I don't know about you but I sometimes wonder how to best teach our daughter the qualities we want her to grow into. I came across this poem and felt the reassurance that where she's at at every stage of her development is part of the process and therefore, OK. I can learn to love all aspects of her as I discover the whole of who she's becoming!
If you want your children to be generous
you must first allow them to be selfish
If you want them to be disciplined.
you must first allow them to be spontaneous.
If you want them to be hard-working,
You must first allow them to be lazy.
This is a subtle distinction,
and hard to explain to those who criticize you.
A quality cannot be fully learned
without understanding its opposite
(from The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin)
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Interesting, thanks! I often tell my son, "The only reason you know how good it feels to WIN is because you have LOST." Same concept, eh? Info to think about...thank you :-)
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