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Do You Keep Your Promises to Your Kids?
I was bringing my kids home from a long day of play
one Fall night not long ago. It was a difficult
ride home, and they were tired, hungry, and whiny.
I wanted to get them home as fast as I could.
As we neared our house, my son exclaimed,
“You said you’d take us for ice
cream!” I cringed when I heard this, because I
remembered that I’d promised that I’d
take them for ice cream. I began to give excuses
concerning why we needed to go home.
They would have none of it.
I turned the car around, and we went to get ice
cream.
We got home past their bed time, and they were
tired. But there was something that felt good about
this ice cream trip. I kept my word to my kids. And
my word is something that I always want them to be
able to count on.
Your kids will have an incredible memory for the
promises you make to them. In fact, you can assume
that any promise you’ve ever made to your kids
has been remembered.
It’s important to know why this is so. When
kids are younger, they have very powerful emotions
that dominate their lives. Can you remember how
excited you were as a young child when you went to
a ball game for the first time or went on a
trip?
Kids live in their emotions, and when they hear
something promised to them, they get very excited.
They can picture the promise happening and keep it
with them in a way that’s much more powerful
than we’re able to. For this reason, they
won’t forget what you promise them. Ever! So
don’t even think about making a promise that
you might not be able to keep.
It doesn’t take too much for kids to begin
to lose trust in you. A few broken promises can
have a big impact on a child. Very simply, one of
your jobs as a father (parent) is to keep your
promises. Treat them as sacred, and do what’s
necessary to keep them.
Some day your kids may grow up and have their
own kids.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see that
they’ve learned the importance of keeping
their promises with them?
© 2008 Mark
Brandenburg
Other Father Issues,
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* * *
To this day I can remember my father's
voice, singing over me in the stillness of the
night. - Carl G. Jung
Mark has
a Masters degree in counseling psychology and has
been a counselor, business consultant, sports
counselor, and a certified life and business coach.
He has worked with individuals, teams, and
businesses to improve their performance for over 20
years. Prior to life and business coaching Mark was
a world-ranked professional tennis player and has
coached other world-ranked athletes. He has helped
hundreds of individuals to implement his coaching
techniques. Mark specializes in coaching men to
balance their lives and to improve the important
relationships in their lives. He is the author of
the popular e-books, 25
Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent
Fathers
 ,
and Fix
Your Wife in 30 Days or Less (And Improve Yourself
at the Same Time
).
Mark is also the publisher of the “Dads
Don’t Fix your Kids” ezine for fathers.
To sign up, go to www.markbrandenburg.com
or E-Mail
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