Jul. 30, 2008 - Time With Dad
Today Jack went to work with his Dad. He has not been willingly doing his chores or schoolwork, so on Tuesday morning, before he left for work, Darin said, "If you don't get your chores done before lunch, you're gonna have to come to work with me tomorrow." That's right. I mentioned this to Darin as a possible alternative to everything else that hasn't been working. I like calling in the Big Guns, man. Dad has an influence that I just can't match.
My guess is that is exactly what Jack wanted and NEEDED. As soon as Darin walked out the door, Jack didn't do one more chore. He played until lunchtime (I'm not gonna beg him to do his chores....he's old enough to know what to do without me sitting on him). After lunch was over, I sat him down and he did schoolwork until 6:30ish, when Darin came home.
So I made a nice, long list of things to do for Jack to take with him. He sat and did schoolwork in Darin's office all day. Darin says that it didn't seem to offend Jack at all. He did everything on the list without complaint and was so good. I honestly think that Jack just needed the extra time with his Dad, even if it was just sitting in the same room with him all day, doing schoolwork while Darin worked. We do take the time to spend time alone with each of the kids, but I'm sure it's probably never enough. :-) I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow....if this day has helped him to settle down. That would be nice. ;-)
In other news, look what else we're tackling these days......FUN! ;-)
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Jan. 24, 2008 - Ditching Parenting Books!
Since chucking all our parenting books in favor of solely relying on the Bible as our parenting guide, a couple of things have occurred to me. First of all, if you're interested, I wrote a couple of posts on ditching the parenting books here and here .
What I've learned:
1) The focus on learning styles has really messed us up as parents. All the time my pal and I were discussing what parenting tricks would work best for our kids and their styles - what would our kids respond to? So because we were reading parenting books that touted different parenting tricks for different behaviors and different kids, we lost the focus on the behavior that needed changing. We were focused on what was working or not working (really, nothing "worked." That was why we kept looking for new books!), and what other books we could find that would give us more parenting tricks that might work better at changing behavior. I personally never stuck with anything from all those books which made me inconsistent with my children.
2) Since picking up the Bible with my kids and using it as my one and only parenting tool, I realize that learning styles have little or nothing to do with the plain fact that my kids are sinners in need of someone to tell them that. In a nice way, of course. ;-) I don't need some special tricks or mantras when I pull out our Bible to chat with my kids about their problems with anger, laziness, lying, & etc. The Bible gives my kids all the info they need about how God loves them and what He expects from His children. The Bible is ENOUGH. What does Psalm 119:9 say? "How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your Word."
3) I don't know my Bible as well as I wish I did! ;-) I rely heavily on For Instructions in Righteousness from Doorposts. This book has all the behaviors you'll ever come across in your kids referenced with scriptures pertaining to each. What a blessing it has been.
4) God is merciful and makes promises to us struggling parents. Philippians 1:6 comes to mind. "...He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." I trust that He will lead my children in His ways as they hear His Word and it is a relief to know that He has them in His hands and is working on their hearts and minds in a way that I never could with parenting tricks.
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Jan. 19, 2008 - Heart Monitor
I wrote the following for our homeschooling support group newsletter back in 2003, when First Daughter was five. :-) A little trip down memory lane.....
I know I’ll get a big “Amen!” when I tell you that I ever wonder if my children will grow to be who I am working so desperately for them to be. Day after day, I feel as if I’m their very own Character Monitor. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I also serve as their Food Monitor, Sleep Monitor, School Monitor, TV Monitor, Computer Game Monitor, and Friend Monitor. Every aspect of their lives is monitored by my husband and me.
To put it bluntly, there are days when I feel like a big, fat failure. Those are the days when I make myself a homemade Chai Tea (it’s not as good as getting it at Starbucks, but I manage), and disappear into the bedroom when my husband comes home, to watch “Inside the Actor’s Studio” on BRAVO. I feel so unloved on those evenings. For me to get to the point where I want to disappear for a while, they have been extremely disobedient, argumentative, and downright grouchy. And I’ve spent the day correcting, praying, and working with all of that, but after being pounded with it in situation after situation, I start taking it personally. I feel as if I’m not a good parent, that I am not doing what it takes to really reach them, and that the only way to help them is for me to disappear for a while.
The other day, my daughter lied to me. That girl just simply refuses to flush the toilet! She told me she flushed the toilet when she didn’t. I didn’t say anything, but sent her to her room since it was naptime, and consulted “For Instructions in Righteousness”. (A great resource, found at www.doorposts.net) What was a good story to read to her to illustrate the consequences of lying? I chose Adam and Eve. I read her the story, without any pre-reading sermonizing. Didn’t even mention her lie, because really, I felt so discouraged. I didn’t feel I could say anything that would make her mend her ways. I didn’t even really have any big hope that reading from the Bible would penetrate. I just read her a story, same as we do everyday before her nap. But God so encouraged me after I finished reading the story to her. After I finished, the first thing she said was, “I need to be sorry.” I asked her why and she said, “For my sin.” I asked her what sin, and she said, “When I lied to you!” And we prayed, and she said, “Dear God, Thank You to forgive me for my lie. Amen.”
My breath was taken away. The remorse! The prayer! She apologized to me! And I never said a word. It was all God’s doing. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
And all along I thought it was all the things I was telling my children, over and over, that was going to change their hearts. I don’t have to be their Everything Monitor. I can be what God has meant for me to be all along, which is a vessel for Him, their Heart Monitor. He’s done all the work for me through His Son and His Word.
Thank you God, and forgive me for thinking that I could change my children’s hearts without You.
I
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Nov. 18, 2007 - Full-Service Home
Something my Husband and I learned as adults is that the skills we have acquired over the years are not for our own benefit. They are to be used to serve others. It's been interesting as we try to instill this thought into our own kids. God has been good to give us many good opportunities for this. Especially here at home, since we've begun this "full quiver" journey. I am a complete control freak, and would do all the cooking and cleaning if I could. I enjoy it, and especially enjoy seeing it done "right." ;-)
But since we had Third Son, and after I got pregnant with Second Daughter, things have changed. I can't keep up with things as I would like, so the First Three have had to step up and get busy. All the years of teaching them to do chores and simple cooking are now having to be used for more than just a way to earn allowance for themselves. They now have to go above and beyond their regular chores. They are fully capable, if not always fully willing. And so we have come to a new phase of the learning - using the skills they have to serve others with a cheerful heart. It's been interesting to watch the kids as they go beyond their regular chores into actual service in the home and see how far they will go before they start complaining. Our goal is to teach them to go all day, if necessary, with the same good attitude they started out with.
I can relate to that! Yesterday was a busy, busy day for us and I am a little sore around the bottom part of my tummy from being on my feet so much and sitting in uncomfortable chairs. On our way home from church today I thought, "I am going to do nothing but lay on the couch all afternoon!" If I only could have shut my brain off after that thought, I would have been okay, but then I remembered that First Daughter has to make a dessert to her AWANA meeting at church tonight. She can do it....she just needs a little supervision because she'll be making a new recipe. I also remembered that I need to run to the store to get some canned goods for the AWANA food drive. That will use up the afternoon because First and Only Husband and kids will leave for AWANA around 4:30, and then it will be Third-into-everything-Son and me. ;-) My first thought was to groan, and I did. Then I had to straighten up and decide to go about the day with a better attitude than that! So here goes......
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Nov. 9, 2007 - Our Ways and His Ways
I was recently listening to a radio program where a father was discussing the suicide of his son. I can't imagine the pain that the death of this man's son brought. I NEVER want to go through that. What struck me as I was listening, was that everyone on the show kept repeating that the son had been such an intelligent boy. He could have been anything. Why did he kill himself?
I think it's a big mistake to 1) tell our kids they can be ANYTHING they want to be and 2) that they are so smart and can achieve or overcome anything in life because of that.
1) We all have limits to our capabilities. We can certainly do all things through Christ, but Christ has specific plans for us. How many times have we talked with someone and shared how God "closed the door" on this or that ambition because He had a different purpose for our lives? "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9.
2) We can credit all our success on our brain power all day if we want, but God sees it differently. "Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though they join forces, none shall go unpunished." Proverbs 16:5
I think that we set our kids up for what they believe is a deep failure on their parts when we focus their attention on their abilities, their intelligence, their interests, rather than on what God's plan for their lives is. Kids who are raised to rely on their own smarts in making their way through life will be self-centered. They will most likely forget that God made them for a purpose in their grief over their failures - never understanding that God may have just closed the ol' proverbial door FOR them.
I can't say for sure how this man raised his son to think about himself or God. He may have done and said all the right things to his son, but maybe his son was tuned into the world's way of thinking more than his father's? We'll never know. But we do know how we are raising our own children. It's difficult. Even as homeschooling parents, we can get caught up in the "they sent their homeschooled kids to Harvard" stories (these days, who WANTS their kids to go there anyway?) and focus on academic and social successes. Psalm 127:1 can serve as a great reminder of what our priorities with our children should be:
"Unless the Lord builds the house (or kid;-), they labor in vain who build it..."
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Oct. 8, 2007 - Raising Pharisees
This is another blog entry by the guys over at Pulpit Magazine. I love this blog. It teaches me so much. This particular blog entry is something that brings me to God in prayer every day. I want my kids to have a HEART knowledge of Him, rather than just HEAD knowledge. That's what I had growing up, which brought about so many wasted years of my life.
Posted: 05 Oct 2007 02:01 AM CDT
(By Kurt Gebhards)
* Kurt serves as the Pastor of Children’s Ministries at Grace Church.
One dynamic of Children’s Ministries at Grace Community Church is that most of the children we minister to come from Christian families. Many of them are blessed with the sound and systematic teaching from God’s Word both at home and in the church, and even sometimes in school. This is something to be grateful for, but it also presents a unique challenge to those of us in Children’s Ministries. While the world breeds rebels, the church can unwittingly breed hypocrites.
It is the sad testimony of church history that the works and expressions of sacrificial love and devotion of one generation of Christians can quickly turn into legalistic rules and regulations for the next. The convictions of the first generation become the caprice of the second. It is sad and shameful how quickly the Object of wonder and worship of a generation can become the boredom and betrayal of the next. Hypocrisy is an imminent and evident threat to the church of Jesus Christ.
Churched children are seldom given to outright defiance of authority; they are much more susceptible to the poison of Pharisaism. Hypocrisy in the heart is much more difficult to spot than disobedient behavior. The Bible gives us some definite character traits of the pretentious pietist, and here is what they may look like in a child:
His outward behavior and adherence to rules are driven by a desire to please men, not by a love for God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength (Mk. 12:30).
Left unchecked by the grace and Word of God, by the time such a child reaches his teenage years, hypocrisy can have entrenched itself.
Hypocrisy is the pretense of virtue or piousness that is contrary to one’s real character. And make no mistake, hypocrisy spreads like an unseen cancer. Everything appears alive and spiritually vital, then suddenly, the person is dull –and soon dead. The Lord specifically warned His disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” (Lk. 12:1) Since hypocrisy is hidden deep within the recesses of the heart, it goes on unchecked and will hollow out its victim from the inside.
One of the dangers is that these outwardly compliant children receive much approval from parents and teachers. So they are encouraged to continue the duplicity unless anti-hypocritical measures are employed. We can certainly teach and militate against hypocrisy in the following ways:
Hypocrisy is an insidious danger in Children’s Ministries today. It also threatens each individual home. As parents, it is our job to honor the intention of Psalm 78:4-6:
We will not conceal [the Word of God] from their children, But tell to the generations to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done, that they should teach [the law] to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children.
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Sep. 23, 2007 - Na-Na-Na-Na-Boo-Boo
I don't know about you, but tattle-telling is hot business with my three oldest. It seems I spend my day asking them, "Did you talk to so-and-so before you came to me?" Of course they usually haven't, or if they have, it wasn't it the nicest of tones. So I send them off again to work out their issues. First Daughter knows how her Dad and I feel about tattle-telling, so she does something that totally cracks us up. If she's involved in a situation with her big brother, we might hear something like this from the next room:
"Stop! You took my book from me and won't give it back!"
That's her way of tattle-telling without coming directly to us with the issue. I guess she thinks that if we hear her exposition on the situation, we will come running in and take over. ;-)
Yesterday I came across a great blog entry by Rob Wilkerson on his blog, MOG. The title of the entry he wrote is "Father Forgive Them..." - Applying the Gospel to Tattle-Telling - Again Rob has great insight into this topic that is mostly a thorn in the side of parents. Here's a great excerpt:
Again, the motivation of the tattle-tale is not to help or serve or protect. Instead it is has multiple sources. Perhaps it is to make themselves look important in the eyes of others. That's usually a key motivation for my children. Or perhaps it is to see them get in some sort of trouble, to be censured, to be reprimanded, terminated from their job, etc. This is also a key motivation for my children. Perhaps it is merely because such communication methods are second-nature to them and they can't help themselves. This has to be dealt with seriously. All of these motivations reveal something significant going on in the heart, and if that can be discovered and addressed then the problem of tattle-telling can be repented of. This is the most key factor in dealing with this sin.
The entire entry is so good. Check it out and maybe enjoy reading a new-to-you blogger. :-)
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Sep. 11, 2007 - Body Snatchers
Reading this short article today made my blood boil:
Female Prisoner Dies in Eritrea for Refusing to Renounce Faith in Christ
Allie Martin
OneNewsNow.com
September 11, 2007
A ministry, which informs Christians about the plight of persecuted believers worldwide, says persecution is on the rise in Eritrea, a small African nation located along the southwestern coast of the Red Sea.
Open Doors USA has recently learned of the death of Eritrean prisoner Migsti Haile. The 33-year-old woman was a Christian who was imprisoned, tortured, and then killed for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ.
Haile was among a group of ten single Christian women who had been arrested at a church gathering and then spent a year-and-a-half imprisoned under harsh conditions. Dr. Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors USA, says the Eritrean government is scared of religion and its influence.
"It's incredulous for most Americans to think about a small country like this, taking out such aggressive violence against Christians -- and for what reason?" he questions. "They have a quasi-Marxist government there that is power centric and ... afraid of the force of religion in their country."
He says Open Doors is maintaining an "active campaign" to raise awareness of these types of situations to European, U.S., State Department, and human rights officials. "We have programs where people can, of course, get informed about what is happening, because you're not going to see this in the New York Times or CNN," he states.
Moeller points out that four Christians have died in Eritrea during the past year as a result of persecution. And currently more than 2,000 Eritrean Christians are imprisoned and tortured because they refuse to renounce their faith in Christ.
It's going on all over the globe. I get anxious for God to take His revenge on the persecutors of my fellow believers, but realize that I have to simmer down and let God take care of issues like this in His own time.
In the meantime, I talk daily to our kids about persecuted people from around the world. I think it is so important that they realize that it's real. It's happening, and their futures may not be all about living out the American Dream, but about living out their faith in Christ in a way that may seem all too shockingly real. I pray that if the time comes that they have to suffer for their faith that they stay strong and remember that no one can snatch them from His hand.
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Aug. 16, 2007 - We Have the Mind of Christ, Part 3
Here's a challenge. Put your children in place of the woman in the black t-shirt. Put yourself in the place of all those who tempted her away from Christ. Ask yourself if there is anything you are placing in front of your children that takes time away from their life with Christ, as in Bible Study, Church, One-on-One Discipling from you or your spouse. There are many, many things that we, as parents, come up with to fill our kid's time, such as sports teams, co-ops, youth groups, a book that is a must--read, & etc.
This is a subject that I think we parents must constantly visit. Exactly what is it that we are doing that is drawing our kids to Christ? Do they know that they have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:9-16) and can draw close to Him in a way they never imagined through reading the Bible and prayer?
My Husband and I used to have the goal that we wanted to raise our kids to be "better" than we were by the time we hit our 20's. Not a hard thing! ;-) We definitely had some {partying} issues. But now our new goal is becoming to teach our kids that they have the mind of Christ. What power we give them to maneuver through life's surprises, if through God's grace, we succeed in meeting our goal.
Read these:
Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years
Most Adults Feel Accepted by God, But Lack a Biblical Worldview
Teens Evaluate the Church-Based Ministry They Received As Children
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Aug. 15, 2007 - We Have the Mind of Christ, Part 2
As far as reading the Bible to our kids goes, there is a book that has had a HUGE influence on my husband and me. It is titled Ten P's in a Pod. Looking at the cover of this book, you might think that it's a sweet, anecdotal book about a Mom and Pop and their eight kids and all the situations they find themselves in and the outcomes of those situations. Well.......yes. But there is so much more.
The Father of this family, Arnold Pent, was truly a man who obeyed God's command in Dueteronomy 6:4-9.
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
The Pent family traveled together, spreading the Word of God and they were REAL. They meant every word they said when they spoke of Christ because they were immersed in the Bible. As a family, they read the Bible three times each day AND they each had their own personal Quiet Time with God. Scripture had a real meaning to them and they were able to be effective in their ministry because of it. And even though they're not traveling around together today, the testimony of how they lived their life and loved their God shines through in Ten P's in a Pod and is still affecting others for Christ today.
The Pent family sure have affected how my Husband and I are approaching life with the fam. Our goal now is to read to our kids from the Bible three times each day. It's a shame, but we find it a struggle to achieve that goal. We've got twice each day under our belts, but man, are we struggling with "finding time" to fit in that third reading. It's hard to give up our worldly goals for a squeaky clean house, certain activities for the "good" and "benefit" for the kids, and even academic goals. These are our own issues that we know we have to work on surrendering to God.
More to come.....
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