Find Out Your Kids’ Faves!

In my recent podcast, Ten Tips for Staying Close During Intense Training Times With Tweens and Teens, I talk about blessing and surprising your kids with little treats to bring in some fun—and make your child feel special. One way that you can keep track of each child’s favorite is to use some type of Kids’ Faves inventory/worksheet.

It just so happens that we have one for you—for free— to our newsletter subscribers. So if this sounds like something you need or want to use with your kids,scroll down to the end of this post, subscribe, download, print, and use!  (If you’re already a subscriber, go ahead and enter your email…you won’t get the newsletter twice, but you’ll still get the newsletter!)

If you don’t want to use our list, you can, of course, create your own.

Here are some tips for using such a list (from the front matter of our Kids’ Faves Worksheets):

This little tool is useful for many reasons:

(1)    It will help you with your Christmas shopping throughout the year (just pull completed sheets out if you see something on sale).
(2)    It will help you if you constantly forget (which one likes Rocky Road Ice Cream?).
(3)    It will help you plan little surprises along the way (which helps your child feel like you are thinking of him or her-because you are!).
(4)    It will help you get to know your child better.

Here are some tips for using it/implementing it: 

(1)    Have a family night in which everybody fills in all or part of it. (Since it is long, you could have them do the even questions one family night and the odd questions another family night.)

a.    Plan some things/foods, etc., that you THINK are kids’ faves … and after they turn in their sheets, tell them what you made and whose favorite you thought it was. (This is eye opening!)

b. Pass around the papers and have everybody fill them in (or half of them). We liked to do this type of thing while we listened to audio/radio dramas or fun music. Try to keep the kids from discussing as they are writing.

c. Have Mom or Dad collect them and read some answers here and there (depending on time available) and have people guess who wrote that. (This is eye opening too!)

d. Have the snacks you bought or prepared and vote on a family movie or play a family game.

(2)    Meet one on one with each child and fill it in with him or her. This helps the ones who can’t think of anything at the time since you are there to prompt them. This is especially good for younger kids or weak writers.
(3)    Make copies! Things get lost easily, and you want your kids to feel like this is important to you.
(4)    Be sure you tell them that you want to have this list to surprise them or for gift buying, etc., but tone it down a little if your kids are extremely thing-driven or have high expectations that you are ALWAYS bringing them home a Starbucks, etc. (Honestly, this works better with kids who are not over-indulged already.)
(5)    You can always get the lists out and use for dinner time discussions too. For example, “Let’s see if we can guess what Johnny’s favorite movie is,” etc. Or “I’m going to read the favorite candies lines, and we will guess whose page we think that is.” This is also a good way to help the kids focus on siblings and not just themselves.
(6)    Type this, print it, and keep each one in your purse or billfold (or scan it/take a picture of it, and store it on your phone). You want to have it at your fingertips.

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Make your home a center—a center for learning, a center for growing up together, a center for spiritual formation, a center for relationship building, a center for caring—and your kids will know that you want to spend time with them. There is nothing that can stop a child who knew his parents loved to be with him!

EARLY YEARS

1. Malachi time/Daddy tuck in—the beginning of a long tradition of availability to our children
2. Who has their shoes on/never go alone! Smile
3. Little snatches of time—kitchen time,
4. Date night

MIDDLE YEARS and UP

1. Continue Malachi time (be careful of squeakiest wheels!)
2. Dinner time
3. Terrific Tuesday/Wonderful Wednesday/Super Saturday! (Note: Invest in olders for trickle down effect!)
4. Family meetings/living room time (three or four evenings at home together each week?)
5. Twalks
6. Half birthdays
7. Bible talks
8. Drive time
9. Penny for your thoughts; a nickel for a hug; and a dime if you tell me that you love me—and other object lessons
10. “My Day”
11. Drive time to activities
12. Consistent/frequent traditions

TEENS and YOUNG ADULTS

1. Who’s available on their cell phone?
2. Texting
3. FB Messaging/emailing
4. Driving practice
5. Half birthdays and other special dates
6. When you “sit” in your house (Deut 5)
7. Hanging out (emphasizing availability)
8. The way to our teens’ hearts—through their stomachs Smile
9. Vacations and Staycations
10. Watching and listening (videos and audios)

AVAILABILITY

Your secret parenting weapon! Make yourself available. Change YOUR schedule. Drop the busy-ness. Add the heart-focused parenting that is needed to raise tweens and teens well.

MY DAY Notes

(1) Special focus—I tried to praise, affirm, spend more time with, tie heart strings more, etc. for that child on that day—without the child actually knowing it!

(2) Sitting in the front seat if we went anywhere (Because we only went places one or two days a week during the day during the week when my older children were little, we had to alternate whose day it was each week because otherwise, for example, the Monday or Tuesday child would seldom get to sit in the front seat since we seldom went anywhere early in the week.)

(3) Sitting closest to Mom during morning read aloud and afternoon story time

(4) Saying the prayer during breakfast and lunch

(5) Getting to choose two stories instead of one at story time (and getting their stories read first and last)

(6) Getting to have a longer talk time (Malachi time) with Dad that night before bed

(7) Helping Mom cook dinner that day (before they could cook meals entirely by themselves)

(8) Doing an extra job from the job jar

(9) Taking a morning or afternoon “twalk” (talk and walk) with Mom

Links

Podcasts:

• Ten Tips for Staying Close During Intense Parenting Times
• Teens: The Recipe for Rebellion and Ingredients for Intimacy

Blog Posts:

• Four Things Teens and Young Adults Need
• Teaching Children to Ask Questions
• The One Parenting Practice That Changes Everything
• A is for Affirmation

Listen to the podcast here!

The post Podcast Notes for “Ways To Spend More Time With Your Kids” appeared first on Character Ink.

Donna Reish, Character Ink Press author of fifty language arts/writing curriculum books and co-author/presenter of Raising Kids With Character parenting seminar (and blog), presents suggestions on how to spend more time with your kids in the upcoming year. On this Wondering Wednesday podcast episode, Donna answers parents questions about how to squeeze in more “kid time” in the midst of busy-ness, how to make each child feel special in large families, and more. Drawing on thirty-three years of parenting experience of seven children (ages seventeen to thirty-three) in a family in which both Mom and Dad have spent countless hours building strong relationships with their kids, Donna brings insights on this topic from very young to young adults.

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

The post Podcast: Ways to Spend More Time With Your Kids appeared first on Character Ink.

Listen to the podcast here!

Recipe for Rebellion

• Rules Without Reasons
• Rules Without Response
• Rules Without Repetition
• Rules Without Relationship

Rules Without Reasons

Replace this part of the recipe with explanations, teaching, and instructions that will stay with your children a lifetime.

Why Tell Children the Reasons Why?

1. It is how God deals with us.

2. It helps our children “own” the lifestyle choices and rules we are making when we do.

3. It is aggravating for the child if we do not.

Ephesians 6:4 says, “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”

Rules Without Response

1. “No-Response-Allowed” Is Aggravating!

“Fathers, don’t aggravate your children, if you do they will become discouraged and quit trying” Colossians 3:21 (NLT).

2. “No-Response-Allowed” Handicaps Our Children in Their Future Decision Making

3. “No-Response-Allowed” Is Not How God Treats Us!

4. “No-Response-Allowed” Causes Our Children to Argue With Us

Guidelines for the Appeal

1. Use the same key words all the time: “May I appeal?” OR “Can we talk about this?” OR “Can we discuss this further?”

2. If the appeal is disrespectful or done in anger, it is turned down immediately.

3. If the appeal is a series of whines and complaints, rather than a truly godly appeal, it is turned down.

4. If a child begins disagreeing a lot or constantly trying to appeal, the appeal process is terminated for a period of time until that person learns to accept Mom and Dad’s rules more often than not.

5. If the appeal process becomes an argument, it is ended.

6. If the person appealing is turned down, but later has more information (“new evidence”), he may re-appeal that topic.

7. The appeal is truly listened to and thought through by Mom and Dad. Do not pretend to listen to appeals, but not regard your children’s pleas. This is another “Recipe for Rebellion” in itself. (Kids know if the appeal process is just a formality and you are not truly listening to them.)

8. The person appealing is not constantly interrupted by Mom and Dad with justifications. The child should not be patronized during an appeal, but carefully listened to and respected.

9. Once the answer to the appeal is given, the matter must be dropped for the time being. Granted, it might need re-visited, but to continue the appeal once an answer is given is arguing, not appealing.

10. Parents must agree on the answer to the appeal at the time. Later, behind closed doors, discussion between Mom and Dad may need to take place, but in front of the child, a united front is imperative.

Rules Without Repetition

1. Inconsistency Hinders Many Areas

2. Inconsistency Creates a Poor Testimony

3. Causes our children to distrust us

Rules Without Relationship

→Most important “recipe ingredient” to get rid of! Relationship must be in place in order to keep our children from rebelling against us.

In Philemon 1: 8-9, Paul told the people that he could have forced them to do what he wanted them to do (which is how some parents handle things), but instead he wanted to love them into doing what he asked: “…although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love” (NKJV).

Recommended Resources

Leman, Kevin. Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours. (affiliate link) New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1987.

Note: The Recipe for Rebellion and other teen information this week is being excerpted, in part, from our parenting book The Well-Trained Heart.

The post Podcast Notes for “Teens – The Recipe for Rebellion and the Ingredients for Intimacy” appeared first on Character Ink.

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

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The post Podcast: Teens – The Recipe for Rebellion and the Ingredients for Intimacy appeared first on Character Ink.