Feedback...

As a parent, you never know for sure what your child does or says when your eyes and ears are not present. You have to hope that they are well behaved and good. Then you have to rely on the "honest" feedback of friends, family members, teachers, and of course the random stranger that feels the need to comment on your parenting tactics...both good and bad.

Everything family members say to me about Dotty (especially the good stuff) I take with a grain of salt. They love Dotty so their view of her is tinted with those rose colored glasses.

Even Dotty's teachers at school always seem to look on the bright side of things. Of course, if I had to deal with 11 three old children five days a week I too would probably need to find the good in life...or else start looking in the "help wanted" section of the paper.

The other day Jeri made a comment that Dotty is so good to say "thank you". Now Jeri is a very close personal friend of mine, so you might think her opinion would also be a little tainted. but Jeri has the great personality trait of being blunt. Knowing that about her, I knew that when Jeri said Dotty was very good at saying "thank you" Jeri meant every word of the compliment.

As a mother I breathed a big sigh of relief. Dotty, like most children...young and old...takes me for granted. Many times she just makes demands and snatches things from me. I am constantly saying "what do you say"...trying to get Dotty to use her "please" and "thank yous" on a regular basis.

There are many days when I feel like I losing the battle in regards to manners. Thanks to Jeri's kind words I know I at least have one small victory.