Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down ....

Tonight I had a revelation of what I'm in store for in my future years of child rearing. I realized that I am NOT the only one influencing my child. I mean I know this because we go to church where he is influenced, he stays with friends that influence him, I have him in preschool where he is influenced, so this should not come as a surprise to me, but tonight it hit me like a ton of bricks.

We were in the kitchen after dinner and C wanted to dance, so we held hands and started going in a circle. I immediately started singing ring-around-the-rosie and to my surprise, he joined in with me. It caught me so off guard, because to the best of my recollection I can not ever remember singing this with him, but in spite of that he still knew the song. Right there I realized that someone else had taught him this song. Someone else had showed him the "we all fall down" part and it wasn't me. Someone else had influence over my child.

I know that this sounds corny, but to me it was a moment. A moment of fear and excitment all in one. Fear for the things that I don't want him to be influenced with, but I know he will. Excitment in thinking about all the wonderful people in his life that will infuence him for good things. It made me think of how much we as parents need to be influencing our children so that hopefully our influences will out weight the "other" influences of the world. It also forces me to be aware of where my child is and who is there to influence him.

For our three year old, I'm pretty confident that right now the people with influence over him are positive and reenforcing what we are doing at home. I will pray diligently for positive influence on my boys.