Late Night Ramblings

It is 12:03 am, before the time change....and I can't sleep. Pregnancy insomnia maybe? Not sure but while I can't sleep I read. Sometimes that means Scripture, sometimes a fiction book and sometimes it is Pinterest.

Tonight as I couldn't sleep I was searching for Thanksgiving things to do with the kiddos and I ran across a wonderful blog that I wanted to share with you.

In our family we have 6 boys, only one of those boys has left home so that leaves 5 boys. Four of whom are under the age of 7, with lots of energy. So when I found a blog about boys I started reading. Now maybe you are thinking that since the blog is about boys and maybe you don't have boys at home then you have no need to read it. Well THIS particular post is applicable to almost everyone. It was definitely convicting to me and I am planning on printing it out so I can re-read it often to remind myself of what it says.

I have blogged one of my favorite poems before, HERE which talks about my children mirroring my attitudes and behaviors. It is a subject very dear to my heart, I suppose because it is something I struggle so much with. I tend to feel that I am entitled to be grumpy and speak rudely because I am the mom and I have a lot on my plate. But that isn't what Scripture says. As the blog author mentions in her post...

A busy house is not an excuse to talk unkindly to my children.

“There is one who speaks rashly like the thrust of a sword,

But the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Proverbs 12:18 

“A gentle answer turns away wrath,

But a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Proverbs 15:1 

“Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”

Colossians 4:6 

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Ephesians 4:29

Anyway, these are my late night ramblings. I hope that if you read her blog you will be encouraged by it as I was. And if you happen to be the mom of boys, she has lots of great posts on raising boys. Enjoy!

Oh, Ouch!

I read THIS  post just now and knew I had to blog about it in case someone else struggles with this like I do... I printed it out and will add it to my "mommy" binder where I keep all the articles that I want to keep and reread.

Character

I read this quote on one of the blogs that I follow and since I can figure our how to put a direct link to things I thought I would just write it out for you....

Character, for the most part, is a product of our everyday life and those things which we allow each day will become the building blocks that will eventually shape the character of our children.

Jeff and Marge Berth

Oh that I could remember this everyday as we are raising our children! Why is it that we as a culture think that we can allow garbage and whatever into our children's lives and not think it will affect their character?

Intentional parenting part 2

I don't have any of this written down so it may sound more like rambling than anything else. I mentioned at the end of my last post that I would tell you how intentional parenting looks in practical terms for our family.

I can claim nothing for myself in these things that we do. As I mentioned two of my favorite books are "Don't Make Me Count to Three" and "Raising Godly Tomatoes" so most of the things that we do come from those. It seems that most of the altercations in our home involve our two little boys so when that happens I usually have to discipline both of them but we will focus on what I do when I can clearly see that one child needs to be disciplined. I try to calmly take the offending child to his/her room and ask them about what happened, such as " Were you being kind to your brother when you took that toy out of his hand?" Usually the answer comes out, "Yes" and I then proceed to tell him "No, that wasn't kind" and then why, as well as a toddler can understand. I do give a discipline on the bottom if that is needed and then I take the child back out to apologize and and to "redo" the incident in the correct way. Another thing that we do is to train the children to obey "Right Away, all the way, with a happy heart". I think that came from the "Don't make me count to three" book. We all know that consistency on our parts as parents is such an important key to child training. I definitely see a difference in behaviour when I am not consistent, especially with one child. Another thing we train for is that "Delayed obedience is disobedience". I think that is where we can keep ourselves as parents from falling into the bad habit of repeating our selves to our children and having the tone of our voice go up an octave each time that we repeat it. If we teach our children that delayed obedience is disobedience and we consistently follow through with a discipline when they disobey, then we should find ourselves having to discipline less. None of us as parents wants to spend all of our time disciplining our children so I guess the goal is to work on things until the children know what to expect and then only have to put out the fires every now and then.

We live in a very child oriented society which you see when you go out to go shopping. Meaning, alot of children these days are handed most things they cry for. They are not taught to wait, to obey or to be grateful. The Bible says: "He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly" Proverbs 13:24 and " For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights" Proverbs 3:12. Clearly we are to discipline our children, but not out of anger because they are bugging us but because we love them and we want them to know the right way to behave. I remember when our first child was little, so many years ago, our pastor saying something like..."an undisciplined child is an unlovely child". Basically what he was saying is what we all know to be true, a child who is disciplined and has self control is much more pleasant to be around than a child who is screaming their head off to get their own way.

To sum up my rambling thoughts on the subject...we should make the most of every opportunity to train our children, intentionally, in the way they should go. We aren't just given these children by God to make ourselves feel better or to just have them. We are given them as a gift, a treasure, a heritage. What right have we to neglect to train them as our Lord tells us to do?

Intentional Parenting

Intentional: intended, designed, done with design or purpose, not accidental

Parent: to produce or bring forth, he or she that produces young.
1. The duties of parents to their children are to maintain, protect and educate them.

Webster's 1828 dictionary

The Lord had been bringing one word to me often lately and that is the word intentional. I love being a mom, a parent. But I believe that there is more to being a parent than just bringing children into the world. I believe that Scripture commands us to be intentional parents. So I have been pondering what that means. I love to read books on parenting and training my children. Two of my favorites are "Raising Godly Tomatoes" by L. Elizabeth Krueger and "Don't Make Me Count to Three", by Ginger Plowman. But even after reading those books I still feel the Lord bringing that word, intentional, back to my mind. So I have started searching Scripture and taking notes of my own. For those of you whose children are grown or maybe you don't have children yet, this may be a boring post for you. Sorry, but I thought I would try out my thoughts on you, my friends and readers.

For me the easiest way to define intentional parenting to myself was to define what it is not....so here goes...the opposite of intentional parenting is dealing with each act of disobedience, temper tantrum, bad attitude, etc. as if it were a personal offense to me, or just to make myself feel better, to release my anger or frustration. Not seeing each act of disobedience as an opportunity to train my child/children in behavior that would please the Lord but also help them as they grow older. In other words, a selfish child will grow into a selfish adult, an angry child will grow into an angry adult, a lazy child will grow into a lazy adult. Scripture speaks clearly on these things. Phillipians 2:3 says "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself", Proverbs 22:24 says, "Make no friendship with an angry man..." and again in 29:22 "An angry man stirs up dissension...". As for laziness, the book of Proverbs is full of verses concerning this. So obviously these are some of the things that just come naturally to us as humans but since the Scriptures show us that these things are not good then that means that we need to train our children in the opposite of these things.

But where does the Bible say we are to train our children? What could a book written so long ago possibly have to say on the subject of parenting?

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:16
The Hebrew word for train in this verse is "chanak(khaw-nak) which means to narrow, to initiate or discipline, dedicate or train up. So I feel this verse is key to understanding our responsibilities as parents.

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture(training) and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
I think we can provoke our children to wrath when we are not intentional in our parenting, when they do not know what is expected of them and what the consequences will be if they disobey. I believe that children want stability and boundaries.

What kinds of things should we train for? 1 Peter 1:5-8 says...But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverence, to perseverence godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ".

So for me, I am working on training my children in kindness, selflessness, obedience, self-control, diligence, thoroughness, attentiveness and to be hard workers.

How does this all play out in our daily life? Stay tuned, if you are interested. And please know that we are definitely not perfect in our parenting and we learn something new each day, especially with two toddler boys:) But with the help of the Lord we are trying....to be intentional parents.