Teach your kids how to love
Sandton – Garry Hertzberg encourages parents to show love, integrity and respect.
Garry Hertzberg, practising attorney at Dewey Hertzberg Levy and host of the Laws of Life with Garry Hertzberg on Cliffcentral.com, writes:
‘The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.’
I recently saw an article on this quote, apparently, the posting of it on social media reached 17 million people causing a massive debate. The post was shared and commented on by hundreds of thousands and caused much dissension. About half the responses rubbished the quote saying that the children should come first or that there are some mothers that simply can’t be loved, the other half agreed that the quote is absolutely right.
The phrase is an obvious statement where a family stays together and the relationship is good in an ideal or perfect world. This is not so obvious in real world homes which are often divided or have absent parents.
Treating the other parent with civility and respect and not talking about them behind their back goes a long way in showing children how to behave and how to have integrity. Children are sensitive and they pick up on everything – their future behaviour will be modelled on their parents’ behaviour. When a young boy sees his father mistreating his mother, he will accept it as normal and grow up to do the same and a young girl will think that being mistreated is normal. The same goes for the single mom who bad-mouths the father to her children.
Another aspect to be considered is that the child’s parent is half of the child’s identity, by insulting or disrespecting the parent, what message does that send to the child?
The preamble to the Children’s Act recognises this, saying that one of the aims of the Act is to allow for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, and children should grow up in a family environment and in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding. What better way than by respecting the other parent of the child and treating them with dignity, deserved or not, and that may mean biting your tongue from time to time.
Let us know how you feel about the quote.
