“Breathing in or Breathing out- which one do you like better?”

When my son Bryce was only 5 years old, he asked me as I cuddled in his bed with him..”Mom, which do you like better, breathing in or breathing out?” He caught me off guard. “I don’t know,” I said lamely. “How about you?” He had a quick answer, of course, as he had been thinking about this.

“Breathing in, because I can smell.” Good point, I told him.

Well, I was looking through my old journals as I work on my new book about raising and educating children alternatively, I found some quotes that I wanted to share with you.

I was always trying to teach my children concepts, mantras to live by and help foster good positive affirmations early on in life.

One was a great song title called, “Follow your heart.”  I tried to teach them what it meant. Both of my kids were outside playing but when Bryce came indoors he said, “Sierra is following her heart. She stayed out. But I wanted to come in, so I am following my heart.” Okay, I smiled at him.

My son always was one to take things to heart and literal. Another concept was “Creating your own reality.” We had some children’s value tapes that taught kids to take responsibility for their actions. At 5 years old, Bryce took it to a new level. He asked,

“If I think about something bad over and over again, will it happen to me?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like if I keep thinking that my eyeballs will fall out of my head or my bones will fall out of my body, will they?” I told him it had to first be possible. Eyeballs are held inside your skull by things like tendons and ligaments like rubber bands and they aren’t rolling around in there like loose marbles. I told him it was things like saying, “I’m unhappy. I’m unhappy” over and over again, you could become unhappy. These things take a long time to happen and you need to say them over and over again to have them come true. So if you say, “I’m happy,” over and over, you will be happy.

So in his quiet little pillow voice, he whispered with his thumb poised at the entrance of his lips, ready to suck and go to sleep, he repeated, “I’m happy. I’m happy.”