! You do not smoke in the living-room anymore and you do not swear when the kids are around, but what about watching TV? You can’t yell at your kids, telling them to adapt a more active lifestyle while you spend 3 hours in front of the TV.
Kids learn how to speak by listening to what you are saying. Similarly, they discover how to live their lives by studying your actions. So, parents should remain careful about what they are saying and what they are doing, while the kids are around. Avoid these 6 bloomers while your little one is watching you –

• Do not Tell White Lies – You get pulled over for speeding and you tell the cop, “My daughter has an appointment with the doctor in 5 minutes.” She is sitting in the back seat, listening to your lie and she’ll conclude that it’s okay to lie about things in order to get out of trouble. So next time don’t get mad when she tells you, “A bird entered the house and stole my home-work.”
• Kids are Literal – While having dinner you teasingly said, “You swallowed watermelon seeds? Now a watermelon will grow inside you”. Your kid will never touch a watermelon again. Remember that kids are literal, all the time!
• Keeping Secrets – After having a snack at McDonald’s you whisper to your son, “Don’t tell mommy we snuck out for the fries”. You might think such lies are harmless but you don’t realize that you’re indirectly telling your kid, “Lying to your partner is not that big a deal”.
• Losing Temper – Kids have the tendency to assume that bad things happen due to their faults. If you lose your temper because your favourite team is out of the tournament now, you’ll probably end up frightening your kid.
• Making Fun of a Relative – Addressing people by saying, “crazy Aunt Ruth” or “your loser friend from high school” in front of your kid is not a great idea. These impressions imprint in your child’s memory forever. You can’t demonstrate that it’s cool to insult people. So, keep your feelings about the annoying relatives or friends to yourself.
• Making Fun of Their School or Teacher – We all remember those 2-3 wacky teachers we had while we were growing up. But you can’t assume your kids feel the same way about their teachers at school. Your harmless comments about your kid’s dorky science teacher will make him lose respect for that teacher or for the school altogether.