Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

fun-loving way). All three learned to ride their bikes before they were four years old. Now that they are all in elementary school, his kids are experienced veterans of all things outdoors, and they love nature. As you might expect, Karl is one proud, Mother Earth–loving father.
    Dirk and Emily have done everything they can to be both environmentally conscious and active with their son, Isaac. They send him to school with a waste-free lunch, which means no plastic bags and that anything he doesn’t eat has to be brought home for composting. They also buy only organic food, such as produce and meats, from local growers. Dirk and Emily make shopping an environmental adventure for the family. For example, they visit a ranch not far from their house where they choose cuts of organic meat, chicken, and pork. The ranch also raises chickens, and Isaac is able to go into the henhouse and handpick their eggs. And Isaac loves playing with the piglets, goats, and calves!
    Bob and Maria read a newspaper article about “simplicity parenting,” the premise of which was that, by simplifying a family’s environment, parents could raise happier and less stressed children. As they read the article, they realized that this approach could also help Mother Nature. They looked around their house and saw, really for the first time, a lot of junk: toys that their children never used, games that they never played, and enough clothing in their children’s drawers and closets to outfit an army of little people. For example, they looked in their four-year-old daughter’s short-sleeved-shirt drawer and found, much to their shock, that she had thirty-eight shirts (and that didn’t include her long-sleeved shirts!). Bob and Maria decided to simplify, and they recruited their kids to help. Each of their three children were allowed to keep fifteen of everything they owned, including toys, games, shirts, pants, dresses, underwear, and socks (they could keep all the books they wanted). Bob and Maria had to follow suit, cleaning out their own closets. Their children were happy to get rid of some stuff, but vociferously resisted discarding other things (kids can get attached to their stuff!). But with some coaxing and surreptitious removal, the entire family successfully filled more than a dozen garbage bags with stuff.
    But the cleansing process didn’t end there. To throw everything out would have been against their green ethic. So to make this an exercise in environmental stewardship as well as simplification, their family held a garage sale. The sale was a huge success and a great testament to the saying, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” Over the weekend-long sale, they unburdened themselves of most of the items.
    Bob and Maria wanted to communicate several other messages to their children through this experience. They donated the remaining items to a local charitable thrift shop, sending the message of compassion. To reward their children’s efforts, Bob and Maria gave each of them five dollars to spend or save as they wished, conveying a message of gratitude. (To their parents’ pleasant surprise, twoof the children decided to save the money.) The rest of the money earned from the garage sale was divided among the three children to each give to their favorite charity. By the end of the weekend, there were five exhausted, yet satisfied and simplified, souls in their home. Now the family repeats this purifying experience yearly.

PART IV
Others Like Me
     

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Message #7: Respect Is Your Child’s Measure (“The Look”)
     
    The value of respect is one of the most powerful messages that children need to get. It acts as the foundation for others liking your children (no one likes disrespectful people) and for your children establishing healthy relationships. Yet, despite its obvious importance to your children’s development, it is a difficult attribute to define. We all know what it feels like to be treated with respect and how it feels to be “dissed.” But what exactly does respect entail? A common dictionary definition refers to respect as an appreciation, admiration, esteem, or deference toward another person. But I don’t find that characterization thoroughly satisfying. So I came up with this: Valuing someone enough to treat them with kindness, consideration, honesty, fairness, politeness, and trust. And your children should learn that respect applies to you, other people they encounter, and, very