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Raise Your Children To Be Ordinary
If you want your children to be happy, expect them to do average things. Don’t burden them with your expectation that they should be extraordinary.
For children play is the work that they need to do. Play should proceed without parental structure or rules, other than those that keep children safe. Childhood is about experimentation, exploration and excitement. There is something new to discover everyday. Encouragement is not the same thing as expectation. One can exist without the other.
Parents are often as excited about watching their kids making discoveries as the kids are. However, excitement in a child can quickly be extinguished by an overbearing parent who turns that excitement into the chore of fulfilling an expectation.
For example, a first foray with finger paint can be one of the silliest things you ever do with your little one. A mess will certainly ensue, and the mess is half the fun of the exercise. For your child the mess might be the reason for finger painting. Expecting a Picasso from a three year old is unrealistic. Expecting paint in her hair, on her clothes, in your hair and on your clothes is more probable.
A masterpiece will not be the outcome in anyone else’s eyes but your own. Buying an…
