3 Apr 2015

Sibling Relationships

by | posted in: Mom | 0

1 Peter 3_8 (Square)

 

It is pure bliss when family members are living in harmony with one another, when relationships are interwoven & interdependent and when siblings are best friends. Is this possible or a far-stretched dream? Is it really achievable for siblings to be BFFs? I Peter 3:8 encourages brothers to live in unity. How is this accomplished? It begins with encouragement from us as parents.
.
– Consider the standard in your home. Are you allowing your children to speak unkind and disrespectful to each other? If so, determine the desired standard, communicate the standard and then hold your children to the standard. That means applying consequences (every time) when the standard is broken. In our home, that begins with a sit time and escalates to a loss of privileges including the loss of technology or even play-dates if relationships are not where they need to be in the home.

– Encourage your children to do small acts of kindness for their siblings. This can mean writing notes, bringing a lollipop home form the bank, offering the ‘better piece’ when sharing, inviting a sibling to ‘sleep-over’ in their room, letting a sibling go first, etc. Being “others centered” may be more difficult for some temperaments, so it may require prompting and suggesting until the ideas originate on their own. I often challenge each of my children to do one act of kindness for each other and then share privately with me at the end of the day. It is so sweet to hear some of the things they come up with on their own. And for those that need the extra nudging, they come to me with excitement and joyous pride of the kind, yet difficult, deed they did for their sibling.

– Celebrate each other. Encourage (and require) your children to give/make a gift or card for birthdays or other important events like concerts, plays or sports games. It was so sweet when my four year old wrapped and gave her younger sister her prized ‘blanky’ on her birthday without anyone knowing! Precious.

– Share freely and openly the things they appreciate about each other. This can be done periodically at the dinner table or during a family devotion. We sometimes make a game at the dinner table and say ‘turn to your left, or right and share something you appreciate about the person beside you.” The more they are encouraged to share openly, the more this becomes natural.

– Understand temperaments: Help siblings understand temperaments which will describe the strengths and weakness of themselves and their siblings. This has been a very helpful tool in knitting the hearts of my girls who seem to be wired completely different. They are able to offer grace and understanding in each others weaknesses instead of being irritated or competitive.

– Love Languages: Help your children understand what speaks love to each other: Encouraging words, acts of service, quality time, gifts, physical touch. Do your children know the love languages of their siblings?

– Confess offenses: Encourage repentance, forgiveness and restoration with offenses between siblings. It is impossible to share a close relationship with offense (sin) in the way.

– Offer Boundaries when necessary: If you have children who are not getting along, it could be they need boundaries in how much time they spend together. Help your children succeed. It may mean you need to shorten the time of interaction to ensure the time doesn’t end in conflict.

– Family Identity: Encourage your family to be best friends. Talk about it… and live it. It is necessary to protect family time to nurture an environment in which family/sibling relationships can thrive away from distractions.

– Treat all your children the same: We all know what happened in the Joseph story in the Bible when he was singled out as the ‘favorite’ son in the Bible. It created hatred, competitiveness and isolation between Joseph and his siblings. We can sow those same seeds if we give the impression we favor one child over another. Treat them all the same…every one of your children should feel like they are ‘the favorite’.

– Pray for each other. Encourage daily praying for each other. Prayer knits hearts together and keeps hearts pure. Sometimes it is helpful to pray with your child for their heart toward a sibling.

 

 

26 Mar 2015

3 Candy Speed

by | posted in: Dads, Mom | 0

three-candy speed[1]

 

If you experience frustration by having to prompt and remind your child to hurry when you’re in a rush to get out the door to school, an appointment or meeting, Three Candy Speed is a way to show a child what ‘fast’ looks like. If your child’s favorite candy awaited him at the end of his task, you’d see lightening-fast movement. Three Candy Speed is a teaching tool for parents to train their child to accelerate his pace toward completion of a task (i.e. cleaning up toys, getting out the door, etc.).

Teach your child Three Candy Speed at a time you are not in a rush. Put three small pieces of candy on the counter and call your child over. Tell him that you are going to set the timer and when you say ‘Go’, he should begin cleaning up his toys. Inform him that when the toys are properly picked up and neatly put away before the timer sounds, the three pieces of candy are his reward. You can be sure your child will move faster than his usual pace.

Be sure to talk to your child while he’s enjoying his candy that the speed he just moved is “Three Candy Speed”. Let him know he will not be getting candy every time you ask him to move at Three Candy Speed, but the next time you need him to move more quickly, say you want Three Candy Speed!

15 Mar 2015

What Could Be Worse Than Ebola

by | posted in: Dads | 0

It seems like the concern over Ebola is waning a bit. Many were very fearful of its coming to the States, and an outbreak would be terrible for sure. What would you think if I said there is something on par with Ebola in many professing Christian homes? What is it? Anger. Anger kills relationships and is highly contagious.

“Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul” (Proverbs 22:24-25). The relationships in a home are far stronger than friendship, and our anger will be strongly, deeply impressed on the souls of our family members and yield devastating consequences.

I recall one dad who talked about how bad his anger was and acknowledged it had an impact on his 18-year-old son’s not being saved. This man’s anger was a key factor in his son’s rejecting both him and Christ, and yet he referred to his anger in a fairly casual way, much as someone would who had given someone his cold. If you want to drive your children away from you—and possibly away from the Lord: be angry.

I wonder if there is any other sin—that’s right sin—that is so widely justified. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

Would your family say you get angry? Would they describe you as an angry man? If so, isn’t it time to forsake it before there are casualties?

 

Steve Maxwell

3 Mar 2015

New Father – New Thinking

by | posted in: Dads | 0

newborn artwork

 

Keenan, Christian, and you other gentlemen that have newly arrived bundles or are now awaiting this impending profound change in life – Welcome.

Since you’re going to be a new father for the first time only one time – write a letter.

You are at the pinnacle of your maturity so far. You have never been so wise, more forward-thinking, more capable…and never so much on the precipice of change. Now’s the time to write a letter that you absolutely will come back to again and again.  Because the recipient will bring it to you for clarification and ultimately honor. It should go something like this:

 

“Dearest of my heart,

You came into the world today as a blessing to me and your mom. Your mom worked so hard to bring you here all healthy and pink. Now it’s my turn to take you further.  This is my love letter to you that I hope will bring you guidance in life. I waited till your 13th birthday to give it to you, holding it in secret till you and I could talk about it. Though this letter may be secreted away, my love for you won’t be. Nor are my hopes for an incredible life of wonder, adventure, family connection, and growth.  That’s what I want to talk about now.

I want your life to be wonder-filled and wonderful. Curiosity reveals wonder. If we are curious we can learn about God’s creation with eagerness. This universe is filled with the most amazing creatures and processes. You yourself are example to the most incredible thing I can imagine – life. That you could come from the love of your mom and me is truly astounding and wonderful. God has Blessed us with you and this world. Let’s you and me go forward to learn about all of it.

Another quality I want to have with you is one of adventure. Adventure requires an attitude of positive expectation, an open-minded way of looking at the world. When confronted with the chance to play the game, volunteer to help, raise your hand to try, or move into an uncomfortable situation, adventure-mindedness is the best perspective. Not the easiest, but the best. Your mom and I want to have that as a family trait where our family goes out and explores, and volunteers, and participates in the fullness of life. And we want to do that with you.

Family togetherness is very important to your mom and me. You and your future siblings are a priority. When you call me, I will always take the call – no matter what. I will never confuse busy and important. I also vow to love your mom with all my heart as I do today. She was so strong, and brave, and beautiful bringing you here today. I say this because I know how important family is to you. I will make sure that I hold the family above all other demands on my time, attention, energies, and ego. We are the Marrs and together we can conquer anything.

Lastly for this letter (because there is so much more I could write about), I want to grow with you. You may not know this, but I am very young. I don’t feel equipped to be your dad, but God has decided otherwise. So you and I will be growing up together. As your mom and I will manage your physical growth, you and God will be encouraging our spiritual growth. My goal is to give you the most emotionally, spiritually, financially, psychologically secure start that I am capable. And I vow to grow to my maximum capability so that I can demonstrate to you and your siblings I am willing to lead. Because, as your father, I must lead.

And so, as we celebrate your 13th birthday, I wish to take you back to this day when I signed and dated this love letter. We will have so many more days together, but none shall be more special than this day…when you came into my life.

 

I love you,

Dad”

 

I choked up pretty good when I wrote this because this declaration is at the core of everything you are in the act of becoming. I hope you take my advice and write down everything, your hopes, your fears, your vision of the future, and set it aside to give to your child on their 13th birthday. Now, don’t write it to a 13 year old. Make sure it’s the best letter you can devise. You want the letter to grow with him/her. It won’t be fully understood till he/she is sitting at some future day like you are here today – at the juncture between childhood and adulthood.

 

To your continued success,

Dave

 

P.S. For you Dads that already have older kids, it’s not too late to write the letter. And write to all your kids. I made a huge mistake, enormous regret, in that I only wrote to my boys and not to my daughter. Don’t mess up like me. And for you younger men whose procreation may seem a long way off, your time will come soon enough. Think on it anyway.

1 … 63 64 65 66 67 68