Reading to our oldest
I've been reading the the Children's book of Virtues to my oldest for the last couple of days. Her thinking is getting more sophisticated, and she's learning like a house on fire. However, there are a lot of things to learn outside of school. Learning how to be a good person is hard, and teaching it seems to be even harder. This book has helped, we've been reading the stories together and discussing what virtue is demonstrated in each. Some are over her head without help, and others she picks up on right away.
The best part about the conversations we've had is that she's starting to recognize her own behaviors and how they can improve. We talked about how each little bump and bruise didn't need to be an excuse for a theatrical rendition of a tear-jerking death scene. Today when she stepped on something hard, and later when she bit her tongue, she proudly shared how she "didn't scream and cry". This is a huge improvement over the screaming and crying, trust me.