What ARE you teaching your kids today???

And so it goes that children are forever learning. We try and teach, such as I am currently battling to teach Hurricane and Diva how to share. Yet as I sit on my deck, cold can of coke in my hands and Diva at my feet pouting enormously because I won't let her have any, I realise that I am in fact teaching them how not to share. My bad habits only rivaled by my hypocrisy, I won't let my darling little 1yo have some coca cola, so why should she let people have stuff of hers that she doesn't want them to!

I came to the conclusion that I had to do one of two things. One was to give up all my bad habits. The other was to take the alternate route and try and teach the kids that sometimes sharing is not such a good thing.

I would love nothing more than to share with my little Diva, but I won't even share so much as a glass of water with her. I may sound like a heinous bitch, but its in her best interest. You see, I get coldsores. I have no problem with sharing the water - just would prefer not to share HSV1 with my children. As HSV1 sheds 5% of the time, and we never actually know when that 5% is, I err on the side of caution and avoid any situation that would share it 100% of the time. With careful management I have not had an outbreak in a couple of years, but the threat looms.

After all, I have had them for as long as I can remember, so it was shared with me some time many many moons ago. Probably from a well chewed building block at the local playgroup that I just had to taste test myself.

This is a lesson on more than just what are you sharing - or not sharing. What else are you teaching your children? As well as teaching them I don't share, I am teaching them that mummy is a big bad hypocrite!

Its a useful exercise. Stop and think about what your doing. Is is at odds with what you have said? It doesn't mean you have to change what you are doing, but to change what you are saying.

Give your kids more credit. Explain it to them like adults. They may just end up respecting you for it!