Fitness parents vs unfit parents

I was at a fitness center the other day and heard other parents talking about what they DON'T give their children.

Things like soft drink, lollies, junk food, chips. These mums and dads were very health food conscious and were raising their children to be the same.

Like me, their children might have those things on occasions like parties a couple of times a year, yet we don't store stuff like that in our house (often). It was refreshing because I don't often meet parents who feel that way about food, the same way I do. Aside from family who were raised the same as me.

Often I meet parents who are gob smacked when they find out I rarely let my children have soft drink.

"You don't give your children soft drink?" they ask, thinking I'm odd. Perhaps I am odd compared to most parents?

The thing is, those parents that do feed their children junk are overweight themselves and not setting a really good example of what's good for them and what isn't.

I am a firm believer that as a parent it is my job to instill a good sense of nutrition in my children. They don't know this stuff and are looking to me to point the way, show them what foods are good and how to prepare them. Cooking is an essential part of raising children.

It is your job to make sure your children have the best (healthiest) adult life they can. You don't want to give them diabetes, clog their arteries, give them heart attacks and rot their teeth.

If they don't learn it from you, the parent(s), who will teach them?

How about you? Which parenting type best describes you? Fitness parent or unfit parent?

Children need a mediator

That's one of my roles as a parent. I'm like the man in the middle of the boxing ring with a bell, "Ding ding ding, back to your corners."

I watch my children trying to navigate relationships, with parents, with siblings, with cousins, with friends, and I notice how to interact with people is not innate. It doesn't come naturally.

Conflict resolution is especially hard. Even as an adult, in relationships, I've noticed conflict resolution is really tricky and we're not taught that during any stage of our lives.

It is left up to individual parents/guardians to teach children and if the adult doing the teaching doesn't have the skill to teach a child... then what hope does the child have?

And children catch you out if you live your life telling them to do one thing while you do the opposite.  For example, yelling while telling them not to yell.

Here is a situation where I had to give my children some direction when it came to them navigating their relationship together.

I had made them a treat and let one of them lick the bowl while I cleaned up. Usually they get to lick something each, though on this occasion only one was present and helping me. Licking the bowl was a reward.

Another sibling came out later, saw the other sibling licking the bowl and told them off for it, using a disrespectful, bossy tone: claiming they shouldn't be literally licking the bowl; face in the bowl and all.

I mentioned that it's my job to do the telling, unless it's a strict rule we should all be adhering to such as keep our hands to ourselves. Licking the bowl in not breaking any rules and I'm right there, if I have an issue I'll say something.

I tell my children all the time, "It's your job to be friends with each other, support each other and have each other's backs, while I do the bossing."

This is a simple story where nothing much was going on, still it was a teachable moment in that they learned a little about how to treat each other nicely and respectfully.

If I hadn't been there mediating, the child doing the bossing my have become righteous, while the other became rebellious. Next minute all hell breaks loose! Instead, I gave the one doing the bossing something to think about.

Do you teach your children to navigate relationships and if so what do you do?