Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I remember a few years ago when my oldest, Bub, was about 3 years old.  I took the kids to Sea World with some friends for a fun day's outing.  It had been raining, and my trunk lock would get stuck when it was wet.  The kids were anxious to get going, my friends were waiting for me, but I couldn't get my trunk open to get the stroller.  After spending what seems like an ETERNITY finagling the lock, I finally got frustrated enough to give it a swift kick.  It still didn't work.  And my 3 year old looked at me with a confused look on his face and said, "Mommy, why you kick the car?  Kicking not a good choice."  

I had taught him for three years of his life that kicking isn't an appropriate thing to do.  Now I had undone all of that hard work in one moment of frustration.  For the next few months, every time he was angry he kicked something.  When I reminded him that kicking was a bad choice, he reminded me that I kicked the car.  Every time I apologized for my mistake and told him that even though I had made a bad choice that doesn't mean that he gets to make the same bad choice.

A recreation of the fateful kick, only with cooler shoes..

Have your kids ever called you out in a moment when you're not following your own rules?  My Dolly asked me once a last year why she had to make her bed and I didn't.  I don't like to make my bed because an hour after I do, my graveyard-working hubby gets home and goes to bed and it gets all messy again.  I don't really see the point.

But there definitely is a point: I have to follow my own house rules, or else I'm seen as a hypocrite and I lose my role as the rule enforcer in the house.  When I model the behavior I expect from other family members, I am teaching them a powerful lesson: The rules are for everyone in the house.  And if Mommy and Daddy can do it, so can you!