This past weekend I had the chance to listen to Josh McDowell talk about “The Seven A’s of Relational Parenting” at a homeschool conference.  One of the seven A’s was “Appreciation: a sense of significance.”  He explained that as parents we need to catch the kids doing things RIGHT and express appreciation.  For example: “Thank you for taking the trash out.  I appreciate that.”  Such example is simple, yet I find myself not doing it as often as I’d like.

When the children are young, one of our goals is to teach them obedience.  It’s easy to expect obedience and forget to tell them that we appreciate their effort.  While training them to be obedient, we focus so much on corrections that we don’t express words of appreciation.  Their world is full of what they shouldn’t do or what they didn’t do right and how they may do better.  I’m not suggesting that we put discipline and corrective actions aside, rather, I’m compelled to put more emphasis on what they do right and tell them how much we appreciate them.

I believe that if we continue in the path of not expressing words of appreciation, we will get in the habit of NOT appreciating them at all.  And what’s more, they will increasingly find no joy in doing the things that please us.  To remedy this, we should start NOW so we develop a good habit rather than a bad one.  Now, go find a kid and tell him how much you appreciate him!