Last summer we nearly blew it. In Indiana we are fairly new to daylight savings time. Thus, we aren’t used to it being daylight till 10:00 at night. A chance remark let us know that we were missing a huge summer memory with our youngest daughter. We were reading a book that mentioned fireflies. “What’s a firefly?” asked our daughter.
“Honey, you know—the bugs that light up at night.” Blank stare. As I thought, I realized that, though we were playing outside till after 9:00 each night, she had never seen a firefly. We made a date to stay up late and catch fireflies. We finished with ice cream sundaes on the porch—a wonderful summer memory. One we nearly missed.
Summer goes quickly. By mid-June firefly season is nearly over. Unless parents strategically plan—we can miss some of the best summer moments with our children. While there’s still time—make a list of all the special summer memories you want to create with your children. Then, pull out your calendar and schedule at least one per week for the rest of summer. With camps, coaches, church groups, and extended family all scheduling summer events, it’s easy for our family plans to get lost in the shuffle. We find ourselves shopping for back-to-school specials and realizing that summer slipped by without our doing any of the activities that make summer special for our family. A few too many of those, and the children get past a stage without our sharing the memories together.
The key—be as proactive about scheduling as everyone else. Get activities—even the little but special—on the calendar and guard the time. When we do this, we get to the end of summer and have a bounty of shared experiences that build family.
If you need help getting started, a few suggestions:
• Chase fireflies (of course!)
• Have a bonfire and eat s’mores
• Go fishing—be sure to get necessary permits (children typically don’t need,but adults do)
• Take a long bike ride
• Lay in the grass and watch clouds
• Pick fresh berries
• Rent paddleboats
• Read a spooky story by campfire/candlelight
• Run in the sprinkler
• Visit the zoo
• Feed ducks
• Play badminton
• Have an all-night movie night—each family member picks their favorite movie and snack, pile the pillows and blankets, and enjoy
• Visit an ethnic festival
• Go to a drive-in
• Have a marathon euchre game
• Throw rocks in a pond, lake, creek, river. . .
You get the idea. With a little intentional planning, this summer can be a series of mini-adventures where you build your family through the memories you create.
"Mommy, what are we having for dinner?”
“Can I go play?”
“Why do caterpillars only like milkweed?”
“Why can’t I go play?”
“What are we doing tomorrow?”
“Why is Aunt Gertrude so loud?”
How many questions do you face each day? In a house full of curious, imaginative, intelligent children—I figure 957 easy. If you asked me if I thought questions were good, I’d answer, “Of course! Questions help children learn.” If you asked my children if I thought questions were good, I’m not so sure they’d have the same answer. I say I want our children to ask questions, yet I don’t always respond patiently to the endless torrent. Why are questions so good in theory but so hard in reality?
Selfishness. The hard, cold truth is that my most impatient responses stem from pure selfishness. Like most parents, I’m pushed on all sides. I rarely feel that my day is my own. Instead, I have an endless list of chores to do, deadlines to meet, and needs to address. When a question has a ready response that doesn’t require too much thought, I’m typically OK. I can answer on the fly and keep moving through my day. But for those questions where I don’t know the answer and it will take some investment on my part to puzzle through or go find the answer, I sometimes shut my child down. Rather than focus my limited time and energy on figuring out a good answer to my child’s questions, I’d rather use those resources to make a dent in my list. Not a great strategy.
When I see my child’s question as an opportunity to set aside my agenda and focus on what’s important to her, I grow in my ability to be selfless. I develop a better sense of how to take the focus off me and what I’ve deemed necessary and instead focus on what is important to those around me. Sure most of my list was already focused on those around me, but I created the list and its order. When I choose to expend energy responding to my child, I say in a very real way that their list matters, too. That both affirms my child and diminishes the selfishness in me.
Pride. Again, if I can readily respond, I typically don’t mind questions. When the answer isn’t automatic, I tend to shut down the questions. As I analyze why, I have to acknowledge that I don’t like admitting to not having an answer. This denies my children one of the most important lessons of all—humility.
To freely acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers comforts my children. They are still at the age when they think I’m pretty cool. It reassures them to know cool people don’t have to know everything. They can feel fairly competent now with only some answers. Moreover, when I admit I don’t know a particular answer and go look for it; I teach them how to go get the answers they need. We become a team working together which creates a special bond. A bond I would miss if my pride kept shutting their questions down.
Agenda. As a homeschooling mom, I have seemingly endless time to spend with my children. One would think this is a perfect environment for questions. And it should be. Yet, most homeschooling moms are terribly frightened of missing some key teaching our children must have to survive in the world. So, we treat our curriculum as gospel and live in terror of failing to complete a day’s list of subjects. Questions distract horribly from that list. They interrupt. They lead down bunny trails. They hijack conversations. It’s just much more efficient when children sit quietly and simply listen as I get us through the lessons of the day. Efficient but ineffective.
I have to remember that our family’s job is to develop each child into the unique person God made them to be. Questions aren't an interference—they are a prime tool in that role. When I can back away from my agenda and refocus on the purpose of my agenda, to train up my children in the unique path God created for them, I can take a breath and follow the bunny trails of questions down the path they need to go. When I do that, I begin to see how God pulls me from my agenda and gets us all onto His agenda.
Questions force me to focus on what is important to my children rather than me. Questions force me to be humble in front of my children thereby teaching them how to be humble. Questions force me to listen for God’s agenda rather than clinging to my own. Instead of overwhelming distractions, my children’s questions have become—not only a great way for them to learn—but a 957 opportunities a day for me to become a more selfless, humble, listening mom.
Utterly undone, I sat in my hospital bed cradling my screaming newborn. Nothing worked. He wasn’t hungry; he was dry; I was holding him. What more could I do?! Remembering babies like to be swaddled, I clumsily tried to wrap him. The nurse entered to find baby howling and me miserably fumbling the blanket, near tears myself. She took one look and snatched Benjamin out of my hands. She calmly laid him on the bed, snugly arranged his baby blanket into a perfect burrito, and patted his bottom three times. He immediately fell asleep. Without a word she handed him to me and left. Completely defeated, I wondered if the hospital would let me take my son home when I couldn’t even wrap a baby blanket. Maybe he should go home with the nurse?
Most parents feel it—an overwhelming sense of ineptitude when it comes to raising our children. We want so badly to do the right thing and feel so completely at a loss as to what that is or how to accomplish it. Parenting books offer insights that sound great on paper and fall flat when we try to use them. Given our daily failures, wouldn’t our children be better off with some professional parent? The answer—a resounding no.
When God knit you together in your mother’s womb, He was shaping you to parent this child. Your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your experiences were all ordained as preparation parenting for this child. Likewise, as God knit your child together, He shaped her to be parented by you. Experts may offer insights, options, or support—but they can never take your place. As bumbling as our efforts can be, we are the only experts for our child.
Those daily interactions—the ones that feel like daily failures—are so much more. Through them, we learn our child’s temperament and priorities, his fears and joys. No expert spends the kind of time we spend with our child; no expert has a prayer of gaining our insight. We know the heart of our child. Knowing his heart enables us to inspire, encourage, and train so he becomes the person he was made to be.
As we explore our child’s heart, we also discover our own. When our toddler waves a rebellious finger in our face, we gain insight into God’s reaction to our own rebellion. When our young child listens to his peers rather than us, we perceive God’s frustration at our own choosing of job, prevailing experts, or friends’ advice over Him. When a teen gives in to pleasurable sin rather than choosing to do right, we suffer our heavenly Father’s anguish over our rejection of His standards in favor of our own desires. As we take these to God, repent, and allow Him to guide us into a reconciling relationship; He teaches us how to guide our child into a reconciling relationship. Learning from our heavenly parent, we become the parent our child needs us to be.
Once I got Ben home I was terrified. I began praying as I had never prayed before. “Lord, please help me to parent as You do. Please help me be the mom Ben needs.” As his seven siblings followed, that prayer became ever more fervent. I encountered differing personalities which needed differing approaches. I encountered competing agendas. I encountered even more of my own faults as I saw them played out in the behavior of my children.
Yet through it all, God worked to make me an expert on my children. He brought me friends with great insight. He led me to books by astute experts. Mostly, He revealed, in the tiny bites I could swallow, the truths of His scripture to guide my heart, my mind, and my words with my children. From scripture I learned that in every situation, I needed to be gentle, kind, and self-controlled. I learned to value differences while holding each unique child to the same standard. I learned that I was teaching my children how to love others by the way I loved them. I learned to get regularly on my knees and beg for God’s provision and insight for each day. Slowly, as I became the child of God I needed to be, I became the mom my children needed.
Though over the course of eight babies I never learned to create a burrito-perfect swaddle, I learned that my children didn’t need to go home with that nurse. They were designed to go home with me. She could fold a blanket but she didn’t know that Ben needed to be warned a week in advance that we might not have hot dogs on Wednesday night or that we would need to push him into activities before he would be comfortable or that he loved quiet bike rides to talk. God and time with Ben taught me that. As you seek God in the daily-ness of life, He will guide you into being the parent your child needs.
This month’s topic: What are the ways you treasure your days with your children?
Ruth Bell Graham, wife of Rev. Billy Graham, recalled her daughter, Anne's, tearful comment as Mrs. Graham tucked her into bed, "Mother, you make it so hard to be good!" Mrs. Graham noted, "A good mother is one who makes is easy for a child to be good." We are cautioned against exasperating our children--making it hard for them to be good. How do we make it easy?
Set clear rules. Children need clarity--both on what we expect and on timing. “Each evening before dinner put all your toys in their tub” is much more helpful than “pick up your toys.” Clear expectations make it easier to obey.
Teach how to obey. Once children understand the rule, they need to know how to meet that expectation. Teaching gives visibility to expectation. The three-step process of: 1) parent performs task while child watches, 2) parent and child perform task together, and then 3) child performs task while parent watches works well. If I want my child to make her bed before coming to breakfast, I tell her this new rule. Then I spend a couple of days making the bed while she watches so she knows what a “made” bed looks like. Next, we spend a couple of days making the bed together. Finally, child spends a couple of days making the bed while I watch and point out changes needed. Once she knows how to comply with my expectation, the rule goes into effect.
Be consistent with children. Flexibility is great. Flexibility allows parents to respond to differing personalities and situations with grace. Yet, when flexibility trumps consistency—we make it hard for our children to obey. Children find it easier to obey when the rule stays the rule—no matter the situation. If I expect children to clean up toys before dinner—except on the weekend, except when rushing to soccer practice, except when friends are over—children are left guessing whether the rule is in place or the exception. Given they’d probably rather not clean up their toys, they’ll opt to see exceptions rather than obey. If they know the rule is the rule, it’s easy to obey.
Be consistent with self. If we want our children to comply the first time we ask them to do something, we need to follow our own directions. I struggle most with this when visiting friends. I tell my children it is time to leave and to get their shoes and coats. They run to do so, but I keep talking. Twenty minutes later, when they’ve given up on me and returned to playing with friends, I’m finally really ready to leave. I have to acknowledge my inconsistency just made it very difficult for them to obey. I need to be as consistent as I want my children to be.
This same consistency needs to accompany consequences for not obeying. If I impose a consequence for disobedience routinely, children soon learn to do what I ask right away. If I impose a consequence only when I’m angry or fed up, but make excuses for children when they are tired or busy (or when I’m tired or busy), I confuse my children. Confused children find it hard to obey. Gracious firmness makes it easy for children to understand they must follow through every time.
Affirm, affirm, affirm. Our children long to please us. In asking our children to obey, we are asking them to go against their very natures to comply with our requests. They do so out of adoration for us. If we ignore these gigantic sacrifices, they’ll soon disappear. While parents shouldn’t praise substandard efforts or behavior that should have become second nature, we need to specifically and consistently affirm our children’s efforts to respond to our direction. We need to flood them with the same blessing God promises us for our obedience to His direction. Use the celebrate plate to affirm a new and difficult job well done, write notes of praise, go out for ice cream together, give warm hugs and open praise. As we affirm the effort our children expend to follow our direction, we make it easy to obey.
Please join us to encourage each other with your insights, remembering to keep comments uplifting and considerate of all. Click on 'comments' below to discuss this month's topic.
This month’s topic: How do you make it easy to obey?
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
One of the best holidays of the year, Valentine’s Day offers the chance to celebrate love in all its forms. From fun to goofy to deeply romantic, each expression of love reveals, not only the love, but the heart of the lover. As families break from the gloom of winter to celebrate Valentine’s Day, let us count the ways we can show love to each other.
Words. Powerful and lasting, words are a family’s most potent love potion. Words generate connection. Words offer encouragement. Words nurture life. Your Valentines card will have funny, creative, or passionate words of love for your family. How about mixing a few of those into daily conversation?
Just as important are the tone and the expression accompanying those words. Sarcasm, long-suffering, and exasperation are love killers. Though she may have every right to be impatient, a flustered mom who takes a deep breath and instead offers encouragement creates love. A frustrated husband who gently pulls his wife into an embrace and whispers words of peace creates love. A sibling who meekly apologizes for trashing a Lego masterpiece creates love. Count words as a major way to love.
Acceptance. People crave security and significance. Acceptance—a recognition and genuine appreciation for the unique individuality of each person in our family—builds both, along with love. Acceptance creates the security of, "I am loved for who I am." A daughter’s love of domestic pursuits may drive her hard-charging mom up the wall while a son’s inclination for piano may interfere with dad’s football fantasies. Yet, the purposeful disregarding of expectations in favor of genuine acceptance affirms that each person is significant precisely because of who they are. Whether dad loudly cheers at son’s recital or mom purchases a needed skein of yarn, acceptance speaks love.
Time. Love is spelled T-I-M-E. Where we spend our time indicates our highest priorities. While counting the ways you love each other, count the times you set aside to be together. Regular dates with your children to catch up individually, family outings to build camaraderie, and family dinners to unify all add up to times that create a home of love. Don’t forget your spouse. Married people still need to date. Take time for romantic interludes to rekindle and reconnect. As the foundation of the home, a loving marriage creates a loving home. Make time.
Touch. Every human being needs four hugs per day merely to survive, eight hugs per day to maintain a strong emotional level, and twelve hugs per day to grow. As you count the ways to say “I love you,” count the hugs. It’s easy to hug our babies and toddlers. Those teens get a little more difficult—yet, they still need hugs. Become a house that hugs, that hi-fives, that back-pats, that tousles hair, and that squeezes. As you tender physical touch, you create tenderness that translates into love.
These are just a few ways to count the ways we love our family. As the month progresses, why not create and count a few new ways of your very own?
This month’s topic: What are the ways you treasure your days with your children?
