Hi there, it's Finley 👋🏼

Happy Friday to the 49 parents who joined this week.

Today's story takes 3 minutes to read.

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Regulars at a restaurant

One of the moments that we emphasized as a family was whenever we left a restaurant together.

I'm sure you've experienced the carnage of your table before. After sitting down for 30-60min, you wonder how could such a young family create such a scene?

The consistent habit that we started was to require our kids to help clean up our table before we left. The point was to take responsibility for our own mess and not expect someone else to do the work for us.

We wanted our kids to care about what it would mean to someone else that we didn't leave our mess for them.

Sure, my wife and I did most of the work, but starting when they were even 4-5 years old, they had to clean up their own trash.

The other habit, was to always thank the staff as we walked out.

Whether it was a waiter, hostess, or the person behind the register at Chick-fil-a, I made it a point to say thank you as we left.

Recently, as we were leaving to head outside, my youngest daughter (now 13) turned around and thanked the staff. I had forgotten but not her.

She did it because it had been modeled hundreds of times throughout her life.

It was surprising because this habit was honestly something we never intentionally told our kids to do. We just did it and our kids picked up on it too.

We used eating out and the people who served us to develop empathy and kindness in our kids, but it took a long time.

Grace

Parenting has a million possible moments that require grace.

Implementing this idea will not be difficult. I promise, this week you’ll see a situation that needs grace.

You will not need to wait long to put it into practice. Parenting is not easy, but supporting each other is.

All it takes is a little grace. Jon Acuff​

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That's all for today's writing of Parenting: what we've learned (so far)

If any of this was engaging or you had a small take away,
it always helps when parents share with others.

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