a lesson well learned

father and daughter outside the church

I know how important it is for us parents to model the right kind of behavior/attitude to our children. After all, kids will often copy what we do. This is what I and husband are most careful about. We want to make sure that we are setting a good example for our daughter to emulate one day. At her age of almost 4 now, we needed to be careful since she is quite observant of our actions.

There are times though when we would slip and show the opposite of what we are trying to teach her. Let me give you an example. I can't help but laugh at yesterday's little fiasco with husband while we were inside the church hearing mass with our daughter. At the start of the mass, the daughter can't help but be her talkative self - talking almost non-stop about anything she could think of. Naturally, I had to make her keep quiet since we are inside the church. I gestured to hush her up immediately. And she did keep her quiet and tried her best to pay attention to the mass.

During the homily, the priest said something that made me want to talk to husband and clarify it with him at once. Without really meaning to, we ended up talking while the priest was also talking. Naturally, our daughter noticed and also felt the need to make us keep quiet! She gestured her small index finger and placed it standing horizontally next to her mouth. Shhhhhhh!!!! It was a little embarrassing on our part but we just smiled and apologized to her. We realized our discussion could have waited outside the church or until the mass was over. Thanks to our daughter, we learned our lesson. :-)