– [Richard] How, as a family, do you decide on when certain Christmas traditions happen in your household My name is Richard Shorter, I'm a Non-Perfect Dad inspiring parents to be courageously honest about their parenting, and I'm going to share my parenting successes and failures from this past week
(electronic version of "Jingle Bells") Okay So, Christmas does cause lots of tension, doesn't it? Lots of people have an opinion on when you should do certain things My fail this week, in the eyes of my children, is a fail that happens every year in the Shorter household And that is, when do we put the Christmas tree lights up? If it was up to my children, they'd have them up in early November But, I'm a bit more of a kind-of well, actually, mid-December is the time when Christmas tree lights go up
This week, I've heard lots of complaining "Why can't we have our Christmas tree lights up?" "When can we have our Christmas tree lights up?" I'm not sure that's a fail, but certainly in the eyes of my children, I have failed as a Christmas-loving parent this week, and come across more as Scrooge, from "The Christmas Carol" My success, this week, was that I spent some quality one-to-one time with one of my children I said, "Hey! I've got half an hour You've got half an hour
What should we do? Let's have no screens Let's just do something – you and me, together What would you like to do?" Well, we did some artwork together Let me tell you, my inner child loved it when I spend this quality one-to-one time together, but my child also loved it, loved what we produced Wasn't the most amazing piece of artwork, but just love- I love that time of just sitting
Well, in fact, we didn't even sit We just lay on our bellies, did artwork, cut stuff out, stuck stuff together And my biggest challenge of that was to let my child have the control over was happening, because I was getting so excited about the creative process When we are courageously honest about our parenting, it helps us see where we're good, and where we're not so good
And, it helps us see that actually the good always out-weighs the negative While you're here, why not subscribe to the Non-Perfect Dad YouTube channel? And also, go and have a look at the web site and sign up to our newsletter That way you can get all my support and encouragement and questions to help you be a courageously, honest parent, so that your children have the character needed to be world-changers Have a great day Thank you for watching
