I am Proud of You!

How many of you have told your children that you are proud of them? This is something that I haven't told my children yet and I'm not sure I want to tell them. Yet my husband has been telling our three-year old daughter that he is proud of her whenever she does something impressive and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't like to say, "I'm proud of you" because I feel like I'm teaching my daughter to be prideful. So I'm curious to know how you feel about this.

Isn't it enough for my children to be praised when they do something good? Isn't it enough for them to know that I love them unconditionally and they are the most important thing in the world? Whether or not I teach these things, my children will learn about pride, greed and all these sinful feelings from society, and I don't think I want to teach my children to be prideful. I have seen other people's children growing up prideful with conceit at an early age, because their parents have installed that feeling in them and I don't want to see my children growing up that way.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying I am never going to say that I am proud of my children. When they are old enough to know what it means and if they need to hear it, I will tell them. But I just don't think it's important for them to hear it so early on when they don't know what it means.

My parents have never told me that they were proud of me and I never felt the need to hear it or wished they would tell me that. This could also be a cultural thing but I just don't want to bestow unnecessary emotions to our children when they are so innocent.

If my children are going to boast about something, I want them to boast about God, not about themselves. I want them to be proud that they are lucky to know about God when there are so many unfortunate children in third world countries, who have been deprived of the privilege to know God at all. I want to bring my children up under God's grace in a faithful christian household because it's important for me for them to have faith in their early age. I want to teach my children to sing praise songs, read the bible, and pray daily because I never had that in my childhood so sometimes I feel like I have missed out.

As a mother of two young children, I feel like it's important to educate them at home because I believe education starts at home and not elsewhere. Most people think that real education starts in schools but I disagree. They may learn academics and socialization in schools but how their personality develops and how they grow as an individual is or should be taught at home.

I hope I have given you something to think about.