So if we don't compete or measure, how do we motivate?

Take a minute. Think about something you enjoy doing. Maybe it is cooking, or biking, or even travelling.

Were you inately born with the ability to do those things? No. You had to learn them. You had to CHOOSE to learn them.

Did your first time on a bike go smoothly? You've never fallen? The first trip you took to Europe you just went completely unplanned and it took no work whatsoever to get there or to know what you wanted to see?

No.

The answer is...you tried it. More than once. You learned from mistakes. You savored the good parts.

Ok moms, if we really focused on each day of being pregnant, would you say it was beautiful - a breeze - no problems whatsoever? No. You remember those days of nausea, or back pain, or even the pain of buttoning those jeans for a last time in many months.

But we don't focus on that! We focus on the good moments, the beauty of the outcome. How we feel for having experienced it.

SAME FOR READING.

It isn't inate. It is taught. Sure, some kids have an easier time of it, but it isn't something we automatically excel at the first time.

So...instead of competing, just focus on the enjoyment. Really pick through the experience to find the good. Teach your kids to focus on that too.

If reading is hard for them, create a personal analogy of something hard for you and tell them how you are working to enjoy it and get better at it.

Mine's running. For all the cycling and lifting I do, you would think I would love all things workout related. NOPE. I really hate to run. Right now I am working on running an incline of 3.0 on the treadmill instead of a flat. I am up to 15 minutes @ 6 mph. Not that great. BUT, last week I couldn't even do that, and so I see improvement. And I am not breathing that hard anymore in the midst, and I am feeling good after.

So when your kids hit a roadblock, help them work through it.

Another thing facing kids is the constant comparisons that many "reading programs" put kids in. They don't have so and so's level, or points, or what have you. RUBBISH.

Don't you think our kids have enough to deal with...we know the downsides of comparisons...there is always someone better, faster, wealthier, more fit...it's a very slippery slope, and not a good one.

LEAVE READING OUT OF IT. Let them just be.

And that's my thoughts today. Stop comparing, be, and look for the joy in it.