5) Game Night
At least once a month gather the family together for an enjoyable, tech free day/evening of board/card/team games to direct and indirectly teach EVERYONE, not just the kids, how important family should be. This also teaches how to be a respectful winner, gracious loser and even get better at witty retorts because you gotta talk trash but not cross the line and get popped. Hone those trash talkin skills early.
4) Dinner Time
We will eat together, Not only literally but metaphorically. Breaking bread with your people is something your kids should know and understand in every sense that it is used. The time invested in putting in the work necessary to be able to eat a hot meal should be honored, respected and appreciated. Eating whole meals daily is not a luxury i had growing up, so being able to ensure my kids don't take that for granted is highly important.
3) Allowance is to be Earned, Not Expected
I never got a traditional allowance every week or month, and to be honest never even asked for it. When my parents gave us money it was a business proposition really. What's funny is both parents did it independently of each other, they weren't together at the time.
DAD:
While getting bored with how easy school was grades started slipping because i me and my older bro spent time being class clowns and town miscreants, so he made a deal. At the end of semester when we got progress reports in elementary thru high school, he created a monetary scale in lieu of allowance. If we got A - $20, B - $10. A C we got nothing, BUT... A D resulting in us owing $10 and an F $20. At 6-8 classes each, i looked forward to that $140 4 times a year. Never got the max every time, but made me work harder in school the entire time. I learned that sometimes doing good doesn't matter to folks. You have to motivate them with what THEY WANT, and make the means to an end thru what they should be doing. Eventually, hopefully, they will learn valuable lessons along the journey you've embarked them on. Clearly i did and gained tons of knowledge on the way
MOM:
I wanted to play in a soccer league in my town, it cost $30 and there were exactly 31days left to register and i asked her to enroll me. She said lets make a deal, you clean your room, do your chores without me having to ask you, i will give you $1 a day and you can pay for it yourself.
I of course made it like 2 weeks, got lazy, stopped and the end of the month only got $14 and couldn't join. Lesson learned, if you not ready to put in the work, you not worthy of the reward.
(Sidenote: i also started and organized my own soccer league after school with friends that i didn't tell her about which ended up in me getting the ass whooping of my life for lying to her about why i wasn't home on time everyday when she called from work. A Jamaican woman had to stop her from beating me because it was so bad... A JAMAICAN. You may not understand the significance unless you got island family, But i digress...)
2) Expose your kids to religion, don't enforce it
I think what many people do is try to make their kids follow their practices instead of allowing them to. Everything i learned about every religion in existence involved free will. Why take away from your child what your God gave everyone? Even if you don't believe in religion, just spirituality or hell nothing at all, why make them follow you? The very fact you have to force them to instead of explaining why it works for you and why they should try it should open your eyes to the fact that you need to get yourself right mentally. Because clearly you don't have faith in your own ways. Be tolerant and open minded so your kids wont choose their faith or lack thereof ignorantly.
1) Make fear of disappointment worse than physical pain
No matter the amount or severity of whoopings i caught from Pops, Moms, Uncle Mike, Aunt Dollie, Aunt Linda, yeah I'm naming names, eff that (don't beat me tho, for real that's not cool, I'm grown), nothing compared to the immense amount of terror i had/have in letting them down by not being the best i could be. I'm not allowed to be a failure because of them. Regardless of any personal flaws they had they instilled great ones in me that will last GENERATIONS beyond me. I don't want my kid to be afraid of the beating they will receive for getting caught doing something dumb, i want them to not feel its worth risking having me look at them with anything but Pride & Joy for a dumb act in the first place.
But best believe they will still be getting that behind whooped...
What you thought this was? Just cause I'm droppin knowledge don't mean you aint getting popped future kids. Act stupid if you wanna, i been practicing hitting other peoples kids on the sly for years. Try me.
