by Donna | Mar 28, 2016
”A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.” ~Lemony Snicket
Talking does not always have to be “free style” or just conversation. One amazing way I have “talked” to my kids through the years was through a daily story time.
For twenty-five years, “more often than not,” I had a one to three hour story time with my kids who were story time age—and it was an amazing way to tie heart strings and “talk.”
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by Donna | Mar 24, 2016
A good piece of advice that we received early in our parenting of many littles was to always take at least one child with us where ever we went, if possible. The thinking was that if we always took a child with us, we could talk and train “on the road.”
Thus, we made it a point to always grab a kid if one of us left the house to run an errand—or plan to take one child with us if we knew ahead of time that we were going to be driving somewhere.
Out of this theory came our mantra: “Who’s got your shoes on? Dad’s running an errand!” Or “Who’s got your shoes on? Mom’s got to take a quick trip to town.”
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by Donna | Jan 29, 2016
In addition to talking to our babies and toddlers in the mornings, My husband also communicated with our toddlers and preschoolers at night through what we called “Malachi Time.”
“He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (NIV) Malachi 4:6
Based on the verse in Malachi about “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers,” Ray would tuck each child (age two or so and above) in their beds and talk to them.
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by Donna | Jan 5, 2016
We are the most balanced baby people I know! No extremes here of nursing a child on demand until age three —or of putting a baby on a four hour eating schedule while he’s still in the hospital at two days old! Somewhere between those extremes is an amazing way to parent babies and toddlers in which everybody (baby, parents, and siblings) enjoy each other and fall into a comfortable family rhythm that does not over-emphasize one child’s “wants” over another. And one in which wants and needs are differentiated and met as is appropriate. This is certainly not an article about baby and toddler training (check out our blog for more on that!); however, our parenting of our babies really did have something to do with the deep, communicative relationships that we developed with our children.
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by Donna | Jan 4, 2016
When we are asked those common questions of “What things did you do the most right?” and “What things did you do wrong?” (or any version of those), we immediately know a solid answer to the first one: One thing that we have done right in our parenting for thirty-three years is talk to our kids—all the time, about everything, never ceasing, without hesitation. We made time, and we always talked.
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