Most of us consider the New Year a time for new beginnings and new hope for better choices. We make big plans and somehow, we always fall short on that overwhelming list of unachievable resolutions and promises. But this year, what if we took a step back and thought about the New Year in terms of something much smaller? What if this year, we took the time to consider our littles and what new hope we’d like to share with them? What if this year, we started off thinking about how to make the next generation, healthier and wiser and better than we are? What would that look like? For me, it would look something like this – be the person we hope our children will one day be. Act like the adults we hope they will become. Want your children to be kind? Be kind. Want your children to be considerate? Be considerate. Want your children to grow up to be amazing? Well, then, be amazing.
All too often we expect our children to do as we say and not as we do, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Actually, that should be “fortunately” because the good news is that raising tolerant, accepting, loving humans is far simpler than we like to make it. This year, when contemplating your New Year’s resolution, consider the world through the eyes of your children, and think small. Maybe start by accepting others for who they are, not for who we would like them to be. Just one way to think small, and become the person we hope we are raising.
Happy, healthy, wonderful 2018 to you and your littles!
Laura Fogarty
Editor, Ask Lala
Laura Fogarty writes “Ask Lala” for the Stop Abuse Campaign. She is a mother, an advocate and the author of two children’s abuse prevention books: I’M THE BOSS OF ME! and WE ARE JUST ALIKE!