It is amazing how different my children are from each other in personality, likes, skills, and temperament. Reading 1 Peter 4:10-11, I was reminded this week that each of my precious children has been given a specific personality and set of talents by our Maker. God has a wonderful plan for each of them and as their mom, I should strive to nurture and appreciate each child's talents and tailor my parenting to their individual traits.
Last year I was one of the helpers in my oldest son's pre-K Sunday School class and this year I am serving in this role for my daughter's class. My oldest son is almost always comfortable in his surroundings and is rarely intimidated by new people or new situations. On the other hand, my daughter is quite a bit more cautious. She has been in the pre-K class for 3 weeks and is just now starting to come out of her shell. Until recently I was a little concerned about how little she participated compared to her brother. What I have come to realize is that in actuality, she is perfectly fine - it's me that sometimes doesn't do a good job of navigating the differences between her and her brother. Rather than appreciating and accepting that she is more cautious, I kept trying to "help" her act more like her brother because that's what I was used to.
Despite being slower to warm up to new situations, my daughter is great at focusing for longer periods of time and completing tasks quickly and accurately. My mommy goal this week to to take some extra time to appreciate the individuality of each of my three kids' and to adapt my parenting to see what works best for each child's personality and temperament.
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