You teach your kids every day, every minute of your life.
You don't need to have a chalkboard (or an iPad) in front of them - the lessons most likely to stick longest and hardest are the things you say and do.
Some of the lessons learned will be good. Some will be bad. Many will be relatively benign - just sort of behavioural stuff.
Many of the lessons you teach by example will stick with them for life, especially the lessons you aren't intending to teach.
For instance, I rarely heard my dad swear. In fact, I only ever heard the "f" word from him once. I was deep in my teens, and two of my brothers and I had committed a negligence that cost one of our dogs his life.
Even then, the word came out muffled and strained - it was plain that he had tried to stop it, even as it was leaving the end of his tongue.
Interestingly, I can trace my concern for animal welfare to that moment. It wasn't that I didn't care before, but his use of "that" word impressed on me like nothing else how much value my father placed on life - all life - and he has always been a man of such integrity and respect that the value was imputed into me with full force that very instant.
To this day, when I see an animal suffering, I am brought back to that moment of my dad's stern rebuke and I curse under my breath.
There was another word that Dad often expostulated, as part of a rather curt phrase, when suffering a sharp pain such as bashing a finger or stubbing a toe.
I won't repeat the word here, because although it was even then the mildest of swear words and I seriously doubt that anyone these days would so much as blink an eye at it, when my dad said it - you can trust me on this - it was a swear word.
If you really want to know what that curt phrase is, all you have to do is be near me when I bash a finger or stub a toe.
It's involuntary. It comes out instantly and automatically. It's one of those relatively benign life lessons that has been passed along from father to son, inadvertently, I'm sure.
If your kids are in the room while you're reading this newspaper - or a magazine or a book or even the back of a cereal box - you can be sure that, somewhere in the nether cracks and crannies of their brains, they are taking notes.
If they see you reading often, whether they are toddlers or preteens, or even rebellious teenagers, you can be sure that they will become lifelong readers. That's one of the good life lessons that you can pass along, just by being who you are.
Here's another good one: if you respect people who deserve respect, you'll find that your kids will almost certainly grow up respectful. And respected.
On the other hand, if you lie to the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, whether it's to save/steal a penny or to get out of a social engagement with friends. that is not one of the good life lessons that your example will inculcate in your children: they will travel throughout the pathways of their lives with a bit of the liar and sneak in them.
Of course, you will call them "little white lies" - making them only worse.
And here's one I see almost every day: if you drive like an idiot, speeding, cutting from lane to lane, sneaking through amber (or red!) lights, blowing stop signs, uttering profanities at the old bat who drives too slow, or giving the finger to the stupid fool who makes a small error (or who is driving the way you are), your kids will grow up driving like idiots - just like you.
If they grow up at all. [email protected]
