Sunday, June 11, 2017

Kids, Paper, Sharpies, and You

My daughter Emma was doing her morning Bible reading the other day when three year-old Essie came over, thumbed through a few of the pages and asked, “How do you read that, Momma? There’s no pictures.”

A few days later Essie approached Emma with a baby wipe, gently swiped it against Emma’s arm and hand and said, “By the way, thank you for saving my life.” 
Now if you know much about Disney movies you probably realize that both the remark about the book having no pictures and the one about saving her life are near-direct quotes from the animated version of “Beauty and the Beast”. 
Essie loves that movie as well as Cinderella and a few others. So you probably think it only makes sense that she would be able to quote from them. But here’s the deal—she isn’t allowed to watch a lot of television or movies. Her ability to quote them doesn’t stem from watching them over and over and over again. No, it comes from the fact that she, like every other child, reacts to what they hear and see in the same way paper, fabric, or your walls react to sharpies. 
In other words, words, images, and situations make indelible imprints on our children. You know, indelible, as in they don’t come off or go away. So here’s my question to you: If these things were so permanently imprinted on her little mind with such a limited amount of exposure, how deep and indelible are the ‘marks’ made by the things she is exposed to every day? 
Essie is definitely exceptional and special in my book (as are all my perfectly wonderful grandchildren). But in reality she is no different than your children in the fact that they all have a heart and mind full of indelible marks that were made by what we said, what we did, how we responded, and what we exposed them to.  
So I’ll ask again, if your children are permanently marked by the things they have limited exposure to, how deep and indelible are the ‘marks’ made by the things they are exposed to every day? And are they the things you really want them to be exposed to? 


Love,
Momma D
                       Copyright 2017 Darla Noble. No part of this can be used or copied without permission from the author.