You have incredible power over your children. No matter what age they are. Or what age you are.

With it you have a responsibility to teach. Through your actions, your words, your emotions, your attitudes, your beliefs – you will shape them, you will mold them, you will color their world. Even when you think you are not. Especially then.

When you are quiet, they will hear you most.

When you are silent, they will feel it.

Every time you touch them, they will fee love. Even when you punish.

Punish rarely. Teach often.

There are a thousand teachable moments every day.

Embrace them. They are priceless. As is the brightness of your children’s souls.

When you act in a way that causes you regret, shame or embarrassment - go to them when the quiet sets in and apologize. Let words pour out of you that sooth them. And yourself. You will grow to be a king because of it.

They are innocent long after you think they are not.

They are more knowledgeable than you expect.

They will absorb things that will stay with them, clear as day, until the day they die. What do you think those things might be?

What are yours? You have them still. Tucked away, in a place, somewhere – that will always be safe.

They want you near them as much as they want to be freed from you – your children. Like magnets, sometimes they repel, sometimes they attract. But always there is that chemistry. That electricity. That gravity.

Within them are the best and worst of you.

They consist of dark as well as the light. They consist of a million different grays. Let them know your preference.

What’s important to them must be important to you. What it’s important to you must be known. Do they know?

I told my son once that I didn’t have any expectations of him, other than to be happy. It was something he needed to hear, but I often wonder if that was a terrible thing to say to him. I think about that conversation a lot.

More than he knows.

At a certain age, you just have to let them wander. And wonder.