Win for the day

I'm sure most parents understand that one of the primary jobs of a parent is to teach our children. A woman that I admire told me something when my children were little that stuck with me:  The phrase educational TV is redundant -- a child is always learning.  Don't ask yourself IF you taught something; ask yourself WHAT you taught.  That concept made a big impact on how I interacted with my children. 

I now know that not only do we teach our children, we learn from them as well.  A few years ago, my youngest started using the phrase "Win for the Day".  He uses it to denote the thing that went really well that day.  I have gotten into the habit of identifying my daily win.  Even on the worst of days, everyone has a win.  Identifying it and being grateful for it helps keep things in perspective.

And just as there is always a Win for the Day, there is also a Fail.  Sometimes it is an Epic Fail other times just a run-of-the-mill Fail.  Whatever it is, identifying it and trying to sort out the reasons behind it helps me grow and MAYBE keeps me from making the same mistakes over and over.

Here's to the Wins and the Fails.  Here's to being grateful.  Here's to teaching children and learning from them.