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I am your child..

I am your child.

Hold me. Nurture me. Teach me. Listen to me.

The first years last forever.

From birth to age three are the most important years in a child's brain development.

The time that defines who they become.

Read on a banner on the web.

If I Had My child to Raise Over Again

If I had my child to raise all over again,

I'd finger-paint more, and point the fingers less.

I would do less correcting and more connecting.

I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I would care to know less and know to care more.

I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.

I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.

I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I'd do more hugging and less tugging.

I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.

I'd teach less about the love of power,

And more about the power of love.

By Diane Loomans

from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul

On Parenting

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and

He bends with you His might that His arrows might go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

by Kahli Gibran from Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1993 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen