DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO BE LIKE YOU!

Have you ever noticed how your children imitate you?

An interesting instance of this was brought to my attention recently. I have been painting-by-numbers. First very small paintings, then on up to the larger ones, as well as painting on velvet surfaces. I did this because there is a great deal of relaxation involved, and of course, there is the feeling of accomplishing something, when several hours of work produce a fairly nice picture of a landscape or an old barn.

Our children started to show some interest in what I was doing and shortly after, each of them was working on his or her own paint-by-numbers pictures. In addition, my son David, who has never painted anything more than a fence in his life, was taking the oils and easels out into the forest to paint the trees!

This made me think, how often do our children see what we do, do what we do, accepting the fact that what we do is the right and proper thing. Have you seen the little girl primping before the looking glass, puting on makeup just like mommy, or the little boy playing with his miniature tools, making things for the house, just like dad?

Just about everything a child does is a learned reaction from those around him, but most of all, the learning is derived from the parents since they and the children are thrown together for formative learning period of a child's life. Therefore, good, or bad habits and processes will take place in the child, and he will have learned it at home. So, while we work, play, go to church, love, hate, the child is watching, and like a computer, he is storing up these learned processes. And, we conciously teach the good in life, we unconsciously teach the unhealthy things.

We are amost totally responsible for our children's reactions to life, therefore, when we drink, we set a pattern, or put a stamp of approval on drinking, for the child. It is not the social drinker that will so damage the child as the parent who abuses alcohol, intimating to the child "look at me, I am drunk, since it is alright for me to do it it is alright for you too".

No one in their right mind would consciously do this, but we do it every time we drink to excess. But, you protest, "I would never do that to my children, and I have never told them that they could do all the things associated with excessive drinking. Certainly, I do not want them to act in any way that would threaten their happiness in life, or their right to happiness."

But you do! Every time you drink to excess, you set the pattern that your children will follow, for they love you very much, no matter how badly you act, and they want to be so much like you, because you are next to God to them.

If you want to do what is best for your children, then examine yourself and your way of life. Are you setting a good example for your children? Can you look at yourself in the mirror and say "the person facing you is the one you want your children most to be like, and act like?

Remember. There is only one turn around life for each of us. Once done - there is no turning back. What we do now is forever, and we cannot change our children once the pattern is struck. Remember. the alcoholics of tomorrow are the children of today.

Do we want our children to go throught the Hell that we have seen? Remember. It will not be necessary that they suffer as we have, if we are to educated them properly, and set the right example!

DON FELSTEAD

DON says: I wrote this article in December of 1974. I had been sober since May of 1969. I must have been on the right track to stay sober that long!