Practical Parenting Ideas

Your good example won’t melt away

The November issue of Parents featured an article on how to help your child develop a conscience by setting a good example. "Look for opportunities to be kind," advised Bernice Weissbourd of Family Focus. Your children will notice and learn.

This past January, Chicago was socked with a record snowfall. There’s something festive about such an event, and people on our block gathered out in the streets, clearing away snow, uncovering automobiles, and generally being neighborly.

Listening to my 16-year-old daughter, Patti, and her next-door friend Christopher, I got a lesson in the power of example. People were retelling stories of previous blizzards, and Christopher chimed in with a fond remembrance of how, years ago, before he was even born, his grandmother made soup for bus drivers who were stranded on a major thoroughfare during the "great snow of ’67." "She was just like that," Christopher said. "Always helping other people."

At that point we heard the whirring of tires spinning in snow. A car was stuck in a drift down the street. Without a word, Christopher and Patti dashed off with shovels and youthful energy to dig the neighbor out. "Look for opportunities to be kind." Someone impressionable may be watching, generation after generation.

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