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Using praise to communicate values

I’m still on this journey and quest to raise little children into adults who rescue others. By rescue, I mean… well… anything. Changing a flat tire is a rescue. Cooking dinner for a busy mom is a rescue. Offering a hug or an encouraging word can rescue someone just in the brink of time. It’s more of a way of being, I suppose, becoming a rescuer. It is a mindset that others are of value and that others are important. Life can bog us down with the thorns and briars and worries of this life (Matt. 13:22). I feel a call to parent in a way that helps our children develop with the idea that serving and loving others should always be on our radar, no matter how busy we are.

One way I think we can begin to grow these qualities and attributes in our children is through our language, topics of conversation and the words that come out of our mouth. The bible says the tongue has the power of life and death (Prov. 18:21). This means we can plant seeds and water them with our words or we can rip out seeds to let them wither with our words. I’ve decided to initiate something I like to call Rescue Speak into our home. I give it a name because naming things, writing them down, or putting them on a list makes me feel productive.

Rescue Speak is this.

When Does Having Material Things Become Materialism?

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Do children really know what’s best for them?

Do children really know what's best for them? | Children and Parents: who knows best | Parents Know Best

I think there is one concept that – if adopted as fact by us mommies – will make parenting a lot easier. And that is this. Children don’t really know what’s best for them. Someone somewhere started a rumor that, even from babies, we know what’s best for us. This rumor was based on the fact that, even from babies, we know what we want. Kids know what they want and they know what they think they don’t want. They have opinions – thank goodness for that – and they want you to know them. This happens long before they can talk.

The goal is to shower our children with love, fun and attention while doing what is ultimately best for them. This doesn’t mean no chocolate, missed naps or late bedtimes ever. It also doesn’t mean we don’t listen to their opinions, desires and preferences. It does mean, however, that we know the buck stops with us and that it’s our job as parents to think long-term. We want to Start out how we can Hold Out and do what’s best for them. This will not always necessarily be what’s best to them. [Read more…] about Do children really know what’s best for them?

Protecting your Children with Prayer

As you are probably beginning to gather, I’m pretty big on protection. I’ve written on the Difference between Protection and Over-Protection, Mama Bear Instinct, and How Mothers Save Lives. I did a fun personality test once at church to determine the type of woman I was. Out of Leader, Teacher, Protector and Nurturer I was Protector all day long. So, aside from physically protecting what is another important way we can look after our children? Through prayer. One of the number one ways we can help them is to protect children with prayer.

I don’t have prayer all figured out, but I know the Bible say to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) and I know that somehow our prayers matter. Does every prayer we pray get answered how we want it to? No. We’ve all heard the Garth Brook classic, Unanswered Prayers, haven’t we? Does God hear our every prayer? Yes. Does He love our children? Yes. This is why we pray.

1) Right thing at the right time.

I was never one of those girls who was everyone’s babysitter and helped raise half the community. I wasn’t around many babies and when I was pregnant with my first, I really wondered how I’d get on with a baby. I prayed – and I remember the prayer strongly because I’ve repeated it more times than I can count since then – “God, please show me the right thing at the right time to raise my daughter.” To this day I am amazed how He answers this.

Someone flippantly mentions a book, tip or concept and – bham – that week the issue arises in my house and I’m already prepared. An idea comes to mind and very often it is ingenious in how effective it is. I brag about this because I am saying that these things come from God to me as an answer to prayer. I boast in Him not in my motherly talents. I have no more motherly talents than any other mother. This is one of the best prayers you can pray (see Things that Make a Mother Pray More). I pray it now for my son because I know what works with my daughter may not work with him. God knows our children’s hearts. After all, he knit them together (Psalm 139).

Whetting your Children’s Spiritual Appetite

2) Let God enlighten you.

God loves to answer our prayers. Have you ever had a mystery with your children you couldn’t solve, then prayed and got an answer? If not then I highly recommend it. For a year – A YEAR – I knew something was up with my daughter. At home she was lively and energetic and confident and then in public, like night and day, she was quiet and expressionless. People thought she was shy and I just knew in my heart she wasn’t. I asked advice and thought about it and most agreed it was probably just a reaction to being home most of the time then not being completely secure out in public.

But I noticed other kids seemed to pick on her, long before there was time to label her weak and bully her. Random kids would just walk up and push her. Finally one day I prayed desperately to God to show me. God answered. He showed me that it was something spiritual going on and I felt encouraged to sit by her bed while she was sleeping and just pray for her. I must have prayed for an hour. You know what? She woke up different. Or, more accurately, she woke up herself. And when we went out, she was herself. People started to comment on how chatty she was and she no longer seemed scared of other kids. I vowed that I’d never ignore a gut feeling again.

Audience of One

3) Lighten your load.

We mothers carry a heavy load of responsibility. We look after the needs of our children, family, house, job, ministry, etc. Often it can really feel like too much. Can we be great parents and guarantee our children grow up healthy and successful? No. Can we make mistakes and have thriving children? Yes. God wants to hear our cares and anxieties and to lighten that load. A few years ago I was having a trust battle with God – or rather, I was battling trusting God – and I had a nice illustration come to mind. For me at that point, trust was like hanging on to the side of a building.

There was a nice safety net there under me to catch me and carry me to safety, but for me to get on the safety net I had to let go of the building and jump. I could not hold on to the building and then test the safety net. I either stayed hanging on to the building where my fingers were cramping and I was rapidly losing strength, or I could fall back and rest on the safety net. I’ve thought of that many times since then and often, when my children’s safety and health is out of my control, I visualize myself falling back into the safety net and saying “I trust you, God.”

It will be something different for every mother, but there is comfort in knowing that God cares about my children more than I do. If that were possible. He will help me, enable me, and show me ways to be a great mother. He’ll correct me when I err and encourage me along when I’m weary. This comes through a give and take and alive prayerful relationship with Him. We can never be perfect parents, but with God’s help and teachable hearts we can become better and better parents.

Parenting law: Sowing and Reaping

Read related posts Difference between Protection and Over-protection, Mama Bear Instinct,
Things that Make a Mother Pray More, and How Mothers Save Lives. Read the Raising Rescuers vision.

Exercise and the Busy Mom

kids in strollers finding time to exercise

I love exercising. I love working out and getting sweaty and physically tired and feeling like I helped jumpstart all of my body’s systems. Through most of my adult life I’ve been a member of a gym and regularly swam, walked, and done aerobics and exercise videos. That is, until I had children.

The desire to work out didn’t go away. The enjoyment of exercise didn’t diminish. I simply didn’t quite make it to my Zumba and Step classes. I just couldn’t find time for an hour long walk. I didn’t want to pay $7.00 each time I went to the gym to have babysitting for my kids, particularly when I had to book the sitter one week in advance. How am I to know that in one week it will be a good time to go run on the treadmill? Is it ever a good time to run on the treadmill?

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How Mothers Save Lives

The other week I was leading a monthly women’s series at our church on Lioness Arising. The chapter was about how lionesses protect and look out for the lions and the cubs in their pride. The example was this. A lion and two lionesses had been kept in captivity and were to be released. They were kept in an enclosure near the big open reserve marked for them and it was time for them to be released back into the wild. The gamekeepers didn’t feed the lions for a few days and then put a dead buck out into the open reserve and pulled back the gate to the enclosure.

The idea was that the lions would just go out to eat and then be free. However, they didn’t. They waited and waited. Finally, one lioness went into the reserve to the buck and looked back to her sister lioness, who followed her. They got to the buck and then – lo and behold – didn’t stop and eat. What did they do? They dragged the buck back into the enclosure so the lion could eat his share as well. The idea was that the lionesses, though starving, weren’t just in it for themselves, they were in it for their family. Later, when the gamekeepers had to take the collar off of the alpha lion, the men had to sedate the lioness. They had to sedate her because they could not get near the lion with her awake, aware and alert. She simply would not leave her family vulnerable.

The question I asked myself and the ladies present that evening was this. Who is left vulnerable if we are not alert, awake and aware? Who runs the risk of getting “attacked” if we are sleeping or distracted? It got me thinking… we mothers… we actually save lives all the time.

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“Her Mother’s Hope” and “Her Daughter’s Dream” Book Reviews

If you haven’t read a Francine Rivers book yet… then you have a few gallons’ worth of tears the rest of us have previously shed. This two book series shines a light on how our parenting and our experiences can impact our children for generations.

Extremely cold, aloof and unhappy people generally did not come from loving and emotionally healthy families. Loving and emotionally healthy children generally do not come from hyper dysfunctional and unloving families.

I highly recommend these books although I must say I wanted to quit reading many times but kept pushing through in hopes that the end result would redeem some of the pain.

Life ain’t always pretty and these books don’t sugar coat, but they are encouraging and helpful when thinking in light of our parenting ideas and strategies.

Good questions to ask ourselves in light of these books.

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Discipleship + Mentoring in Parenting (do what we see the Father doing)

As parents, it’s such a privilege to be able to teach our children the things of life that matter most. What we model and prioritize will have a huge influence on the way develop and how their characters form. They will value no one else’s word above yours, nor will they desire anyone else’s love, attention and affection more than they’ll desire your own. While it’s a weighty thing to ponder, I believe that we can parent with peace knowing that our children learn far more from who we are than from what we say. It means we don’t have to know everything. We simply have to live out what we do know, and live it out well.

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To Spank or Not to Spank… is that really the question?

a mother far from home to spank or not to spank

Most moms would probably say that spanking is saved for extreme offences so the parent can communicate their point with grave importance. Whether spanking is or isn’t effective isn’t what I’m here to debate, although I’m happy to hear your opinions on the matter. Oh, I love opinions. When opinions are said with great force they just seem so… true, don’t they? I’m also not here to debate whether spanking is abusive or not here. Although I’d love to hear your opinion on that too.

I’ve heard some interesting thoughts on spanking recently and wanted to put them down all together as some food for thought. Some consider spanking bending your child over with a paddle. Some consider a smack on the bum spanking. For the purposes of this article, you can interpret it however you like.

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What I learned as a stay-at-home-mom with an identity crisis

Stay at Home Mom in Identity Crisis | A Mother's Identity Crisis | Stay at Home Mom

I’ve had a hard time of it recently. Not in a pity party way, but in a grieving-what-I-thought-my-life-would-look-like-but-what-it-is-not kind of way. I don’t regret decisions that I’ve made to be a stay-at-home-mom, simply that there is a transition that inevitably happens, and it is perfectly good and right to grieve the freedoms lost. Being real and honest about where we’re at emotionally helps us move forward in a healthy way. I realized what was going on, basically, was I found myself in a stay at home mom identity crisis.

Taking a snapshot this day in time, my life has not quite turned out like I thought it would. From childhood I had certain expectations and things I took for granted about myself that have not (yet?) happened. Some things I have now in life are better than I ever could have hoped for, but there are still things that I expected I’d have, which I don’t, and this brings feelings of disappointment and loss. Where these expectations came from, who knows, but the fact is our expectations play a huge part in our mental health. What we expect, no matter how ridiculous or out there, has power over us because with unfulfilled expectations comes disappointment, heartache and sadness.

I had these hard thoughts the other day.

[Read more…]

What’s The Difference Between Childish Behavior and Foolishness?

Is my child simply having childish behavior or are they acting in foolishness? Here is some insight on those behaviors and also how to train in order to prevent unwanted situations from happening.

It’s a given fact…

As a parent, you’re going to eventually experience some “less than desirable” behavior out of your children.

But the question that every parent has to face it this:

Is this behavior childish or foolish?

First, let’s discuss the difference in childish behavior and foolishness…

The book entitled On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Buckman talks about this very topic. It explains that Childish Behavior is accidental and done because your child is naive.

In other words, a childish act is not down out of spite, but rather because he or she does not understand the rules or know the appropriate behavior.

Foolishness is when your child is acting out of direct defiance for a rule THAT he or she understands.

With this understanding, a parent can react appropriately with each type of behavior.

Obviously, our first reaction to unwanted behaviors is important, because it determines how our child responds (either through a learning experience or through chastisement.)

In the early years, I like to err on the side of “childish.” I make my first assumption be that the behavior was done out of childishness rather than foolishness.

As your child gets older and you get to know your child better, you will have a good idea if actions were childish or not. That doesn’t mean you will always judge perfectly–I still often think my seven year old is acting foolishly when he is in fact acting out of childishness.

For examples on childishness, foolishness, and in between, see this post: Childishness vs. Foolishness.

Preventing Childish Behavior

Nobody likes to be put in situations where they don’t understand how to behave. This includes children, so they have to be trained.

Prevent childish behavior by teaching your children appropriate behaviors for situations. Help them grow by explaining to them the circumstance they’re in and what your behavior expectation for them is while you’re there.

In other words, teach them ahead of time what is okay and what isn’t okay. It is a parent’s job to Teach What Obedience Looks Like.

You obviously will not be able to cover every situation before it happens. If you are going into a new situation, however, you can do some training ahead of time to give your child knowledge and tools to prepare for it.

You can read more about this in my post Training in Times of Non-Conflict.

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What does training ahead of time look like?

Before you enter a situation, train your child of appropriate behavior. For example:

If you are going to the park, explain that when it is time to go home, your child needs to come to you nicely and without throwing a fit.
At home, before you leave, demonstrate what is an appropriate reaction and what is not. Then, ask your child to do the same.
When you get to the park, before you exit the car/start to play, remind your child of the rules. Then ask your child to repeat to you what is expected. This helps you know if your child understands or not. This method is called “Ask and Tell.”

You’re Reaction Matters

After you decide what you’re seeing out of your child is childish behavior or foolishness, consider your reaction.

Look at your child, analyze the context of the situation,
Think through what your child knows and doesn’t know. You can ask questions of your child if you need to.
Once you have determined it was childish (on accident), move on to your reaction of the behavior.

First, react with patience to your child.

This is often easier said than done! When a child spills a cup of milk, it can be very frustrating–even if the spill was just an accident. Do your best to be patient. If you lose your patience, you can lead by example and apologize.

Gently encourage the child in the correct way to act. If a child runs in a place where running is inappropriate, explain to your child what is appropriate. Explain what the child did that was not okay and then instruct on what to do instead. “We do not run in the church. Fold your arms and walk instead.”

Do not make the mistake of simply telling a child what not to do–children benefit greatly with being told what they can do instead.

Think of yourself approaching an intersection and not knowing which way to go. You decide to go straight and I tell you, “No! Don’t go straight!” That doesn’t leave you knowing where you should go, just that I don’t want you going straight. Always remember children are very new to life and need instruction beyond just what is wrong.

Read: Time In Vs. Time Out … and is Time Out Damaging Kids?

Boundaries & Behavior

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Being in charge doesn’t mean being harsh or heavy-handed—it means being steady, clear, and confident. This workshop will help you understand what healthy authority really looks like. When you know how to show up as a secure, grounded leader, your kids feel safe, and everyone starts listening.

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Then, teach your child to correct the mistake made because of their childish behavior.

Just because something is childish doesn’t mean the mistake can’t be fixed...

If you are in the store and bump into someone on accident, you apologize. You don’t just say, “I didn’t mean to!” and walk off.

If a child spills a glass of milk on accident, it is absolutely appropriate for the child to help clean it up as the child is able. If the child hurts someone, the child absolutely should offer an apology (which, by the way, is often very difficult for children to do–they often do not like apologizing for accidents.

Stress to your children that it is important and okay to apologize for things even if no ill intent was there. The action was still done whether it was intentional or not. See I’m Sorry Vs. Forgive Me for more on this).

Importantly, understand that it’s a learning process.

You also need to have a lot of patience. Be patient with your child’s efforts. Accept your child’s best.

Also realize that children are little scientists.

Let me explain- A child will often repeat behavior that she was told was not okay in an effort to figure out exactly what wasn’t okay.

It’s simple really… this will happen because the child is still building vocabulary. She might not fully understand what you meant when you said it wasn’t okay to blow raspberries while eating. So she will try it again and try it with variations so she can figure out what is not okay and what isn’t okay.

This leads us to the importance of you being consistent in your corrections. You need to consistently correct for behavior so your child has the best chance of learning what she can do and what she cannot do.

Lastly, be careful of your negative reactions.

While children often make mistakes, most children make them innocently. Most children are not trying to make you upset or cause trouble.

Be careful not to assume your child understands all of the rules and social graces of life.

If you have not explicitly taught your child about something, your child likely does not know.

For example: A child points to a stranger and loudly asks why their tummy is so fat/big/large/round. As parents, we are usually quite embarrassed. The child usually has not ever been told that such a question is not polite.

Until they have be taught correctly, it’s still simply childish behavior.

Do not expect your child to draw connections. Teaching your child to be quiet in one setting is not going to mean that your child will be able to enter a similar setting and draw the conclusion that it is likely necessary to be quiet in the new setting also.
As children get older, they are better able to make those connections and judgement but younger children are not.
Do not freak out. Maintain your “cool.” Be patient with your child. Be kind in correcting. Overreaction on your part will stress your child out. No one likes to be berated for accidents, including children. I guess no one really likes to be berated no matter the reason. Harsh correction can influence self-worth and make children anxious.
Encourage your child to improve and keep working at it. Accept our child’s best effort.

In Conclusion

Have patience for these moments of childish behavior–they happen quite often. You can do your best to prevent them, but you will still encounter childish behavior. Welcome to parenthood 🙂

Developing Trustworthiness: The Do’s + Don’ts

Here are some do’s and don’ts to watch out so you can teach trustworthiness to your children.

Trustworthiness is an important quality we need to invest time in building in the lives of our children. Think about it, do you like to spend time with people you don’t trust?

If you were an employer, would you want to hire people you can’t trust? When thinking about people who have made the biggest positive impact in your lives, were they often very trustworthy?

A trustworthy person is someone who can be relied upon to be honest, truthful, reliable, dependable, credible and safe (source). God calls His children to be trustworthy, and lucky for all of us, it isn’t rocket science.

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities” (Luke 16:10).

For mothers, this is very good news! It means that from a young age we can encourage trustworthiness in our children in even the smallest of tasks and matters

DO’S

What you should do to encourage and promote trustworthiness in your children.

1) Do give responsibilities

A clear and easy way to develop trustworthiness and responsibility in your children is to give them age appropriate responsibilities or tasks that you keep them accountable for. It might be a chore or two, or making their bed, picking up their toys, etc.

By giving your children something that they can “own” they will learn to follow through with their projects and carry out what is expected of them.

This will take time, patience and training on the part of the parent, of course, because kids are not naturally going to want to do things they don’t consider fun.

After a while, however, when they know there are consequences to their choices, they will get the idea.

2) Do have consequences when responsibilities aren’t met

If your workplace had a 3-tardies-and-you’re-fired rule that you have seen enforced firsthand, through hell or high water you’d get to work on time. If your co-worker has shown up 20 minutes late every day for a year, you aren’t terribly worried about it.

Our children learn, not in a manipulative way, to follow our lead. If we expect them to clean their room and – when they do not – we do nothing about it, they will quickly learn that they don’t have to do it if they don’t want to since nothing negative happens anyway.

A good way to help train responsibility is by giving a task and then a consequences for failing to do the tasks, or conversely, rewards for completing it.

No park on Friday afternoon if the [insert chore here] wasn’t completed during the week. After a Friday or two of sitting it out they would quickly get the picture.

3) Do explain beforehand clearly what you expect, and why trustworthiness is so important.

Children are born with immature minds. They need their parents to train and explain things. When giving a responsibility it is important to fully explain to your child what you expect of them, what will happen when they do/don’t follow through, and why responsibility is so important.

Trustworthiness is not about promising something to make others happy, but about following through on promises made.

DON’TS

Here are some things to avoid so you don’t inadvertently teach your children that image is more important than truth.

1) Don’t treat children as though they are trustworthy with a task/matter when in fact they are not

If you have told your child not to read under their covers at night and they repeatedly disobey you, then don’t treat them with the trust they have not earned.

Don’t allow them to close their door and “give you their word.” Their word is not trustworthy. A parent would do well to insist the door be left open and periodically check that the child is in fact not reading.

When your child knows that you aren’t just taking their word for it, but that you are taking their deed for it, then they will be more concerned with following your instructions than with telling you their intentions.

If they are not to play the playstation before they’ve finished their homework and yet repeatedly disobey, don’t give them the chance to continue disobeying.

Hide the playstation to a place of your choosing only to be brought out after the homework has been completed and checked for completion by the parent. Trusting people when they have not proven themselves trustworthy never gives them impetus to become a trustworthy person.

On the contrary, it encourages their thinking that it is what we say that matters, not what we do.

2) Don’t have unrealistic expectations that leave children feeling disappointed and unable to perform

Training and teaching responsibility will take years and years and they’ll still be learning it when they leave your house. It is something to be prioritized, but not something that should overburden your child. This is why age appropriate tasks are so important. Starting off very small and then increasing responsibility as they get older will help prevent “burnout.”

Now, responsibility is not necessarily just having your child do a chore. Perhaps it is an activity or task that, after completion, results in a reward. If they visit their elderly neighbour for a chat or help another in their yard, an appropriately exciting reward or privilege can be given.

It isn’t bribing because they still choose to do this of their own volition or not since there’s no punishment if it isn’t completed. It is simply a way to get your child to think about how their actions affect their circumstances.

3) Failing to follow-up to be sure the task is complete

If your child is expected to do certain things or say certain things yet knows they are never checked, they will soon stop worrying about their obligations.

“Make your bed, wash the dishes, do your homework” all become background noise to be ignored when they know that nothing will happen to them if they don’t.

If isn’t a sign you don’t love or trust them to check up on their duties, but simply a way to reinforce that you are the parent in authority and you are aware of what happens under your roof. If they come to you with a “I’ve cleaned my room” then a simple “Great, let’s go check it out” each and every time will prevent them from moving a few piles around on the floor and calling it a day.

In short

One of the qualities I value most in a person is their trustworthiness. I believe that God wants to use all of His children, but many callings and ministries require people of high character and dependability.

If I am not faithful with small things (ie, my own finances, gossip, being a starter finisher) then God would not trust me with handling finances for a ministry, confidential information, or to manage a project near to His heart.

He doesn’t expect us to be perfect or we wouldn’t need Jesus, but we can seek to be as good as our word and faithful with the things God has put before us.

Raising our children to understand the importance of integrity and honesty (NOT what the surface looks like, but what’s really underneath) will help many other areas of life come more easily to them.

They will be naturally placed to be both naturally and supernaturally blessed in their personal, professional and spiritual lives. It isn’t something we beat our children over the head with, but simply something we can start developing from a very young age in small steps.

Having patience, never withholding love and displaying trustworthiness yourself will go a long way in helping bring up trustworthy little Rescuers.

Raising Starter Finishers

raising starter finishers a mother far from home

“Finishing is better than starting.” Eccl. 7:8a

A few years ago now I was at a discipleship school in the UK. The leader of the school often taught us on various subjects and one particular morning she taught us about the importance of being “Starter Finishers.” A starter finisher is by definition – and I’m really taking liberties here – someone who regularly and deliberately finishes what they start. Therefore, by contrast, a non starter-finisher is someone who can start something with ease but finds difficulty following through, finishing or bringing things to completion.

Perhaps you feel that you aren’t a starter finisher, well worry not, it is still something you can try to instil in your children. If you find it hard to finish or get things done then I’m sure you’ll see the value in trying to teach your children how to do it right from a young age. It’s a lot easier to do something that has just always been done than to try to get the discipline and knack for it way later, when you long past need it. There are a few qualities, character traits and signs of a godly person that I don’t feel I possess and you know what, I’m going to try my hardest to prevent my children from following in my footsteps in those areas. Being a starter finisher, however, is something I am. But I wasn’t always. [Read more…] about Raising Starter Finishers

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With this understanding, a parent can react appropriately with each type of behavior.

Preventing Childish Behavior

What does training ahead of time look like?

You’re Reaction Matters

First, react with patience to your child.

Then, teach your child to correct the mistake made because of their childish behavior.

Importantly, understand that it’s a learning process.

Lastly, be careful of your negative reactions.

50+ Life Skills (By Age!)

In Conclusion

DO’S

1) Do give responsibilities

2) Do have consequences when responsibilities aren’t met

3) Do explain beforehand clearly what you expect, and why trustworthiness is so important.

DON’TS

1) Don’t treat children as though they are trustworthy with a task/matter when in fact they are not

2) Don’t have unrealistic expectations that leave children feeling disappointed and unable to perform

3) Failing to follow-up to be sure the task is complete

In short