by Donna | Oct 29, 2010
I have been talking about praising your children with character names and terms. Yesterday I shared 100 Character Qualities and Defintitions. Below you will find links to some character training sites–many with qualities, definitions, Scriptures, etc. and some with action steps to help you teach character.
49 Character Qualities with Definitions and Action Steps: https://www.charactercincinnati.org/qualitieslisting.html
Character That Counts–100 qualities, definitions, character ministry and materials— https://www.characterthatcounts.org/hundredpluscharqualnew.html
Character Qualities for Leaders–with questions and verses: https://www.eagleflight.org/Pastor/harvest_qualities.html
Dozens of character qualities with links to dictionary defintitions–cool site~! https://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/web/2000/kochan/charactertraits.html
Teaching character in the home: https://www.conquering-stressful-family-hurdles.com/character-traits.html
by Donna | Oct 22, 2010
Tips for NOT sliding into the “only by comparison” parenting model:
1. Prayerfully seek God on your current parenting approach. Is it based on how children around you act? Are you basking in the fact that your kids’ behavior is better than another family’s kids’ behavior? Do you relish the idea that compared to other young people, your teens are not “really that bad”?
2. Do you treat others whose parenting skills are not as well-established (or whose are different) as yours in a condescending or “holier than thou” way? I think we would be surprised how what we see as “confidence” or “certainty” in our parenting approach can appear to others to be pride—and actually hurt them (and unnecessarily cause them to suffer from the “comparison syndrome”).
3. Do you feel yourself slipping into a mediocrity or “only by comparison” mentality? Purpose to measure your parenting—and your children’s behavior—by God’s Word and character, not by those around you. You know in your heart of hearts that absence of bad does not necessarily mean good. God wants us to strive to live our lives fully for Him—and raise our children to do the same, not just to live in such a way that we avoid “the bad.”
4. Try to steer clear of the “putting out fires” approach to parenting. Yes, we do have to solve problems, but we should be teaching, training, and discipling all the time—not just correcting negative behaviors. Use teachable moments to instruct in righteousness, such as pointing out how others feel (empathy), discussing helpfulness and opportunities to serve (selflessness), talking about taking the high road (decisiveness), illuminating good morals (virtuousness)–encouraging godly character in our kids’ everyday lives.
5. Focus on our children’s interactions with each other and us. The way our children treat their parents and each other will eventually be the way they treat others in their lives in the future. If they are consistently selfish or hateful to a brother, they will likely not have good relationships with co-workers. If they are disrespectful to us, they will probably not respect their future spouse. All relationship and character training begins at home. It is a constant magnifying glass to show us parents exactly what our children are becoming.
6. Fill their lives with stories of good—not just stories of absence of bad. We have made it a practice to read biographical material aloud nearly every school day for the past twenty years. Reading about how Hudson Taylor gave up his daily comforts of a soft mattress and rich foods or how Amy Carmichael put her own life in danger to save children or how William Borden gave up great riches to bring people to Christ will eventually leave their mark on your children. (They also give us points of reference for discussion: Remember how decisive Hudson Taylor was before he ever left for China? What did William Borden discover about worldly riches?)
Final installment tomorrow!
by Donna | Sep 27, 2010
One of the stories that we especially enjoyed in Joe Wheeler’s “Great Stories Remembered” is about a man who was so harsh with his three children—wouldn’t let them cry, made fun of them if they were frightened, punished them severely for slight infractions, wouldn’t let them be children, didn’t spend any time with them, etc. This story is called “The Boy on the Running Board.”* Today and tomorrow (though I don’t want to divide up the post, so it will all appear here) I would like to share with you some excerpts from that story—and some amazing parenting comparisons that I gleaned from it (during read-aloud with my kids!).
One day this rough father went to town to pay a bill (leaving a “punished” son who was scheduled to go with him that day at home). While driving, this man ran over a turkey that its owner-family had named Henry Ward Beecher.
The stern man picked up one of the children (who owned the turkey) and took him to town since the boy was heading there to meet his father’s train. The words this child spoke pierced the unkind father’s heart—as they should have. Even today as I re-read this story, I can hear the love and excitement in this little boy’s voice. Oh, that we could all create this in our homes:
“We drew lots to see which’d catch him an’ which’d cut off his {the turkey’s} head. Celia was catching him. We picked out Henry Ward Beecher because he was the biggest. Mother said nothing was too big for Father!”
“Father’s coming home! Today he’s coming! Mother keeps singing every minute.”
“Well, I guess any mother’d sing when she hadn’t seen a father for four whole months. Father’s a drummer, but he doesn’t hardly ever drum so long at a time. He hasn’t seen {the present we have for him….}.”
“We’re going to give {Father} a present of the baby! She’s almost a month old. Mother’s did her all up.”
“We’ve swept everything and dusted everything and cleared up everything –and—and….killed the rooster!”
“Father’s train isn’t till after dinner, but I thought I’d go real early so’s not to miss it.”
“I guess he’ll think that’s some muscle! Father will like that! And I can pitch ball better now; I’ll give him some good ones, all right! We take turns pitching. Father’s a southpaw. The Grant family’s team is some team! Only, now that the baby’s come, I don’t know about Mother’s being first base…She’s a good first-bagger! You ought to see her catch! Of course, it isn’t a real ‘nine,’ but we manage. Celia’s going to make a regular player. Are you on a team, Mister?”
The boy continued: “Yes. “{Do you have a} home team? You know, like us. If you haven’t got any boys….You can’t very well play ball without ANY boys! Father says it’s lucky there’s two men in our family. We’re pals, me and Father.”
(At this point, the man thought of his boys at home. He couldn’t imagine calling his family “team.” Even moreso, he couldn’t imagine his being on their team, if his family did have one. Then pals? He could not fathom it.)
“When father retires…we’re going to have the best time! Of course, we’ll have to work like fun on the farm. That’s it, like fun! When we hoe now, Father and me, we run races to the end of the row! Sometimes I beat him. And when Mother comes out and brings us something to drink, she kisses Father when I am not looking, and kisses me when Father isn’t looking, but we always kind of see!”
(The man asked the boy if he was afraid of his father…)
“Of Father, AFRAID? You couldn’t be afraid of Father. I lied once. ‘riginal sin, Mother said, was the matter with me. But I’ve never had it since. You don’t catch me being a mean skunk twice! We both cried, me and Father. Then Father held out his hand and said, ‘Put it there,’ and I put it there, and that was our contract. Like signing the pledge, Father said.”
(The boy met the father at the train station—and you can only guess the impact that this little boy had on the thoughtless man when he returned home later that day. You will have to get this book to discover the ending!)
I could read these parts of the story over and over…and hear and feel the excitement of a little boy whose dad knew how to raise little boys—how to love them, include them, play with them, work with them, forgive them, direct them, laugh with them, talk to them, and teach them. And then pray that Ray and I are all of that for our “little boys.”
*This story may be found in Joe Wheeler’s “Great Stories Remembered”: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Stories-Remembered-Joe-Wheeler/dp/1561794597
by Donna | Aug 18, 2010
I am a firm believer in today’s blog title, moreso the older I get and the older my kids get. I could sit here now and tell you of literally dozens of times that my kids have done for others over the past three months exactly what their dad and I did for them, but tonight I want to share one specific thing that is blessing me immensely—and I pray that the story will show you that truly what we do for our kids and with our kids gets “played forward” many times over.
Twenty-seven years ago this fall, at the age of twenty-one with a young son and a newly-acquired college degree in education, I (along with my husband) sat out to do something extremely unpopular at that time—and something that I knew very little about except for the information I had gleaned the week before from two books by Dr. Raymond Moore. We homeschooled my younger (eighth grade) sister who was struggling in school. Now this story isn’t really about me, but about another twenty-one year old girl who is about to embark on a homeschooling adventure of her own.
Fast forward to tomorrow—the first day that one of my children will be a homeschool teacher. And just like her parents before her, she will not be homeschooling her own children. (She and her husband do not have children yet.) She is homeschooling a family of four kids whose mother died suddenly in the spring. (See my post about her death at https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-one-hundred-two-inspirations-from.html .)
I have watched Cami with incredible pride (and tears of joy for her heart and many, many tears of sorrow for this family’s loss) prepare for tomorrow—the big day that school begins in her “nanny” children. I have watched her come alongside this family and do literally dozens of things that her dad and I did for her. From her recipe and meal plans (and cooking alongside a different child each day) to her efficient chore chart to her cleaning blitzes with them to their colorful, inviting daily school checklists. From fun times at the park to swimming days from table games to movies on the wall. I have watched her humbly receive guidance from another experienced mom who is laying out lesson plans for Cami in a few subjects—and observed her pouring her heart into these children whom God has entrusted to her for several hours each week day. I see her laugh with the kids and jokingly threaten them with “more school” as they talk about their days together.
And then I realize, once again in a dramatic way, that our children will do for others what we do for them. That they truly “learn what they live.” Whether it is homeschooling, Bible and character training, heart-reaching, fun family times, fond memories, or special gifts. Or, whether it is meanness, lack of understanding, selfishness, sin, or missing relationship. They learn exactly what they live—and they will do, someday in some way, to others and for others exactly what has been done to and for them.
I pray that my children will forget all of my mistakes, anger, and harshness but remember—and do for others—only the good they had in their growing up years. That they will learn only the positive things that they have lived. And that I can do and be what God wants me to do and be as I finish this parenting race (of children, anyway) over the next ten years.
And I pray for this precious family this school year—as an adorable little girl works through fifth grade math and fifth grade emotions without her mama, as their young son has that important thirteenth birthday, as an amazing daughter turns sweet sixteen, and as their oldest graduates from high school, blessed by the eleven years her mother spent educating her. I know that Cami will not take the place of their mom—nobody could and Cami wouldn’t even try—but I pray that she will be a blessing to this family in phenomenal ways as she does for them the very things that have been done for her.
by Donna | May 22, 2010
Yesterday I shared about our daughter’s disability ministry and the teens and tweens who volunteer there. Today I would like to share a few short tips about how we can raise children who serve the Lord by serving others. (See more on empathy training from earlier posts, as well.)
First of all, it should be noted that all of the children who come to One Heart every Thursday evening come by their own accord. We parents do not go to the Thursday evening services for the most part. All ten of us or so help with the half dozen big events that One Heart hosts (meals, banquets, Christmas deliveries, etc.—especially cooking and serving food), but for the weekly services, it is usually just the kids who go help.
Secondly, it should be noted that these twenty or so kids did not just turn twelve and decide that they wanted to dedicate every Thursday evening to those with disabilities. They were all, for lack of a better word, “groomed” for such service. People (children included) do not generally develop a servant’s heart naturally.
Here are some tips that we have found helpful in training children’s hearts in serving others:
1. It starts at home very, very early. I know you hear this all of the time, but what exactly does it mean? It means that when my child rips a toy out of another child’s hand, I don’t just jerk it away from him and tell him not to do that, but I tell him (at his level) that when he does that, it makes the other person feel bad. Empathy is the beginning of serving others. If children are not taught to understand how someone else feels, how can they develop empathy towards them?
2. It is modeled. Remember the poem on January 1st when Positive Parenting 3*6*5 began, “I Looked Into the Eyes of My Children”? If we do not show a compassion and put feet to that compassion, our children will likely not do it either. Our children have to see us taking the words of Jesus about “doing it unto the least of these” and “serving the household of faith” literally.
3. Provide opportunities to serve for our kids. I know we all do those occasional things that just feel right (and they usually are), such as short term missions, Christmas projects, raising money for a missionary, etc., but if we make service a weekly, or at least monthly, part of our children’s lives, it will become a part of who they are and what they are here for.
4. Put service ahead of other things. People often ask us questions about getting their children involved in service projects, and we often end the conversation with the parent telling us how good it sounds to get their children involved in reaching out, but there is just not time for it. I am an efficiency expert-time-priority maniac, and I have an answer for all of us who do not have time for something—we all have the same amount of time. It is how we spend it that matters. We make time for the important things in our lives—for the priorities. If we do not make time for it, then it really isn’t that important to us.
5. Verbalize our reason for being here! From our children’s earliest ages, they heard us over and over again, say any and all of the following:
a. If you see a need, try to meet it.
b. If you can meet a need, do it!
c. “To whom much is give, much is required.”
d. “He who is faithful in little things, will be given more things.”
e. “Serve those closest to you first.”
f. The true test of character is what you do when nobody is looking.
g. If you can serve your family, you can serve anybody.
h. If you want to be great in God’s kingdom, learn to be the servant of all.
i. The greatest joy comes in serving others.
j. How can you help?
k. How do you think that person feels?
l. What can you do?
The field is white unto harvest. We have the opportunity to raise laborers for the Lord. It all starts in the home.
