Trust -- One corner of the foundation of your relationship

I like to think of the foundation for a parent/child relationship as a block that can be built upon. The four corners of the block are trust, love, respect and principle. Forming the solid block begins the day a baby is born.
Can my child trust me? Do I value their confidences? If not, I cannot expect my child to be trustworthy. My example contributes far more to the values and lessons I give my children than my lectures ever will.
Trust and respect look a lot a like during the early years and do go hand-in-hand as our children grow. Just like our children, we need to be trustworthy of our child's trust. It's not a given.

Do I show up when I say I will?
Do I honor their privacy appropriately?
Do I follow through on commitments made to my children?
Am I honest not only in my dealings with my children but with everyone?

I'm struck by the situations parents are faced with regularly. You're going to dinner, the amusement park, the movies, or any number of places. Your child missed the child's rate, but he looks young. Do you go for the child's fare or pay the right price for his age? It's tempting to think that your child won't notice, but trust is an attitude. The few dollars you save may cost you far more in the long run by sending the message to your child that it's ok to cheat and that being trustworthy is not important. On the other hand, the parent who chooses to do the right thing will be sending an important message to his child. If you're going to be honest with strangers. they trust that you will always be honest with them.

Family Meals

Don't underestimate the power of family meals. Some might say to make an effort to have at least 3 family meals together each week. I say go for at least 7. Things may come up to keep you from making that every week, but if the expectation isn't even there, it will never happen.
Parents say that since family meals was an expectation and an enjoyable time in their home, as their children got older, they found that their kids planned their activities around dinner time. The kids may be heading out with friends for the evening, but they did so after dinner.
Meal time isn't a discipline time. You can teach a lot about good manners by simply modeling them and acknowledging good behavior.
Here are some fun ideas to include in your family meals:

• Encourage your children to come up with the menu. Take them shopping to get the ingredients for the dinner and have them help cook it.
• Everyone brings a new word to the table. You can play Dictionary where 4 meanings for the word are given and everyone has to decide which meaning is correct. Or you can just share the word and the meaning. Then during the next 24 hours everyone should try to use the new words correctly in sentences. The next night before giving other words, everyone tells how they used the word.
• Everyone throws prompts into a bowl such as, "If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to ...... because......" Take turns pulling prompts out of the bowl to get conversations going.
• After dinner is over, one family member reads a chapter from a book aloud. Other members can listen at the table or may start doing the dishes.
• Occasionally, bring out the good dishes and silver and make the table fancy. Who better to serve with your best dishes than your family? At the very least, have dinner by candle light periodically.

Have fun! Laugh! Enjoy one another.