Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

^ Don’t scream at your children if they do something unexpected and wrong. They will get angry and will want to do wrong things again.

^ Even if you feel it is “below your dignity,” have the courage to apologize to your children. An honest apology wil gain their respect and love and wil make them feel happy and warm towards you. Their attitude wil come as a nice surprise and a beautiful gift to you.

^ You may think highly about yourself, that you are a great mother, that you accomplished a lot in your life, and became a good person, but don’t ever tell that to your children. Don’t ever suggest that you are perfect and fully accomplished. If you do, it will give them a big shock when they discover one day that you are neither.

As Isis, So Is Mama… @ 267

^ Show them sincerely your respect and they will respect you in return.

^ Attract their attention in a smart, innovative way. Joke and chat with your children and they will believe in you, love you, and support you.

^ Never use words of bravado when you want to tell your children about your personal or somebody else’s achievements in the past. They will spot right away when you try too hard to convince them of something.

^ Show by example the way you act from your heart. Children are excellent observers, better than we think. They absorb everything, good or bad like a sponge. If they like what you do, they will duplicate your good endeavors. They will duplicate the bad ones too, if you let them.

^ Remember, children are like beautiful flowers. They are fragile, confused, loving, and delicate. Sometimes they are not fair and even rude. Don’t take to your heart their “downs.”

^ Encourage your children to reach for the stars, dream, and be the best they can be.

^ Albert Einstein said once, “If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want them to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales.” Make your children wonder. Teach them that good actions will always give them strength and inspire the same in others.

Can you imagine the happiness of a young hero of an ancient folk tale from the far North? He entered the Valley of Flowers, saved the lives of his father and many other people, and changed a malicious witch to a beautiful, kind girl. Then he married her and lived happily ever after. I heard it from Grandma in my childhood and told it many times to my children to show them that good actions will always give them strength, confidence, and the desire to do something good with their life.

268 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Valley of Flowers

Once far away up north a husband and wife lived

in one tribe. The husband went hunting and

brought home birds to feed his family. His wife took care of their four deer, sewed new clothes, and maintained the house. They had a lot of children born, but all of them died—one after another. One day early in the morning the husband went hunting again. While he was absent, his wife gave birth to another son. His face looked like a full moon. His eyes shone like two stars. His delicate skin had a pink glow like a spring dawn. His mother gave him a bath with salty water, and his skin was healthy and smooth. Herbal teas and tasteful vegetable meals also made the boy strong and gave him a great endurance in case something bad happened.

Much time passed, but the boy’s father didn’t come back home from hunting. Days passed one after another. The son grew big and fast in the father’s absence.

Finally the boy decided that his time had come to go and look for his father. One day he made a bow from the branches of a young birch. Then he showed it to his mother and asked her permission to go hunt and try his luck to find his father. His mother gave him her blessings. For the first time in his life the young boy left his parents’ house and went to the unknown and mysterious forest. He didn’t have any food with him, so he had to feed himself with game birds that he shot during the day. At night he fell asleep under a cedar tree. In the morning he washed up in the mountain spring and went further and further.

Once at night a terrible scream woke him up. The young hunter got scared. He bent his bow and stood ready to defend himself. Suddenly he heard a woman laughing. He thought the sound came from the top of the cedar tree where he stood. He looked at the summit of the tree and saw a snowy owl. This was the owl waking him up in the middle of the night and making fun of him.

As Isis, So Is Mama… @ 269

The young man became angry and directed the

arrow towards the owl, but the owl flew to another tree

and said, “OK, brother Ula, don’t be angry. Just remember where you are going and what you want to do, and I will help you. From this time on, you’ll sleep during the day. At night you’ll go search for your father. I can tell you for sure that your father is alive,