engaging the heart {parenting: part 4}

Read the premise for and additional notes on this series.

Part 4: Engaging the Heart

This piece is short, but so, so practical.

We are wired not to see ourselves with accuracy. It’s why we get defensive when someone calls us out for something we did wrong, it’s why we want to blame our sin on and why things my boss says to me at my yearly review can surprise me.

We think we see well, and then we realize later that we didn’t see well. Later we look back  and realize where we were wrong. Sometimes years later. We make phone calls and say we’re sorry.

Kids are the same. A long, loud lecture doesn’t typically help your child see where his behaviours are wrong and his heart is in the wrong spot. We have to help to open the eyes of their heart by drawing them to personal insight. They need to see for themselves, not just hear us tell them.

We need to ask heart-oriented questions  any incident or misbehaviour to help kids see what was really going on instead of blaming someone else, or a situation, or just being defensive of their wrong actions. Here are five heart-oriented questions to bring them to this confession:

1. What was going on?
2. What were you thinking and feeling when this was happening?
3. What did you do in response?
4. Why did you do it? What were you seeking to accomplish?
5. What were the results?

Do you see what those questions are getting to?

We can finally get away from, “You can’t hit him just because he hit you first!” Instead, it’s, “You can’t hit him because you are upset.”

Your heart is at the center of your actions. Your behavior came out of your heart – you can’t just blame it on another person or situation. You are responsible for how you act! You are responsible for how you respond!

What that looks like for us:

• Shilah can say a lot of words but doesn’t string many together. She’s starting to talk about emotions. She’ll say “happy!” when we’re on the floor reading books. We’ll ask these questions in a simple form and help feed her some answers. “Shilah, you hit mama, you know that hitting is disobeying, right?” “When we had to leave your toys to go change your diaper, did that make you sad?” “Did that make you upset?” and talk her through – even though you are upset you have to obey, you can’t just hit mama because you are upset.

How it’s going:

• Apparently I am also a child, because I find myself asking these questions in my own head when I start to get defensive, when I tend toward gossip, when I begin to be judgmental. I think these questions are as fitting for us as they are for our kids.

 

 

girly outfits

shilah is spoiled with talent around her.

my aunt knit her this hat when she was a wee baby:

she has also knit a super sweet dress and bib, and now this sweater, presented with a matching dress and sandals. so cute!

if you are wondering, you can’t have this sweater. i mean, you could try begging aunt susan, but she is a creative bird and shouldn’t be caged. she doesn’t often make the same thing twice and that makes every piece so, so special!

what’s the significance of family? {parenting: part one}

hey look, a parenting series.

really, this is just a compilation of my notes and thoughts after lots of emails about disciplining a toddler and a parenting conference we attended by Paul Tripp about getting to the heart of parenting. i have no parenting expertise. to claim so would be quite foolish, however, it’s always helpful for me to hear from others what information they’re basing their actions on, what that looks like in their families, and how it’s going. so i thought i’d use the blog to share my thoughts and experiences. definitely share your experiences in the comments, or email me!

i’ll post a new topic every Monday for the next six weeks or so. no kids? not to worry, there will be all of the regular recipe and craft posts on other days.

The Significance of Family {parenting: part one}

The information:

Families are God’s primary learning community.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  Deuteronomy 6:5-7

It is not the job of our state or our schools or even our church to be the primary learning arena for our kids. It’s our job as parents to create that environment. The state protects the family, and the church and school equip and support the family. The job of the family is distinctly educational. It is the agent God uses to form the character of and context for the child. Family is intended to be a theological, sociological, and redemptive community.

1. Theological Community: Because theology is the study of God, theological community is a community of people that studies God. The family must point to the being, character, and plan of God. God is the fact that dictated the earth. God made everything in the world that you and I live in. Teach this in your home!
2. Sociological Community: The family is relational. God’s design is that we would live in community with willing, self-sacrificing love for one another. There is no better place to have this environment than in the family. In a family, children must live and share with people they didn’t choose. As a parent, you can’t ever look at your child after they lie to you and say they didn’t hit their brother and say, “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you lied.” Because you can believe it. You do that same stuff every day. You lie, you manipulate someone to get what you want. You make a bad judgment call. You are that selfish. You ought to have compassion and tenderness when you watch your kids struggle to love!
3. Redemptive Community: The family should point to the redemption of Christ. Through their struggle to love, your children will see that they can’t do it on their own. That creates a holy frustration. A desire for help. A need for Jesus. If we don’t point toward Christ, we seclude them from having to learn and struggle with love, and we teach them they don’t need anything but themselves. We create self-righteous Pharisees who have no draw to the gospel because they don’t think they need it.

What that looks like for us:

• To be a theological community, we have to be in awe of God as parents. When Shilah stops on our way out to the car to smell the herbs growing in the pots outside the front door, I say, “Don’t those smell good? God made those to smell so pretty for you.” 
• To be a sociological community, we can’t over-manage Shilah’s life so that she can avoid hard situations. I can’t skip having Shilah interact with other kids for a few weeks because she’s in a really grouchy stage where she has to be reminded a lot to share. To teach self-sacrificing love, we must have self-sacrificing love. We have to stay up late and get up early and we have to have discipline the same things over and over again. We have to help her struggle to love, which means when she gets in trouble for something, she stays on our lap until she’s emotionally ok. She stays until she acknowledges  that we forgive her, and we love her, and that she can trust us and love us too, even though we have to discipline her.
• To be a redemptive community, we have to point to Christ. We have to talk about how it is hard to love, and we can’t love well on our own. Jesus loves us and he can help us love other people too. For Shilah, we talk about how it is hard to obey, “Shilah, I know you want to take your shoes off right now but mommy asked you not to. It’s hard to obey, but remember that Jesus loves you, and he can help you love and obey mommy.”

How it’s going:

• Theological community: This one feels silly at first but I try to do it at least a few times a day. She’s interested most anything I say, so I know I shouldn’t feel silly telling her about God!
• Sociological community:  This one is hardest for me. When something is hard for me, inter-relationally, I want to avoid it. But by avoiding situations where she could possibly be tired, upset, feisty, etc., I will be avoiding every situation and teaching her that it’s ok to not forgive people or run from someone who is difficult. This will also make her wonder if I will run from her when she is difficult. That makes me so sad to think about, because I never want to run from her! I have to get on the floor and play with her and help her learn what it means to love other kids and endure relationships!
• Redemptive community: Second hardest for me. Even though she doesn’t understand all of my words, I want to be talking to her about how, when we understand the love of God, it is an overflowing of our hearts to love other people. It’s to hard to love others when we’re not filled and abounding with the love of God, we need Jesus! Again, I feel silly talking to her in multiple full sentences, but that is only my pride.

Takeaways for this week: be in awe of God, help your child love, and point them to Jesus.

how to discipline a toddler

mainly i am realizing that i need to document some family stuff. so really this is how to discipline our toddler. this month.

so that we have memories. so that i preserve some emotions. and so that my children can know and see the experiences that shaped them. i don’t get super emotional but i plan to hang onto this blog and maybe do something like this with it each year.

so, last month we realized we need a plan for discipline or else our child was going to be that child.

do you think this little lady would ever need discipline?

um. yes.

so that she wouldn’t be the one running away from her parents at the fair and pushing other kids over to steal their balloon, throwing a fit when someone else gets their funnel cake first, and then hitting her mom when she’s swooped up. but, ultimately, so that she would know that her heart is sinful and needs to obey authority and as her parents, God has given us that authority in her life right now. she obeys God by obeying us, and it is our role to teach and train her.

we’ve watched others go before us and spent some time thinking about her age and  what she can understand.

we got a bit of good instruction from wiser, older parents:

• start with safety issues. for example, a child will be burned by a hot stove. they may not understand burns, and how to know if the stove is off or on, so for now your child must know that they can’t touch the stove. similarly, they may not run into the street.
• stop giving chances. a child will quickly learn how many warnings you give them before they are punished and push you to the limit. for something they know they are not supposed to do, they can be disciplined on the first offense. if it’s something new that’s just come up, tell them first that it’s not allowed and give them the chance to make the right or wrong decision next time the situation arises.
• figure out how you are going to discipline. at 18 months, she is easily distracted – punishment needs to take place quickly so that she relates it to the disobedience.
• explain to them what is going on. when a child is disciplined, they must know it is because mommy or daddy gave them instruction and they didn’t follow it. mommy and daddy love them. mommy and daddy want them to obey. it’s not actually what they did that is so terrible, it’s that they didn’t obey. ultimately it is not their bad or good actions that will condemn or save them, but the overall fact that their life did not obey Jesus when he said, “follow me.”

We started with safety issues and then finished out the list with a few other things we don’t want her doing at our house or at other people’s houses. our list has 8 things on it and i wrote them on the white board in the kitchen so that jon and i can both easily reference them. Here is our “NO” list:

1. grabbing the oven handle. this prevents her from pulling open a hot oven or getting her fingers up by a hot stove.
2. touching the powerstrip under the TV. this houses a lot of electricity for the TV, DVD player, router, etc. and it has a tempting lit-up orange button on it.
3. going past the end of the car in the driveway. toward the street.
4. hitting. no explanation needed.
5. screaming when mad. tantrums. no.
6. taking books off the upper bookshelves. the first two shelves of the bookcase are full of toys. play with anything on them, but don’t reach up to the heavy cookbooks that smash your toes when you pull them down and they fall to the floor.
7. standing on the couch. the couch is for sitting.
8. playing with the remote. general courtesy for people’s stuff.

these rules help us to know what to discipline as much as they help her to know what she will be disciplined for. she knows these rules. she couldn’t recite them for you, but if she’s doing something on the list she’s either looking at you to see if you’re watching, or she’s mad and showing it by being openly defiant.

when she disobeys, she is told no, that she may not disobey mama/dada by doing whatever is was that she was doing, quickly but firmly pinched on the back of her leg at the top of her thigh, and then hugged and told that we love her. we then usually put her back down and guide her to or suggest to her one of the million things she is allowed to do.

the pinch is working. it’s quick and snaps her out of whatever it is that she is doing. to spank, we would really need to remove her from a situation and take off her nicely padded cloth diaper. by that time, i don’t know if it would still be clear what the punishment is associated to at her age.

there is a ton of freedom for her outside of those eight rules. with the rules, i don’t feel like i have to be telling her ‘no’ all the time. sure, things come up – like we are outside and she goes to stick the nasty hose in her mouth – and at that point, I tell her to please take the hose out of her mouth. nine times out of ten, she does. because there is some order in her life, and we are consistent, and when we say ‘no’ we mean it, so she obeys when she’s asked.

within 48 hours of disciplining like this, she began to generally obey. she was avoiding the things she knew she wasn’t supposed to do, and she responded if we needed to say ‘no’ in other situations. she is listening to me, so that the rest of the time, our days are fun. we are joyful and loving and we enjoy the things around us. we show her God’s love and creation.

people do things differently, but this is working for us, right now, with this specific child.

man, don’t we sound like fun parents?

bits of joy

 

sometimes i have those days.

sometimes you have those days.

i set my alarm for 6, to get up early and get a few things done before you wake.

but you wake up crying. it’s only 4:58 and you’re ready for the day. a but sleepy, a bit whiny, but ready nonetheless.

the whininess turns to defiance and you’re driving your parents to discussions about your discipline before the sun even rises.

we read books, we play outside, we water plants. we go for a jog and you fall asleep with your head to the side like only a child can do. a head and a body with no semblance of a functional neck.

we come inside. it is only 8am.

you’re frustrated. threatening to scream or want to cuddle at any minute. I don’t know which is coming and I don’t think you do either.

you bring me your bug costume and we put it on. It helps a little.

you play, alone. you don’t want help and you’ll let me know when you do.

 

 

your sweaty curls matted to your forehead. the blocks are on the floor and there’s a bit of regret in your tired eyes about dumping them all on the ground.

but like all hard days, yours and mine, there are bits of joy and sweetness and laughter that remind us of our Hope.

you found a ball. it was funny and i don’t know why. but it was so funny, and i am thankful.

thank you for the bits of sweetness and joy.

 

 

 

available for hire

remember how she was ready to help pick out paint?

she can measure, too.

soon I will show you what we did to the living room.

alternative snacks {recipe: sweet potato crackers}

I have already told you how tired I am of cheerios.

In my quest for new snacks, I made these sweet potato crackers. Let me tell you why they are great for your kids (or for yourself):

1. one batch makes about 100 sturdy crackers – think 100 triscuits. that will last you at least a little while.
2. almost no added sugar
3. almost no added salt
4. no added food coloring

 

Sweet Potato Crackers

adapted from NC Sweet Potatoes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium Sweet Potato (1 cup)
• 1 T. sugar
• optional: coarse salt, sesame seeds, cayenne pepper

1. Pierce sweet potato with fork and bake at 450 for one hour.
2. Slice sweet potato open and scoop out one cup of sweet potato. Let cool.
3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into the bowl of a stand mixer.
4. Add butter and sweet potato, beat until mixture  is consistent.
5. Switch to dough hook and let mixer knead dough for three minutes.
6. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.
7. Divide dough into 4 balls.
8. One ball at a time, roll the dough out as thin as possible (1/8 to 1/16″)
9. Slice rolled dough into squares or punch shapes with a cookie cutter.*
10. Preheat oven to 350.
11. Lift dough crackers with a spatula onto an ungreased cookie sheet lined with silicone liner or parchment paper
12. Bake for 10 minutes until bottoms are slightly browned. Turn over and bake 3-4 minutes more.
13. Cool on rack before storing in an airtight container.

*If making these for adults, sprinkle with salt, sesame seeds and a little cayenne, if desired.