Pre-training

Yesterday as my husband and I were helping our
daughter plant a garden he reminded me of a very
crucial child training principle...pretraining.

A perfect illustration of pretraining occurs when Kent
goes to shoe a horse. Some owners have their horses
trained beautifully (often far better than they train
their children). No matter what unforseen event takes
place, those horses are calm and if they begin to act up
they are quickly brought into line by the owner.
However, there are other horses who are just unstable
critters, and when the heat is up nothing can be done
with them. Kent carries ACE with him, which can calm
them down, however, the horses will sometimes be just
too difficult to be dealt with.

As parents, the more situations we can prepare our
children for ahead of time the better and calmer they
will be when those situations arise. Talking is the key
here. Let them know what you expect of them when
a grownup greets them, or when they are asked a
certain kind of question, or when they are in the
store with you. We can never know everything they
will be faced with, but the more they are prepared for
the easier it will be for them to jump from knowing how
to handle a known situation to knowing how to handle one
they haven't been presented with. They will just have
more to work with.

Of course, there are going to be times when the little
cuties cause you to turn 17 shads of red. Just laugh
and remember the huge amount of grace God has shown
to you. They are just little plants and have a lot of
growing to do.