Here is what one of our daughters wrote during the Sacrament today:

I am six yere's old
Don't bug my brothers
I'll triey to ctr
becuse I know that
Jesus loves me and that
he died for me
I shood ctr becuse
I love Jesus

She also made a list of things she is going to do to be better, including ctr, not bug my brothers, and not scream at my parents. Two of the things that family members complain about is her bugging and screaming.

At the time she showed me this, I had been thinking about my own goal of using kind words with our family and how I just couldn't seem to change my behavior on my own. Reading her note gave me great insight into both her behavior and into myself as a parent. Once again, I realized that she and I are not so different. She wants to change, too. She can't do it on her own, either. She is trying, at her own level, just like I am. Except I am not the patient, long suffering, kind parent that my Father in Heaven is. He doesn't scold me when I make the same mistake over and over. He doesn't lose His patience. He doesn't get angry or throw His hands up in disgust. He just patiently tries to help me remember what I want to do and to help me change, and then He waits while I give it another try, over and over and over.

I thought of the Savior's parable on forgiveness in which a servant is forgiven of a large debt by his Lord but then fails to forgive his own fellowservant of a much smaller debt. My Father in Heaven is unfailingly patient with my inability to change, and I am like the unforgiving servant if I am not patient with my children as they struggle with their own weaknesses.