What a daughter we have! We have been working lately on building character traits. Trying to catch our daughter doing things like being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, helpful, thankful, self-controlled, etc. One of the etc. is obeying us. Abi earns stars at the end of the day for her *good works.* She has a chart we track her success on and at the end of each week we tally the stars. She earns rewards like a smoothie, a trip to the library, a train ride at the zoo, etc. for achieving large numbers of stars. The idea is that these *good works* become habit and Abi's character begins to develop.
We met some friends for a playdate the other evening. When it was time to go the girls wanted to slide *just one more time.* I agreed, at which point the girls said *two more times.* I said, "No, one more time and we need to go."
The next thing I hear is our daughter's friend, as they were sliding down telling her to come down one more time with her (after the last slide down that I had agreed to). Abi said, "No, my mom said this was the last time." Her friend tried to convince her to do it anyway. Then Abi said, "No, I have to obey my mom." I was so pleased I was beaming. Unfortunately, the evening did not end so well for my daughter's friend. She decided to go again, even without Abi and her mom informed her of the consequences for not obeying her. She then broke down in tears and just lost all semblance of control.
When we left I strongly affirmed Abi's choice to obey us rather then listen to her friend trying to convince her to disobey. What a joy it is to see the fruit of our hard work, training her up in the way of the Lord.
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