The children were all stymied. “Children obey your parents”? We talked about some better possibilities.

Then I asked, “Can you think of a Scripture that reminds us about something good that God has done?”

Again, the answers came, but they were slow. It was interesting to me that although they have many verses of God’s Word memorized, they aren’t as skilled seeing the connection between “real life” and the Bible as I would expect. Especially since we talk about certain verses like “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” on a daily basis.

After a short lull, my David (!) asked for more questions like this, and I asked some more.

What should I read if I am discouraged?

What should I read if my brother or sister is mean to me?

I tried to ask questions that related to verses that I knew were fresh in their minds. It was fun, and I want to do it again.

What I learned was that I need to do better at getting my children to draw on their knowledge. I am too quick to give the answers, give the verses, throughout my days. It was a good reminder that I need to cut back on lectures. I think I can at least ask a few questions before I give the answers, don’t you think?

I’ll keep you posted.Similar Posts:

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Truly, there are times when they do know better, and there are times when I want (and need, or even just see as valuable) my children to accomplish something on their own, without help.  But if I’m honest, there are a lot of times when my children want or need my help, and I don’t help because I’m preoccupied with my own interests or agenda.

I’ve been practicing saying four words more: Let’s do this together.

I don’t always, and some times I need them to accomplish something on their own. But I have discovered that those four words have helped to maintain a sense of teamwork with my children, something I want to cultivate more. (I’m also finding that my children need my help because they still need help learning how to do something on their own. I have to consider if I’ve broken down a task enough, taught enough, or if I’ve helped them overcome the barrier to accomplishing what I want them to.

Tonight I helped the girls with their bath time. Truthfully, it was hard because I had congratulated myself that the girls could both handle this job without any help from me. The angry screams coming from the bathroom compelled me, not the more honorable desire to be a part of a team; but once I was there, God changed my heart and helped me to help them. I realized (again) that they have not arrived ,and they still benefit from guidance.

Cleaning together didn’t go so well. Sometimes, lack of teamwork isn’t the problem. Guess that’s for another lesson!

In the meantime, isn’t it interesting that the Holy Spirit’s job is someone who comes alongside? Good thought.Similar Posts:

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However, I realized recently that I’ve not been careful regarding the red couch.

Now, growing up, my mom let my brother and me play with the couch cushions. We had a lot of fun playing on them. In Lee’s house, he wasn’t allowed to play with couch cushions growing up. It doesn’t surprise you then to know that it wouldn’t bother me at all for the children to slide across the living room floor on a couch cushion, and that Lee isn’t keen on that idea. As our children have been getting more boisterous with couch, I finally realized that Lee’s concern was justified all along, and I was not right to ignore his wishes regardless. Furthermore, because I wasn’t stopping the children during the daytime, I was encouraging them to ignore and disrespect their dad. That’s not good, is it?

So I’ve been working on this. I have told them that I wasn’t doing right by letting them play on and with the couch, and asked their forgiveness for setting a bad example. Maybe I need to simply bring down the beanbag that they’re allowed to play on.

Learning and growing…Similar Posts:

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Typically, Lee gets up early.  Michelle thinks about getting up early and making breakfast and coffee for Lee. Looks for clean socks instead.

Checks Facebook and email, then goes back to sleep after Lee leaves, until children start knocking at her door.

(That would be one child. The one who wants to get the morning going and who actually went to sleep within five minutes of kissing mom and dad good night. Not the two who stayed up another hour talking.)

Child number one (and occasionally number three) want to eat breakfast right away in order to get a head start on school. (It’s really because they want to play computer games, and I say it’s okay after they’re done with school.) So this child has been eating breakfast all alone, while I try to put a few coherent thoughts together and decide whether I’m awake enough to make coffee.

Child three is now able to pour milk by herself, if the milk isn’t too full. She’s not yet good at determining if the milk is too full, but we’re making progress. She magically appears at the table about the time the first child is finishing.

Child two will quietly appear about the time I realize that nobody has gotten dressed. Or made their beds. Sometimes I remember about the beds, and I’ve been doing much better at asking them to go pick up their clothes from off the floor. (It’s pointless right now to ask them if they are on the floor. They are.) Meanwhile I’m learning that I clean the kitchen better in the morning than evening, so I’m usually wiping counters and on occasion sweeping the floor. This morning I actually started a load of laundry. Child three has started to make breakfast, only she doesn’t like cereal right now. She doesn’t like toast. She wants to make an egg. (eggs are quick, but they do require more dishwashing. we’re working on this, still.)

Child number one will start school, and child three is begging to do school. Child three has quietly finished breakfast and started to draw. (You will discover this if you come in the house and see paper in a huge fan across the living room floor, every crayon dumped out, and an assortment of cutting scraps next to scissors. It’s a good day if no clothing has been cut.) Since all the children are occupied, I pretend not to notice any of them so I can read my Bible. Somehow they have figured out that if they avoid me during this time, I won’t think to remind them about any chores that need to be done.

This is why we haven’t been having too many spiritual breakfast conversations lately. Just in case you were wondering.Similar Posts:

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A child who does not have control over his spirit is like a city whose protective walls of defense have been broken down. Self control is extremely important, but we don’t always know how to develop it.

My sister-in-law Martha has assigned chores for her children, but she also has a “pick a chore” assignment. That means after the normal chores are done, the child is to look around for something that needs to be done around the house, and do it. I love this idea. Children don’t always choose difficult or time intensive jobs, but the very process of looking for something that needs attention is what is most valuable in this exercise.

A week or so ago, I bought some candy corn and put it in the candy jar near where I was sitting. Of course, one of the children came by and asked, “Can I have some?” I told her yes. When she asked how many she could have, I told her that she could have as many as she wanted, as long as she wasn’t being greedy. Word quickly spread to the other two children. This was a novel idea, and it was fun for me to see them walk by and talk about how they  had determined that they had taken enough. They consumed the candy faster than they would have had I given them a stated limit, but again, I was more interested in the process of evaluating, “What does it mean to be greedy or sinfully indulgent?”

What have you done to help your children develop the ability to govern their own behavior?Similar Posts:

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I want my children to develop right opinions about modesty, far before their friends do. I want my daughters to know why they dress differently than their friends, so when they are asked, they’ll not be shamed into silence and resentment. Knowing why before they are challenged is an inoculation.

But teaching children to have strong opinions has consequences. They may decide they don’t like the clothes I’ve been picking out for them. As I cultivate their confidence regarding other people’s opinions of what’s in style or appropriate or pretty, it is inevitable that they will all grow in their confidence to challenge my opinions on what is in style or appropriate or pretty. I’m convinced this is a necessary and delightful consequence of preparing a young girl to grow to love modesty.

How am I teaching this confidence now, when my daughters are young?  By pointing out how ladies around them have developed different styles that are beautiful and modest. By asking for and respecting their opinion on matters of color and style, within certain parameters. By considering them as individuals with their own personality, and trying to discover and help them develop their own sense of style, even though it might be different than my own. My mom was a great example of this. While other girls complained about never wearing anything that their mother picked out for them, I always loved the things my mom picked out. She knew what I liked, and she also knew when to push me to try something new that I might not have picked out, but ended up liking. I realize now that her approach wasn’t accidental, or just because she has good taste! Her ability to predict what I would like was the result of deliberate study.

We also discuss silly people who don’t know why they wear what they wear. I want to see themselves as outside the group of people who don’t have an opinion, or who are manipulated in their clothing choices. I want them to see the folly of following trends for their own sakes, before they feel the pull of following trends. Here are some things I’ve said:

• Some people [I get a lot of mileage out of "some people"] wear what’s in style, even if it doesn’t look good on them. How silly is that! [sometimes we see real life examples!]
• Some girls love to be modest, but when they get married, they forget to look for a modest wedding dress!
• Some girls would be embarrassed to wear their underwear to the beach, but they’ll wear a bikini! Amazing!
• Some girls would rather look like their friends than be comfortable!
• I tell them about when I was younger, how I had friends who would tell me to buy things that THEY liked or thought was pretty, not what I liked.
• We talk about why certain clothes are attractive, how certain colors work well together, and so on. I want to help them know why they always choose a certain style or color, and part of this strategy means I need to give them words.

Little girls don’t really understand sexual purity yet. We can talk about not showing off our bodies to anyone other than a husband; they understand this to some degree, but there’s a lot about modesty that is governed by trust. On the other hand, they easily understand how people are controlled by peer pressure to wear certain clothes.

Of course, I can’t stop at simply cultivating opinionated children.  What’s important to me is not merely that my children have strong opinions, but also that they understand and embrace good biblical reasons for having them.

I’m sounding like my mother!

Next goal:I want them to understand how clothing manufacturers market clothing. [after today's discussion, I bet you can understand why.]Similar Posts:

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• I want them to understand what modesty is and is not.
• I want them to like being modest.
• I want them to admire modesty and others who dress modestly.
• I want them to understand how clothing manufacturers market clothing.
• I want them to become fiercely independent in the development of personal style and color choices.

I’m sure I have other goals. Perhaps I’ll add to my list later.Similar Posts:

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Yesterday I was reminded of something I’ve wanted to blog (think) about. As our children get older, we’ve been getting more and more opportunities to teach them about modesty. It’s a fun topic for me, and one that I’m realizing is almost completely different when it comes to teaching it to my own children. I’m learning as I go.

I’m fascinated in the growth of a sense of style. They avoid certain colors. They aren’t afraid to offer opinions when we’re shopping for new clothes. They also tend to develop favorites, at times leaving perfectly wearable clothes unworn while the preferred clothes grow holes from use. Confession: I don’t choose their clothes on a daily basis. I make suggestions, and I do reserve veto power. For example, if they want to wear the jeans with holes to a nice company picnic, I do make them wear a different pair, unless I’m behind in laundry and then I go to Plan B!

In general, for play clothes, I let them wear the same outfit two days in a row (provided last night’s spaghetti isn’t splattered on the front). And their choices are limited by my discipline to launder the clothes regularly. If I haven’t done laundry, then they end up wearing the really cute outfit I got on sale that somehow stays in the back of the bottom drawer, under long underwear and behind mismatched pajamas. Falling behind in the laundry has its advantages.

For church clothes, it’s a different story. I want them to look respectable. I’m not a little distressed when I realize I didn’t notice that there’s a spot on that clean shirt, that a daughter’s dress is too short suddenly, or that someone is wearing pants that obviously sat in a pile of laundry for a week and are hopelessly wrinkled. Out of this desire for respectability has come a dress rule: You can’t wear the same dress two weeks in a row. I have this rule because my daughters would wear the same dress every week if they could, and I have a vague sense that they shouldn’t do this. So they dutifully put aside the favored dress for something that satisfies my arbitrary  rule.

However, on introspective days, I wonder about my arbitrary rule. What am I trying to accomplish by requiring a rotation of clothes? Am I simply aware that people might notice that my child wears the same dress every week and think I’m a bad (or strange) mother? What’s so bad about having one church dress? Is it my shallow American thinking that to be proper, one’s daughters must have multiple dresses for church? I want them to recognize how their clothing choices affect others, and I want them to care about their appearances, but I don’t want clothing to be an idol.

In I Timothy, we overlook the fact that the modesty issue Paul was addressing was one of excessive attention to beauty and dress, the competitive approach to church appearances that alienates instead of draws people in. What should that look like in America? And how far do we accommodate even our church culture? Would wearing a single dress each week distract? Or would it actually be consistent with the biblical principle behind this passage?

I’m coming to a conclusion on this one. I certainly don’t think that having a variety of dresses is sinful or excessive; however, it is not inappropriate to allow my children to limit their own clothing choices at this time.

I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; ⁹ in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, ¹⁰ but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. I Timothy 2:8-9

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Don’t be all that surprised at me. I can be dense sometimes, although maybe I knew this and needed reminding. Call me forgetful as well as dense.

I keep wondering why the kids’ bedrooms (one in particular) gets messy so quickly and regularly. I finally stopped to watch the process (key wisdom thought– watch and listen when you have a problem), and I decided that it was needful to intervene intentionally and persistently. We have a problem.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time upstairs. Basically every time our children left their bedrooms, I made a visit and called them back. Last night when the children got ready for bed, we took a trip upstairs. Again, we needed to stop them and help them be aware of their surroundings.

I know that part of the problem is that the children’s bedrooms are on the second floor. It’s easier not to go up six or seven times in a day to check on things. It’s easier to call up “How does the bedroom look?” and trust that when they say “fine” it means what I want it to mean.

It’s easy to be a lazy mom, but it’s not better.  If you come over for a visit, don’t be surprised if you get your latte upstairs.Similar Posts:

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It’s taken a long time, but I finally got the whole Bible (free from Faith Comes by Hearing) on David’s old iPod that Lee connected to an old stereo in his room.

We’ve told our children that they can stay up as late as they want (within reason) if they are reading their Bibles. So far only Bethel has done this, but since we added the iPod option, David has been faithfully listening in the evenings before bed, on his own initiative.

A Few lessons:

• I need to continue thinking how the differences in how my children learn make a difference in how I teach them God’s Word, and teach them how to study God’s Word for themselves.

• This has been a low priority for me. It’s mind boggling that I would know what to do, and just let it go like this (for at least two months!). How important is Scripture? I need to ask God to forgive me for sinning against my child in this way. I also need to be alert to other ways where I demonstrate an indifference to the Word of God.

• An important component of wisdom is acting on what I already know to be true. How often am I impatient that God hasn’t given me an answer to a question I’ve been praying about? And how often does he answer about something else, and I’m cavalier with the answers he does give? Humility, Michelle. I am grateful for God’s grace even when I am weak.

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