SFL 240 rough draft

I believe that I want my children to learn autonomy and that I can help them to become self regulated indiviuduals by teaching them how to read, I love them unconditionally, and to love the diversity of nature.
It was schocking to me that Reading was included in the top ten things to teach your child. There are so many different thing in the world to teach children, but the prophet felt that it was important to teach children how to read. I want to teach my children how to read by reading picture books before we go to bed. I want them to pick a picture book that they want to read from the shelf. I also want them to have their own library card, and that way when we visit the library they can check out books themselves. I think that we will read just one or two verses from the scritupres a day. Ideally it would be in the morning before Dad goes to work, but I was also thinking that if that is not a practical time it would be ok to read a vers or two before we ate dinner. Another possibility would be to read a vers as a family before we went to bed. When ever my husband and I decided to have family scripture study I think that it is important that we begin and end with a prayer and try to have a moment of reverance while we read. Above all I think that I want to teach them how important it is to read by being a good example, and read books myself. I want to continue to read my scriptures daily when I have children. I think that it is important that my children see me read other books though too. I know that will be hard, because I have a hard time now reading a book in my free time. Yet, I think that having books in the home on visable shelves is important. I do not want to put the books in the farthest corner of the house, but in the open.
I think that it is important to teach children how to read because it gives them so much freedom. Not only will children be able to excel in school if they know how to read but they will be able to excell in spiritual development because they can read the scriptures for themselves. The ability to read something and then take that information and store it in your head, and then turn it over in your head, and then form an opinion about that information all begings with the ability to read.
I want my children to know that I love them unconditionally. This is something that I realize is going to be a lot harder said than done. I think that some of the ways I can make sure my children know that I love them unconditionally is to focus on their progress and not their accomplishments. One of the most obvious ways is academic preformance. I want them to be happy that they got good grades, but that is not what I want them to concentrat on. Instead I want them to know that it is more important to understand why you got the grade that they got, and what they learned. I think that this can come by talking to them about their classes. If I ask them questions about school and what they don't and do like in school I think that it will help them to realize that I value their education, but not as much as I value them. I want them to realize that they should take classes that they feel they can excell in and that they should work hard in classes, but that they should chalange themselves. I think that by asking them questions about school while they are in the class that I will not be shocked or horrified by their report cards. In truth I think that if I talk to them about what classes they like and what they have learned in that class and how their teacher is in that class and what friends they have in that class that I can see their progress. By me focusing on their progress I hope to transfer the message that they should focus on their progress and not their preformance.
I think that it is important to teach children how to focus on their progress because all of their lives they are going to have others tell them what they should measure up to. There are so many opertunities to have people rate you... how smart you are by your test score, how pretty you are by how many dates you have, or how spiritual you are by the times you stand up and bear your testimony. I want my children to understand that these are secondary things, and that the real growth is what happens while we are working for goals.
I want my children to enjoy nature. There are few things that I think are more beautiful than the outdoors. I think that by going on family walks maybe everys Sunday or for family home evening my children can learn to enjoy such simple things as fresh air. Especially when they are young I want to have play equpment outside. There will be things like swings or a sand box in our back yard if we have one, and if we live in an apartment I want to visit the park often. In order for my children to apreciate the outdoors I want them to see the outdoors; and that means family vacations. I don't want them to just think that the outdoors means our back yard. I want to take vacations to the swimming in the ocean, hiking in the mountains, camping in the desert, boating on a lake, and if my family is able to I want to visit the tropical forests and the artic. It is important to me that my children understand how physcially diverse the world is. While we are on family vacations I want to comment on how beautiful God created the world, and how much detail he put into every flower. It is very important to me that my children value God's creations.
I think that it is important to teach children how to value the physicall differences God made in the world so that they can understand that differences are good things. It is easy to see a flower that is pink and a flower that is blue and say that they are both beautiful, but it can be a harder concept to learn that because a person is a size thirty and another is a size four they are still beautiful. This is a very important lesson for me to teach my children, because I believe that the we are all God's creations. I have a testimony that God is a perfect being and that he created diversity in the world to make it beautiful. I want my children to know that just like rocks and trees are all different so are people, and I think that I can help them to understand that diversity is beautiful by first teaching it to them in the diversity of nature.
These are just a few things that I would like my children to know, and why I would like them to know them. It is kind of remarkable once you sit down and right what you want your children to know how easily it comes out. The list almost seems never ending. I guess that is the beauty, because I know that there are still things that I need to learn.