I’m sure you often wonder what things you are passing down to your children. It was probably something you thought about before they were even born.
Will they be a good painter like your Mum? Will they have brown eyes like their Dad? Will they inherit your good looks ? 😉
You’ll have taught them please, thank you, how to dress themselves and wash their hands, how to cross the road safely, don’t talk to strangers.
What else might you be passing down to them?
How about your fears, phobias and anxieties?
I started to think about this when my Mum was telling me about the way people react to her dog whilst they are out walking. My Mum’s dog is a big daft, soft doggy and yes I know not everyone knows that and some people do not like dogs but I can guarantee that the best way to get bitten by a dog is to stand in front of it, wave your arms around and scream in its face…
The amount of times I have seen this happen is beyond belief. Or people kicking out at the dog because he sniffs them…are you really that stupid? If you kick your leg in front of an animals mouth it’s probably going to bite you.
A child will not be afraid of a dog for no reason and their natural reaction will not be to wave their arms in front of them Wallace style 
and shriek at the top of their voices. You have taught them to do that.
Also if you run away from a dog it will probably chase you.
I am not excusing all dogs or dog owners, there are some really messed up people out there who own some really vicious dogs and I am not under the illusion that we can tell what dogs are thinking and I would never say to anyone ‘don’t worry he won’t bite you’ because they are animals and there is a good chance they will bite you.
Just use your common sense.
I am terrified of wasps and I flap like a hummingbird when I hear one let alone see one but I have always taught my son to not be afraid of them because I know there is no reason to act like a big pleb, it’s just something I have developed.
When my son was younger he came home from his Grandparents one day and freaked out at the sight of a spider and told me to kill it. I will never kill a spider (they eat wasps) and I had never been scared of them so obviously he had learnt this behaviour from his Nana. I put a stop to this straight away. we spoke about how nice spiders are and how they help us by eating flies and other bugs and they provide food for birds and other animals and so on and so forth.
My son is 13 now and although he will still ask me to remove spiders and wasps from his bedroom, who wants potential stingy things and mouth crawlers with them whilst they are sleeping, he doesn’t freak out about it.
Just be mindful of what you might be passing down to your children when it comes to your fears and phobias. Your bad experiences do not need to be handed over to your children. There’s already enough of the bad stuff waiting for them along the way, give them lots of nice things to think about and teach them love, respect and forgiveness ♥
Don’t ever let anyone make you think you’re not good enough.
Follow your dreams right now! Don’t wait until tomorrow,
next week, next year. Stop planning, start doing 🙂
Be happy and keep smiling 😀
Made A Hames 