Category Archives: Family Life

Christianity, Daily living and character, Family Life, Parenting, Uncategorized

9 pieces of advice for parents of toddlers (and little kids) from someone who learned the hard way!

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Sweethearts
Sweethearts

DISCIPLINE ISN’T OPTIONAL
Even though we live in a culture that has evolved from being a parent to being a “buddy.” It’s not so much about outcomes as it is your example of action and follow through. Your decision to discipline is not contingent upon their past or present responses to your disciplinarian action. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. It sets up expectations for the rest of their lives. Sometimes the responses we desire are seen much later. It’s like continuing to offer them veggies whether they eat them or not. We know what healthy eating looks like and what it does not look like. Just as we know what healthy behavior looks like and what it’s not. So just as we value physical health in our family, so we value healthy behavior. Therefore we value discipline. It should not be easily discarded or carelessly disregarded by the parent. It’s paramount.

CONNECT THE DOTS
Don’t disconnect these years with the rest of their life. Too often as parents of little kids, (and big) we compartmentalize their stages of growth and maturity as if one is wholly separate from the other. As a very good general rule, if you have a child with 0 responsibilities, chores, or expectations, he will become an adult who is unemployed or else an employee whose mediocrity is reflected in his appraisals and work performance. If you raise a child whose world is self serving and self entitled, she will become a self entitled spouse and employee, perhaps unwilling to bring 100% of her own effort to anything. If you raise children who never volunteer their efforts or resources by serving or giving to someone in need, you will produce adults who are superficial and have little compassion for others whether it’s the indigent of our society or your child’s very own next door neighbor. Bottom line, if your child has a certain pattern of behavior (Good or Bad. Constructive or Destructive) then discourage it or embrace it respectively. Those behavior patterns (left unchecked or checked) will absolutely characterize the rest of their lives.

APATHY IS a LETHAL Weapon to Effective PARENTING
Don’t ever say “well I did it so they’re going to do it anyway.” This one really requires no explanation. It reeks of ignorance. Did you have sex when you were 15? Did you drink and become drunk in your teens or twenties? Ever drive drunk? Were you (are you) addicted to pornography, narcotics or prescription drugs? Did you disrespect your parents and teachers? Did you steal something? What regretful behavior from your past have you laid upon the back of your child? To what inevitable black pit in life have you assigned them because -after all “I did that too and a tiger can’t change his stripes?” Use your experiences as a teaching tool. Use them as reminders to love and cherish your children enough to gently lead them along a different path. It can happen. We can make a different decision about the future we want for our children minus the personal baggage of shame, guilt, or apathy rendered by our own past.

DON’T LIE TO YOUR KIDS
Sure this seems like a no brainer. But you would be surprised. Lying to your kids when they ask you a direct question is setting them up for the land of poor choices, self-destruction, and estrangement. Little lies or big lies. Don’t fall into the trap. You may be forfeiting your relationship with your child in the long run in exchange for self-satisfaction in the short run. But that satisfaction will be short lived. Eventually they will know the truth, and when they do, all bets are off. Your “good intentions” will be trumped by the lies and the omissions of truth that accompanied the original discussion. When I discussed abstinence and other choices about sex with my girls, you can bet they asked if I was a virgin when I got married. “No!” was the quick, truthful answer. It set the stage for an open and honest dialogue about the consequences that choice had for me as well as the implications of their own choices. If you come from a family of liars (or a “non confrontational, passive aggressive, always avoid the issues” kind of family) stop that cycle of dysfunction right now! This does NOT mean sharing truths with your kids that are either 1 unnecessary or 2 age inappropriate! Not. At. All. But being honest with your spouse and your children (taking into consideration your child’s age at the time of the discussion,) will largely determine their ability to be fully successful in committed relationships as teens and adults.

LET THEM BE KIDS FOR GOD’S SAKE
Girls and boys are entering adolescence three times as early as they were 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. The problem with that is their emotional growth is not nearly in step with the information bombarding them-cultural messages that distort and dictate their ideas and thoughts about sex, their bodies, marriage, relationships, etc. Our culture is pushing our children into adolescence and “adulthood” prematurely with a perpetual exposure to inappropriate media! TV, movies, video games, electronic devices and social media are a battering ram for young in-formidable minds. Sadly, they are badgered by sexual messages and adult choices at an age they are neither physiologically or emotionally meant to process such adult information. Furthermore, our small children are being taught at a very young age to use their left brain at the expense of their right brain. The full onslaught of social media has debilitated our abilities as parents to teach our children the importance of play, imagination, and the sheer innocence and joy of being a little kid. The implications of this are far-reaching and potentially dangerous. Their ability to interact socially, problem solve, seek conflict resolution, or just speak intelligently is seriously hampered. Let me spell this out simply. For example, if you have young children, they probably don’t need to watch an R rated movie or own a smart phone.

THERE IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR RUDE
Never play the personality card as a free pass for fundamental expectations and behaviors. If your child is shy or outgoing, introvert or extrovert, quiet or noisy, they should be expected and required to use manners. They should be capable of looking someone in the eye and have a conversation with them, order their own food, and treat others with respect. When I sub teach, just the simple task of taking morning role can become a circus. Kids are no longer taught simple manners. If someone says your name, a simple “here” or “present” is fine. On the other hand, “Yeah,” grunting, or totally ignoring the teacher-none of these are respectful responses. Yet it happens every single day. I can’t tell you how often I see a small child get a free pass for rude behavior from his parent who chimes in immediately “he’s shy.” I have friends with autistic children who require these basic manners and courtesy from their mentally challenged child. We live in a world where adults are ruder than ever. It’s a tall order to expect our kids to use respect and common courtesy in their every day life when it’s not modeled by the adults in their lives. And while we are on this subject, be wary of the labels you attach to your kids. ADHD, LD, ODD, the list is endless. Are many of these labels valid? Yes, of course. But the louder we yell this to our kid, the more he becomes the label, and the less we expect of them. The less they expect of themselves. Each child is unique and special-intrinsically-independently of their diagnosis, their labels, their personality quirks. Often, their label becomes their personality. They become defined by their label. Sadly, separate from their label, they feel unimportant. Their personality becomes their free pass, their excuse from simple expectations of courtesy and respect. Be on guard parents.

DON’T BAIL THEM OUT
When my kids were really little, we spent many hours at the park. I would cringe whenever I saw another kid take a minor fall or scrape, and the mom come swooping over and pick her up and coddle her-over what? A scratch. The stakes are low right now parents. Our kids definitely need to be able to live inside a safe boundary. That’s the privilege we have as parents, offering our kids a safe refuge where they are uncondItionally loved. However, this does not include bailing them out, coddling them, never letting them be disappointed, never making them wait for a special gift or event, manufacturing a fake world in which they are the center of attention. The stakes are low NOW. One day the stakes will be higher. They’ll be away from us. Someone will hurt them emotionally. Do you want them to crumble or do you want them to know how to recover from disappointment, pain, and hurt? Do you want to groom them for success in work and relationships? Quit bailing them out. Because, once you start, it’s an endless vicious cycle.

READ WITH YOUR CHILD
Reading is a gift we give to our kids. It loves them. They love it. It’s about sharing ideas and having incredibly profound conversations that the book initiates for you. It is the portal to a big world, giving them a worldview, showing them that beyond the comfort of their small world, lays a big beautiful expanse of people, nature, and ideas just waiting for them to explore. It opens up possibilities for them. They can see themselves in successful relationships, jobs, and promising futures. You can get all that from just reading? Yes, you can. But more importantly, it is time well spent between a parent and a child. A wonderful time of love, appropriate touch, acceptance, and individual time with your child. READ. And when they are older, don’t let theme see the movie unless they have read the book, particularly if it is a movie based on a classic book!

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR KIDS
Establish family traditions. Go to the state fair together, have family dinners around the table. Take time for family vacations, special holiday traditions, board games, bikes, walks, and cuddles on the couch. Let them pile up in your bed for a few minutes at bedtime to talk about everything under the sun. (Our teenage girls still do this.) Or pile up in their bed. Laugh out loud together. Share inside jokes, music, books, friends, family. Share your heart. Let them in your world. Walk through the open door and thank God when they let you in theirs. Look straight into their eyes and remind yourself they are a gift from God that you have been given for only a short amount of time. Like a vapor, this time comes and it goes so quickly. Love them deeply. Treasure them always.

Christianity, Daily living and character, Family Life, Parenting

Separating my Past from my Present in Parenting

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One guess which one is me?
One guess which one is me?
When I was a kid I always felt guilty. I felt like a lot of things were my fault. I wasn’t allowed to watch television on Saturday morning because there was work to be done. Or even if there wasn’t work to be done, my grandma was always working, and since that was true, no TV for me on Saturday morning. My grandfather was equally hardened when it came to a work ethic. Fun in our house was secondary to work expectations. Fun rarely happened in the same context that it does now in my marriage and with our kids. We didn’t have family nights or family vacations or engaging family conversations around the dinner table. We did have meaningful conversations, but they were often forced, not easy and open, and not often positive. I was raised by my grandparents in the 70’s and early 80’s. I graduated from high school in 1983. Do the math. These are grandparents who survived world wars, the Great Depression, turbulent times, tragic deaths, loss of children…you name it. If there was devastation to be found, it could be traced event after event, through the past threads of their lives, individual and together. So needless to say, there was not a lot of empathy in our household. You really did kind of “pull yourself up by your own boot straps,” and move forward. No one was going to be there to do it for you. After all, no one did it for them! No one was hanging your pictures on the refrigerator, reading you a book at bed time, nursing you through a cold, or giving you any facts about the “facts of life.” My parents died young, and my middle sister and I were separated from my oldest sister 4 years later. So it probably doesn’t surprise you that I am hard on my kids. I try to separate my past from my present when I see that their grades falling; or when I feel like my husband and I do most of the labor around the house. I try to separate my past from my present when they insist on a $400 dress for homecoming; (No, that one didn’t happen), when they spend too much time on social networking; (We had three channels on a black and white television, a rotary telephone with a party line, and no VHS!), when they complain about hand washing dinner dishes; or when they get frustrated with us for telling them, We are not their personal ATM. When I was in Girl Scouts, (one of the very few extra curricular activities which garnered my grandma’s approval), my grandmother did the unthinkable. She actually sewed my hard-earned patches directly on the dress rather than purchase the sash and then sew them onto the sash. The sash, in turn, was meant to be worn over your head and allowed to rest smartly across the breast of the uniform. But I was sashLESS! The uniform itself was a Good Will purchase. I also wore tube socks in some awful light blue color with my green uniform, rather than the sharp, regulation green knee socks that were part of the uniform. (Yes, I have the picture to prove this unsightly site) So when my girls are asking to shop for a homecoming dress and heaven forbid a mum (what in the heck is a mum?), I reminisce about my girl scout uniform disaster, and think to myself, how ungrateful of you to expect a brand new homecoming dress (every year) and since we live in Texas, a mum! Okay, confession: I hate mums. It’s a Texas thing. I am not a Texas girl. If it were up to me, I would use mums for target practice. But I have two girls who want to go to homecoming and if I stick to my past on this, they would be the ONLY two girls present at their homecoming in the best dress Good Will had to offer. In the end, I put a spending limit on the dresses, and did my best to figure out the mum thing without making my daughters feel like a burden. Therein lies the crux of this. I grew up in a tough place. Sometimes I felt like a burden. And some days, I do the same thing to my girls. Sometimes it’s inescapable. Oh, I shoot for the stars. “I’ll balance discipline with love and grace. I’ll set boundaries, but provide incentives. I’ll never be resentful about my schedule or tasks or make them feel guilty about spending money on them.” But often, as I am doling out the discipline, the resentment creeps in. I am my grandmother’s child. I am holding them responsible for a good bit of my life over which they have zero control or influence. My grandparents did the best they could with the resources that were available to them, both monetarily and personally. And I cried like a baby when they died. I would never wish to dishonor them. They were incredibly resilient, hard-working Americans who helped build this country with their own blood, sweat and tears. Because of my grandma, I am a good communicator with family and friends, a good writer, and I am fearless when it comes to confrontation. She also instilled in me a deep love for scripture. But still, when I left, I took the good, the bad, and the ugly. And with that, I have a choice: Shaping the person I am into a mother that takes the good, the bad, and the ugly, and uses it constructively for the good of her kids-or not. I fail. A lot. Many days, I utterly and totally fail. I wish I could tell you that in spite of my past, I am truly “mother of the year.” But I am not. When dealing with teenagers, I often don’t know when to advance and when to retreat. My usual method is advance and conquer. Defeat results from advancing when I should have retreated. But I will tell you this, Jesus and me we got a good thing going. He stands in that gap for me. You know the one? That gap, that for me is a bottomless black pit, me on one side, and my baby girl on the other. But for Him-He is the bridge in that gap. He bridges that space between my daughter and I. So when I do rely on my past to inform my decisions, and power forward with that lone voice in my ear, screaming “Charge!” and I mess things up, He gets in that gap, and He fills in the space where otherwise, resentment on both sides would fester and grow and become an impassable chasm. That’s Jesus in my darkest hour, making me the loving, joyful, compassionate, and responsible parent that He wants me to be.