"You can't give what you don't have," some people say, and if you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it.
The edition of The New York Public Library Desk Reference we have might be a little outdated, but the rules of ice hockey haven’t changed, nor the way in which one addresses a letter to the Pope, nor the date of the discovery of Krypton. (Some of you thought it was just a Superman thing, didn’t you? Nope--1898, the year before aspirin.)
(Before the internet, people had reference books, and even then they seemed like trivia. Trivia can be the interesting door that leads to strange, new knowledge.)
How can one get from resentment and rigidity to an outpouring of love? Too mushy? It happens.
Making the shift photo by Sandra Dodd
I first credited Holly. She says she put the rose in the bottle,
but I'm the one who took the photo. It's been a while.
"Pay close attention to your children. Really see what they are doing, what they are interested in, what they are enjoying, what frustrates them, what they like and what they don't like."
Children can only hear "no" so many times before they start to ignore it, so we helped them make good decisions when they were young, and saved "no" for really important things.