Rewarding Behaviors & Valentine’s Day Update

As parents, one our main goals is to instill in our daughter certain godly characteristics.  A couple weeks ago, I received some encouragement and confirmation that we are having some success in this area of parenting.

I was going through Melanie’s backpack and in it was completed school work.  In her folder, I found an award certificate for Student of the Month.  Apparently, our daughter was selected as Student of the Month for January.  We were so excited for her but were left wondering why she didn’t share the news with us.  She must have been practicing humility, right!?  Or, forgot to tell us, or just didn’t find it that extraordinary.  I asked her about it and she nonchalantly replied, “Yes, Mom.  Mrs. Tjempkma called my name at chapel and gave me an award.”  She didn’t know why she was chosen or what it was all about so I asked her teacher.  Her teacher delightfully expressed to me that Melanie was selected because she exhibited great focus and helpfulness in the classroom this past month.  We couldn’t be more proud of her.  I am praising God that we are able to send her to a school that rewards such behavior as helpfulness. 

On top of student of the month, her school during the month of January, was offering rewards if you were caught exhibiting the following behaviors; courtesy, courage, compassion, cooperation, etc.  Melanie received 19 rewards for her actions.  Then just yesterday, I witnessed Melanie and another student in her class greet each other with hugs and walk hand in hand up the steps into the school.  It was so sweet!   But then in the afternoon, I witnessed our daughter acting more like a typical self-centered 5-year old who likes to return negative and hurtful words for negative and hurtful words spoken to her.  We had a long talk about hurt feelings and not returning wrong for wrong.  All advice we could all use sometimes, I suppose.  However,  I feel as though we parents see our children in their worst moments most of the time or that is what we remember or most readily comes to mind and probably the same would be said for children seeing their parents in their worst moments too and we forget about the times when they make us proud and relieved.   So today, I am going to praise my daughter for her positive behavior and make a note about it in this blog so I can remember just how kind she can be.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change of Subject -

  Jason escorted Melanie to the Father Daughter Dance again this year.  They stayed out really late and even went out for ice cream.  But the best was when Melanie realized that she had left her flowers at the dance call across town, Jason drove back to get them.  I am not sure I would have done that.  Way to go Dad!  As for dancing, Melanie says she likes to dance to fast songs rather than slow songs and that she requested a Taylor Swift song for her Daddy to dance too.  Daddy said she left him on the dance floor mid-song a couple times, because she got distracted by her friends.  Daddy might have to teach her some dancing etiquette! LOL! 

We had a wonderful Valentine’s Day at home.  I made Jason his favorite dinner – fried chicken, rosemary potatoes and artichokes, along with lemon bars, with lemons from our tree.   Melanie and I made Valentine’s for her class and our family.  It was a good week celebrating our love for each other.