Is Santa coming to see YOU??

"Children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, and tyrannize their teachers...." --Socrates, 500 BC (!)

When I was little, my parents definitely tried to use the threat of Santa seeing me when I was sleeping and knowing when I'd been good or bad.  I'll admit, I was not a perfect child and so I worried quite a bit about what Santa might or might not bring me.  Usually I got pretty much what I expected but I did worry a lot about it!

On top of that, my mother warned us of a creature called "Bellsnickle" that would come and take all of your toys back on New Year's Eve if you didn't share your toys with your siblings and friends...again, more cause for worry and concern. 

Judging my the quote at the beginning of this post, parents and adults in general have been concerned about children's deteriorating behavior for a long, long time and yet...I do believe that most children are doing the best they can and are often very confused about what is right and what is wrong, based on what the adults around them are doing.  Did you ever the hear the phrase "do as I say and not as I do!"?  I did and I remember that I didn't particularly like it. 

The best thing you can do to encourage good behavior in your kids is to model that behavior for them.  Demonstrate over and over politeness, courtesy, compassion, honesty, gratitude and forgiveness.  These are the lessons that we all need to model, practice and re-learn over and over.  If you do this, Santa will definitely come to see you next Thursday night!