by Donna | Mar 3, 2011
Question: How can I start some of the character training concepts and habits that you describe with a toddler?
Answer: If you are just starting out with your family and have only a toddler, you have the perfect opportunity to start out right in the character training of your children! I will offer some general tips below, but even more importantly than the “daily ins and outs” of the ideas I recommend, I suggest that you read Parenting Paradigms at this blog. Even if you take to heart some of the ideas for your little one given in this Q and A, in the end, you will be more successful at character training if you have a firm handle on what you believe about parenting and children.
Toddler Character Training Tips:
1. Start adapting the toddler to your schedule and your family’s lifestyle as soon as you can (six to nine months) rather than making your family’s life revolve around the little one’s “wants.” You want to enjoy your toddler within the dynamics that your family already has (with the addition of the joy and wonder that a toddler brings into the family, of course)—as opposed to making everything change to meet unnecessary and often damaging demands that a toddler who is given his own way all the time can often make.
2. Remember that you are setting the stage right now for your child’s “tastes” (follow us on PP 365 or schedule our seminar for more details about this important concept).
a. You can set his tastes for defiance (allowing screaming, throwing, thrashing, and “no” from him) or submission.
b. You can set his tastes for selfishness and meanness (allowing hitting or other forms of striking, giving in to him when he wants something that someone else has, always making his surroundings whatever he wants (i.e. no bedtime, no sitting in high chair, etc.) due to “fits” or for kindness, gentleness, sweetness, and tenderness.
c. You can set his tastes for hyper-stimulation and activity (too much running; no scheduled down times; television and videos all the time) or for simple things (books, healthy toys, rest, etc.).
d. You can set his tastes to lack focus and not enjoy learning (again, too much video, not starting out with books and simple music; an avalanche of cartoons and children’s programming (some of which are developed in two second bits to keep up with short attention spans, thus, causing kids’ attention spans not to lengthen as they should) or a love for learning (via books, strong family learning and discussion times, etc.).
Tomorrow—deciding “behavior absolutes” for your toddler and establishing routines.
by Donna | Feb 24, 2011
As much as we teach about parental control in the early years of a child’s life (and child discipline when kids disobey or are disrespectful), we truly believe that Christian parenting needs a foundation of relationship and empathy—and that a parent-controlled home is not incongruous with parenting with relationship and empathy.
As a matter of fact, we believe that once children learn obedience, submission, and respect, the relationship and empathy come easily. Just like we respect, submit to, and obey God as Christians—but love Him like crazy and know that He loves us and understands how we feel, so it can be between children and parents (honest!).
There are many indications in the Bible that parenting should be relational, including some of the same verses we related earlier concerning child discipline.
First of all, the verses we studied concerning when and where character training should take place give us a glimpse into the relational aspects of parenting: “…You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:6 NKJV).
Why do we see this verse as pointing to how relational parenting should be? All of the places and times indicated in that verse for training our children in godliness point to lots of time together and teaching along the way—a very relational way to teach our kids. If we are truly using those times as benchmarks for training our children in God’s ways, we will be relational simply because we will be “doing life” with our kids. I just love the intimate picture that verse paints of the parent-child relationship.
Another verse that we discussed in terms of our responsibility to discipline our children points to the relational aspects of parenting as well: “Fathers do no exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4 NIV).
Yes, this verse tells us to bring our children up in a Christ-centered, Christ-teaching home. But it also tells us (especially fathers) to bring them up in the training of the Lord without exasperating them—without “driving them to wrath” as other versions put it. Truly, we need to teach our kids about the Lord all the time—but our relationship with them should be intimate, caring, and empathetic—the kind of relationship that will keep our children from being exasperated or driven away from us.
Tomorrow—more on how our parenting relationship should be intimate and relational. Thanks for joining us!
by Donna | Feb 23, 2011
The Bible tells us that “time is a vapor,” and no area of life is this truer than in parenting. And yet, when we moms have three or four preschoolers, toddlers, and babies under foot all day with no adult companionship for ten or twelve hours, time seems to move in slow motion. If only we could fast forward twelve years from now and see how deceiving those “long days” really are. (Then come back to our days with our “littles,” of course!)
If we realized how fleeting time with our little ones really is, we would not think twice about the amount of time it takes to tend to them, teach them, play with them, care for them, and more. We would think it was a drop in the bucket compared to our entire lives.
The same is true of all parenting. There simply isn’t that much time—at least not nearly what we think there is. In terms of parenting my seven children during their “childhood” years (birth to eighteen years), I will have a total of thirty-six years of parenting. Okay, that sounds like a lot…but it isn’t! We only have eighteen years per child—not very much.
How much time is too much to invest in parenting? I mean, real time—not time that the kids are in church, or at school—or times that we watch them play sports or do gymnastics (though supporting them in their activities is crucial too—I told you parenting is really, really hard work!).
For us, we have decided that no amount of time is too much. Nothing we could give up to focus on our children is too much—not an expensive home, a large salary, evenings spent doing what we would like to do, television programming, church activities, hobbies, Saturdays at the golf course or the mall—nothing.
We will not do everything perfect. We will make mistakes. We will fail our children unknowingly many times simply because we are human. But we do not have to fail in areas that we know we should do—for us, these areas are planning the training of our children and spending whatever time it takes during their growing up years.
by Donna | Feb 21, 2011
Without a vision….the family perishes…
When our older children were little, Ray worked twelve hours every day minimum. He left at 6:30 in the morning and never got home before 6:30 in the evening, though it was often eight o’clock when he arrived home. Because of his work schedule and because we had certain goals and schedules that we wanted to keep with our children, we were fairly regimented about how we used our days and evenings.
Friends often did not understand us. They would say things like, “You’re taking this parenting stuff too seriously; it doesn’t have to be that hard,” and “Lighten up a little,” etc. when they wanted us to be more “free spirited” and flexible. We knew that with Ray’s work schedule, we didn’t have the luxury of running around in the evenings or of skipping our family time too many nights in a row.
That strict schedule actually forced us to become the learning-and-playing-together family that we are today. We didn’t have any time to spare during those early days. And, those “strict scheduled days” actually led us to adopt our “three or four evenings a week all together” tradition that has kept our family together and strong for twenty-eight years.
The Bible tells us that without a vision, people perish. We believe the same can happen to our family. We will get into some of the ways we have planned our family’s “life” in the coming weeks, but for now, if we just grasp the idea that our children’s spiritual, character, and moral training are important enough to spend time planning and thinking about, we will look at each day differently than we previously did.
Parenting is serious work—and a huge responsibility. While spontaneous family fun is amazing—we cannot overlook the fact that we are stewards and overseers of the little souls entrusted to us. And that is nothing short of serious—and eternally crucial.
by Donna | Feb 18, 2011
This answer is easy on the surface. Of course, parents are supposed to run their homes—not the children! However, we so easily fall into a trap of letting children run things in our homes rather than parents.
Oh, it’s not intentional. None of us sets out in our parenting with the plan for the kids to run the show. We all have ideas that the parents will run things and the children will comply with the family rules and guidelines. Yet somehow, these dreams sometimes evaporate as we “walk on eggshells,” “try to keep peace,” and “attempt to make our children happy and comfortable.”
The Bible talks a lot about children being foolish, needing discipline, being ours for discipleship, being young and immature, being refreshingly naïve, and more. It makes it clear that when children are children they “think as children.” We all know that our kids were given to us to raise, care for, and train. Yet we sometimes lose sight of the fact that we truly do know what is best for our kids—and not the kids themselves.
Case in point—we know that it is safer for children to be in car seats (plus it’s the law in most states). And we follow through—even if they throw fits.
We also know that children need a certain amount of sleep, healthy foods, medications when they are ill, clean water, and more. But many of us can’t seem to carry out these things if a child protests too loudly that he does not want to go to bed (or stay in bed if he wakes up at five o’clock in the morning), that she does not want to eat what we know she should, etc. And those protests often drive us to actually allow our children to run certain areas of our homes rather than we parents running them.
We will refer to these scenarios throughout this year as “child-controlled homes” rather than “parent-controlled homes.” We have found that it is vital to the character training of our children for parents, not kids, to control the home. Once this is established in the early childhood years, other character training is so much easier.
And, believe it or not, kids are happier in parent-controlled homes than they are in child-controlled homes. They feel secure. They know the boundaries. They are safe. They are being guided by adults who adore them and would do anything to keep them safe and well. This environment, in which parents make decisions for the children until they are mature enough, is a “safe haven” for children to develop positive character in the years to come.
by Donna | Feb 17, 2011
There is one “punishment” Scripture that has always stood out to me among the several that are usually quoted—that is Proverbs 19:18: “Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise, you will ruin their lives” (NLT).
Two things stand out to me about this New Living Translation version passage:
1. There is a window of time to discipline our children that we can actually miss if we are not careful.
2. We can “ruin” our children’s lives if we do not discipline them.
Now, obviously, I can take these verses to extreme—I mean, what is the window? Is it fluid, based on each child or is it constant—and we need to be sure to stay on top of it? Am I one month too late, so my child’s future is sealed with disaster?
Is there no hope at all if I do not discipline—I mean, what about the sovereignty of God, what about free will, what about other influences, what about grace?
Obviously, these are proverbs for living—and our children are not absolutely doomed if we do not discipline them. (And we all make mistakes in our parenting.) However, this verse has always spoken to my heart that God wants me to do my part in child training of our young children—and to do it in a timely manner. And Proverbs are generally a glimpse into something bigger that we need to apply in our lives.
Society bears this verse out—as does research. Society says, “Get them while they’re young”; “this age or that age is the tenderest age.” In our heart of hearts, we know that children are impressionable. We know they are like sponges in their early years. We know that so many habits and behaviors are formed in the early years.
And research bears this out. So many studies have shown over and over again how much learning takes place in the early years of a child’s life. Various studies show signs of this—that 80% of everything a person knows is learned by age five; that a child’s moral compass is set by a certain age (for the most part); and on and on.
As is usually true, the Bible declared it first—then society and research confirms it (not that it needs confirmed!). I know in our parenting we have held this verse in high regard and tried to apply it to the early discipline of our children—with positive results.
By the way, the King James version of this Scripture is also born out in our children: “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (KJV). Moms, especially, are prone to give in to a child’s crying and fussing—and Solomon even addressed this problem! Smile…
