PERTH GEMS - JULY 09 - PART SIX
I seem to spend all my time doing training, chores, baby-care. How can I include some fun in our day/week?
Plan it in! Maybe have one spot each day (even just 5 – 10 minutes) when everyone is well rested and well fed to have a game or play time. Plan a short family rumble or tickle play time before the bedtime ritual begins. Have a day a week that is non-structured for family outings, visitors and fun memory-making. Play with them each day by maybe joining them for the last 15 minutes of outside play or the first ten minutes of table activity time. Yes, there is always something to clean or fix or prepare or wash. We need to intentionally choose to enjoy each day of our parenting and calve out those few moments of extra enjoyment and pleasure.
How do we reconcile self-control gone wrong? i.e. if there’s been a series of parental outbursts in front of the children?
“If you keep on doing what you have been doing, you will keep on getting what you are getting.” – Albert Einstein.
If you are not coping with your day, what can change? Is there a part of the day that needs improvement? Do you need to change some physical aspect of the house? Do you need to adjust outside commitments? Do you need daily or weekly time outs just for you? Do diet and health need focus? A change in practice will reap a change in outcome. Yes, we need to confess to the children and ask for forgiveness, but practical changes also need to be implemented.
How best can you train children’s heart when your husband doesn’t really see what you are trying to do as important (“just a child”).
It is certainly harder when your spouse is not on board at all, but not impossible.
You just do the best you can in the time that you have alone with them. Truly, you pray lots. Ultimately it your everyday model that speaks loudest to your children. They are watching and listening to everything you say and do. You cannot change what your spouse thinks, but you can model respect for him and be as united as you can in front of the children. Focus on all the positive virtue training you can do with every part of your day (suggestions in TERRIFIC TODDLERS 2) and put your thoughts and emotional energy into these activities.
At what age do you think that God’s grace can be understood in children?
I personally think that maybe from age 5 and up, at a very simple level. However, from my experience it is really in the teen years that they come to grasp the magnitude of His amazing grace. In the first five years of parenting, the over riding focus is on establishing self-control and obedience. The next six years or so are refining the heart attitudes and training through real life situations. From pre-teen to teens you are expanding their world view and basic theology to include concepts of grace, eternal consequences, the end times, the mega-narrative of the bible story etc. I too am still learning of the magnitude of the awesome attributes of God.
Have you any creative ways to incorporate teaching God’s grace along side self-
control?
For us, this is part of our teaching in these early teen years so mostly comes through conversation. If a scenario occurs at school, we can discuss the aspects of self-control and grace that were or were not shown in that instance. If they have made a good or bad choice in a situation themselves, we can incorporate these issues in our evaluation talk. As I deal with people issues in my ministry or work place I can highlight these areas in the way I relate the stories of the day and in my speaking of colleagues or the decision making of my authorities. Our toddlers need to learn self-control and a very clear sense of right and wrong, then they will appreciate grace.
What level of involvement of the Holy Spirit do you equate in your teaching i.e. do you tell your children to seek this gift along side your training?
Parenting is a wonderful, intensive, heart breaking work. Our job is simply to prepare the soil of their hearts for the Holy Spirit to do His work. We need to plant the seeds of good virtues, and pull the weeds of the negatives we see. My daily prayer is that my children will come to passionately know God, passionately love God and passionately desire to see others come to know and love Him too. Ultimately they can not display self-control and good choices by themselves, it is only with God’s help that they can live holy and disciplined lives that are pleasing to Him. From the middle years we turn our training to this in a more direct manner.
