Do it yourself!

Ok, so I was thinking...Are there other older moms out there like me who read this blog and could give the younger moms some ideas of things that worked when your children were small? What are some practical and realistic ways to teach a child to become more independent and learn to do things on his own?

Below are a few that I thought of from my own experience...

1. If your child constantly begs you for juice or water, put a sippy-cup on a low table or for a slightly older child, put a small easy-pour container of water within his reach and show him how to pour his own.

2. Set aside specific times, say 30 minutes every morning and every afternoon for your child. Announce that it's "mommy time" or "game time" and make it fun! (Because my type-A personality tended to focus on things around the house that needed to be done, this allowed me to relax and enjoy the designated time, rather than dreading how I was going to end it without a melt-down.) Set your stove timer to ring when the time is up. Tell him at the beginning that when the bell rings, it means you have to stop and go back to your work, or your reading, or whatever. Then do just that.

3. With multiple children, do not even expect that they will work well together on the same chore. Telling three children to clean up their toys turns quickly into a battle of "he/she did it!" or "he/she isn't doing his/her part!" Give specific chores: one can pick up the lego's, one can sweep the floor, etc.

4. Be quick to tell your child the truth: "You know what? I don't have time to do that for you right now. If I have time later and you still need my help, I'll see what I can do. Or you can try it yourself now."

5. As the comic strip below shows, you can give your younger children fun "jobs" that they can do while you are working on another project. The goal is not necessarily to have them finish the chore, but to keep them occupied while you are doing yours!



I'd love to hear some of your ideas!

A Tale of Two Families

I think my biggest fear regarding these past few posts is that a mom somewhere will read the words and not be able to hear my heart...

Being a mother is so much more than doing the right things or raising children using a particular formula. It is really about relationship. Relationship first with my Creator, the only One Who totally knows me in every way. Relationship (if we are married) with my husband in a marriage that stands center-stage, and finally relationship with the little ones who have been personally entrusted to my/our care.

What I am about to relay to you is said with utmost respect and honor for my parents, who have raised eight children safely from birth to adulthood. We owe much of who we are to a mom and dad who genuinely love us. I believe it is largely because of mom's prayers and her willingness to press through for us, that we are all living for the Lord and have found a place of healing. We are closer as a family because of what we have experienced together.

I mentioned before that I grew up in a large family: I am the second of eight. I was seventeen when my youngest sister was born. So, while the first four children came along at lightning speed, there were some breaks between the younger siblings.

Because of circumstances in my parent's lives, my memories of childhood are very different from those of my younger brothers and sisters. In some respects we are almost like two separate families.

We were poor in those early years, but us older kids never knew it. Dad mostly worked the farm, Mom was home with us. I was secure in the fact that I was loved and taken care of, even though the sheer number of little ones and the busy Amish lifestyle of gardening, farming, sewing, canning, etc made it next-to-impossible for my mom to "dote" on us. She tells me that after baby number four arrived (I was only two years old at the time) I walked over to my mother, patted her flat belly and said triumphantly in Pennsylvania Dutch, "NOW you have room to hold me again!"

I have warm memories of the smell of fresh, homemade bread from the kitchen, the crackling of wood in the old-fashioned 'warm morning' stove in the corner of the living room, mom's reassuring presence in our house and knowing that dad was out milking the cows and working the land.

In the early 1980's a series of circumstances forced my family to move off the farm. We were thrust into a world that none of us--least of all, my dad-- knew how to navigate. I can not imagine the stark fear he must have felt in the moments when he realized that he was still responsible for his wife and 8 children, and no longer had a predictable way of earning an income. Farming was all he knew. He became overwhelmed, understandably, and simply did not have the emotional capacity to be the person he had been before. Mom went to work, eventually starting her own cleaning business.

So the younger children in my family have a distinctly different view of childhood.

In a previous entry, I described my mom's mothering style as rather loose and laid-back. She let us "hoe our own row", so to speak, in many areas of life. And because she was able to be actively and emotionally involved in the older children's lives, we tended to respond with confidence and self-assuredness; it didn't occur to us that we couldn't do something on our own, even though we may have been young.

Contrast that scenario with the younger children who were up against some of the scariest things a child can face: the loss of security, moving to another home that was sub-standard at best, having to switch schools from a small private one to a big public one, make new friends, and watching their parents struggle through the muddied waters of a marriage under incredible stress.

And they had to look out for themselves in this climate.

The parenting style remained the same or certainly similar with all eight children. But the relationship was no longer strong and secure. A parent in deep pain often has a hard time recognizing the pain in her children. Or, if she does see the pain, she is simply rendered helpless to know how to fix it. In fact, she may even subconsciously look to her children to fix her own pain.

So my point in all this rambling is the reminder that your relationship with your children, and not just a particular style of parenting, must be paramount. I firmly believe in the concepts I have been writing about in these past few blog entries, I really do. But you can't parent this way when you are emotionally disconnected.

And if you find yourself in a place of pain--which we all will experience to some degree at one time or another--my encouragement is to find a trusted mentor or a godly counselor to help you walk through the process of loss. I know this doesn't automatically take care of life's complicated issues, but it is a start.

Don't go it alone.

Dads: what about them?

Mothering can feel like an overwhelming job. And in some ways, it is.

But one of the things I've noticed that adds to a mother's stress, is this idea that the job of child-rearing is totally and completely her responsibility. If she lets go of even a tiny little part of it, her world will come tumbling down. And then her children will turn out wrong. And it will all be her fault.

What a scary way to live.

And the result of this kind of thinking is that fathers often feel insignificant and unnecessary. Maybe even excluded.

Of course, we all know that mothers and fathers parent differently. Moms, of necessity, usually spend more time with their infants than fathers do. Part of that is the fact that they have the built-in "bottle" and in the early months, babies mostly eat and sleep!

But in the same way that women are better suited to certain aspects of parenting than fathers, it works both ways. In my experience, Carl was much better with our pre-teen and teenage children, particularly our daughters. An emotional young girl being parented by an equally-emotional mother just didn't always work well for us. Oh my, how the sparks could fly!

If I could go back in time and do anything different when our first child was born, I would make a conscious effort to bring Carl into the process much more than I did. Blame it on my traditional Amish upbringing, or the fact that my dad was not involved much in the early years of his children's lives (or, to be more honest, my need for control)...whatever the reason, I made it clear --without a word, I might add-- that this baby was my responsibility and if I needed Carl's help, I would let him know.

It is easy for wives to see their husbands as simply a "parenting aide." Just like a teacher's aide at your children's school, his job is to step in when the mom needs him or when she decides she needs a break. She determines the extent of his involvement.

Many men are frustrated because their wives want them to be involved in the parenting, but when they do get involved, they do the job differently than their wives and are immediately informed it's wrong. The wife sighs and says, "he just can't be trusted to do this thing right," so she treats him as the extra child who has to be supervised in addition to all the other little ones.

I remember one time when Mandi was about a year old. My schedule that night took me away over suppertime and into the evening. I came home after Mandi was in bed and asked Carl all about the details of the evening. He told me the things they had done together: he had taken her outside with him while he was working in the yard. She went to bed well for him and he was pleased with how the evening had turned out. Then I asked Carl how much of her supper Mandi had eaten. He turned to me, a blank look on his face.

He had completely forgotten to feed his child.

I don't remember what my response was at the moment, but I knew that if I made a big deal out of this, and made him feel like a bad dad because of a simple oversight, he would be less inclined to watch her on his own again.

The bottom line is, Carl loved his daughter. And Mandi loved spending time with him. If he had been in charge of taking care of her for two or three days, he would have remembered to feed her. Was that one meal going to make a difference in the long run? Was it such a terrible infraction that he needed to be made to feel guilty or inadequate? I think not.

Mandi survived, by the way. And ate a nice big breakfast the next morning.

Do you know where your children are?

John Rosemond continued his talk to the women:

"Be a wife. Remember the vows you took? They didn't say, 'until children do us part', now did they? Then remember the woman you were before you had children: the things you liked doing and so on. Start doing it again! And if that means not doing as much for the kids, so be it. You have a life inside you that has nothing to do with rearing children, and the best thing you could ever do for your kids is let that life out of its cage so they can begin to see that Mom is not just Mom, not just a servant to do their bidding, but an interesting person, worth looking up to."

Some of the ideas in the previous blog entries may seem a bit radical, and maybe they are. I am 49 years old. I am fully aware that the 95-acre corner of earth that I grew up on was different than the typical neighborhood of 2011.Even parenting my children is in some ways a distant memory.

Much more important than what things you do or don't do for your children is the idea that you, the mother, should be setting the boundaries between you and your kids. You are the one who is in control of when children are allowed through those boundaries. Supervision is the name of this game. You are available FOR those little ones 24 hours a day and they never doubt your committment to them for one second. But it is simply not too much to ask them to occupy themselves, fight some of their own battles, do their own homework, fix their own snacks or get themselves a drink. (Remember, I'm not talking about babies here.) You do not need to be at your little ones' beck-and-call. In fact, it really should be the other way around. If a child hears his mother calling, he should drop everything and come running.

I am told that in the 1950's,on Friday and Saturday nights, nearly every television station in the United States broadcast this same message: "Parents! It's 10:00. Do you know where your children are?"

Not, "What are you doing with your children?" but "Where are they? Are you doing your job? Are you providing good supervision?"

WITH or FOR?

So I realized that at last week's MOPS meeting, I was trying to make a point and got myself mixed-up in the middle of it! It really is more of a heart-issue, so I suppose the actual words don't matter as much as the concept but I still thought I should clarify.

I was trying to convey the difference between a mother who is at home WITH her kids and a mother who is home FOR her children...

When I was a little girl, I was the second of eight children raised on a farm. (The oldest 4 of us were born inside 3 1/2 years. I kid you not.) My mom and dad struggled mightily to make ends meet, so they were always busy doing life, sometimes just to survive and keep food on the table. My mother who is a wonderful nurturing person, expected us even at a very early age, to get ourselves up in the morning, get ourselves dressed, she'd make us breakfast and then we were either to help with our chores or go outside to play. Sometimes if she was really busy, she gave us instructions not to come back in the house "unless someone's bleeding." I think she was only half kidding.

But my little-girl heart always knew she was there.

I realize times are different now, I'm not saying we should live our lives in 2011 exactly this way. In fact, the downside is that the economic realities of our life made it a rather stressful way to live out a childhood, especially for my younger siblings who got in for the worst part of it.

My point here is, mom wasn't there WITH us, she was there FOR us if we needed her. There is a big difference. My mom expected us to be as independent of her as she was of us. She did not hover over us, or find us things to do (in fact, if we ever dared to mention the words, "I'm bored" she'd simply say, "Oh, I can find you something to do. " We knew that meant work! So we didn't get bored.) She didn't measure her worth as a mom by how much she did for us or for how many activities she got us involved in. She expected us to stand on our own two feet after it was clear that we could.

Her primary relationships were with other women, mainly her sisters. I used to love to go with her to "Sister's Day" and listen in on my mom and my aunts' conversations, learning the latest happenings or gossip of the neighborhood. It never occurred to me to be a part of those conversations: I instinctively knew this was mom's adult world, and I would get to be a part of it when I was an adult. Not before.

My mother was a mother when we needed a mother. Otherwise, her life was that of an adult woman, doing what she needed to do each day.

The next few paragraphs are quoted directly from "The Family of Value" by John Rosemond. He relates a time when he spoke to a group of young mothers and said this to them:

"You women serve and serve and serve children who become increasingly demanding and petulant. You are no different from the mother of yesteryear. There are times you wish your children would simply leave you alone. You realize that 99 percent of their pestering is completely unnecessary. But you serve, thinking that if you do so just a little longer, they'll finally get enough of you and leave you alone of their own volition. But they don't. The more you serve, the more they expect you to serve, and the more they pester. Finally, you crack. You scream. "Just for once, I beg you, leave me alone!" Then, you feel...

Guilty!!

And there's only one way, isn't there, to discharge the guilt, and that's to serve. In fact, at this point, you must serve in double time so as to do proper penance for your sins.

But the worst thing that's happened to you women is that in the course of trying to be the best mothers the world has ever seen, you've forgotten how to be wives."


TO BE CONTINUED

A child is born

After 9 months of waiting, preparing, anticipating, and after many hours of laboring, a mother finally gives birth to her precious little baby. If it were somehow possible to know the first thoughts of that little one as he enters his new universe, it might be this, "Wow! Look what I did!"

A newborn baby relates his world only to what he knows, and what he knows is himself. His world started when HE entered it. His first reality is that he is first. And if the parents or adults in his life are loving and nurturing as they should be, they treat him as if this belief is true.

When he is hungry, he cries and someone feeds him. When he is tired of walking and raises his hands to be held, he is carried. Whenever he wants attention, he yells and immediately, someone responds. When he is hurt, mommy "kisses his boo-boos."

This is how it should be.

A child learns to TRUST when consistent, loving parents (or others in charge) meet his many needs through the early months of his life. Trust gives him security and roots, an abiding sense that there will always be someone there for him.

And then...

Somewhere around 18-24 months of age, something happens. (Trust me, you will know it when it occurs.)This child, who can now physically do some things for himself, wants to "have his cake and eat it too." He wants his parents to continue catering to his every whim...when he wants them too. Sometimes he chooses to do it himself...when he wants to. He would like life to continue on demand...when he wants it to.

At this point, the parent's responsibility shifts to a new level, where they literally have to start undoing the process they (of necessity) had to create at the beginning. The child now has to start the process of becoming a responsible member of his little world.

The mom and dad's primary job in their child's second year of life (approximately) is to set up a "fortress" of authority---one that encircles the little one completely, providing not only direction, but protection, too.

In other words, mom and dad have to convince Jr of one fact: he does not rule the world. They do.

And if the parents are successful in this endeavor, by about age three, the child sees his parents as all-powerful, all-knowing, all-capable. In short, they become his HEROES. He will pay much more attention to them then they ever need to pay to him. He will have a healthy respect for the people he sees as his ultimate authority.He will feel protected, taken care of, loved.

Remember, the idea is not to make your child a cringing, fearful servant, but to create a safe authority on which he can always rely.

(By the way, someone has said that parents are a child's first representation of God, a first and final POWERFUL and LOVING authority. As the child grows, he transfers this to other authority figures--his teachers, employers etc. Then gradually, he matures to an understanding that the whole world is shaped by Someone bigger than all of us, a God who is both infinite in power and infinite in love.)

NOTE: This whole concept comes from one of Carls' and my favorite books, A Family of Value, by John Rosemond. It is no longer sold in bookstores but you can find it on Amazon. If the whole "marriage-centered vs. child-centered family" approach to raising children intriques you as it does me, I'd recommend reading the book. If nothing else, it gets you to thinking and stimulates great conversation!

marriage-centered vs child centered?

Yesterday, Carl and I had the privilege of speaking at our church to the women who attend our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) program. We took some of our information from a favorite book of ours, A Family of Value, by John Rosemond. Actually, it wasn't a speech as much as it was a refreshing interactive time with these lovely ladies who are giving their lives to raising the next generation of children, teaching and training and loving... and "on the job" 24 hours of every day. Hats off to you, ladies! We were honored.

Because the format was in question/answer form, more like an interview, we bounced from subject to subject, and probably did not thoroughly address some of the topics we touched on. I have been hearing questions from women who want more clarity on the whole concept of having a marriage-centered home versus a child-centered home.This issue is obviously more geared toward women who are married, but single moms can also learn that a woman's life can not be devoted 100% to her child. She too has a life of her own.

One note, just in case anyone misunderstood us yesterday: For the first 18 months or so of a child's life, the reality is that he must be the center of attention. A parent's authority can only be built on a firm foundation of TRUST, when the child knows without a shadow of doubt that all his needs will be met.

So how can someone tell if their family is marriage-centered or child-centered?

First of all, in my opinion, society in general and our culture lends itself to the latter: a child-centered family. Even the terminology we use to describe our role within our family, reflects that mindset. If you are a woman who works at home, do you see yourself as a "home-maker" and a "housewife" or do you always refer to yourself as a "stay-at-home mom?" And if you have a job outside the home, are you an "employee" and "working wife" or do you describe yourself as a "working mother?"

As a married woman with children, are you primarily wife or primarily mother?

*The marriage-centered woman sees her marriage and her relationship with her husband as the nucleus of the family, with her children as satellites that revolve around the nucleus, sort of like the planets to the sun...the child-centered woman focuses all her energy on the unending needs of her children, often seeing her husband as a mere "parenting aide" whose job is simply to assist mom when she needs assistance and step in for her when she decides she needs a break.

*The marriage-centered woman knows that, after the age of two, if her child's relationship consumes more of her energy than does her relationship with her husband, that child can--and will--play the parents against each other. The child-centered woman continues to give her child too much attention when he no longer needs it,teaching him that happiness is something somebody else makes for you.

*The marriage-centered woman is confident enough in her role, that when her little ones get "underfoot", she can look at them and say simply, "You can see I'm busy. You don't need anything from me right now, so go find something to do. You need to leave me alone"...the child-centered woman serves and serves and serves her children who become increasingly demanding and needy. She continues to hope that if she just serves enough, the children will on their own, leave her alone. (They never do.)

*The marriage-centered woman expects her children on most days to come home from school, change clothes, and find something to do themselves....The child-centered woman measures her worth in terms of how exhausted she makes herself in the course of driving her children to and from one activity after the other.

*The marriage-centered woman spends an evening with her husband while her children gather round the table to do their homework....the child-centered woman spends the evening with her children helping them do their homework.

*The marriage-centered woman chooses when it's "mommy time" and she explains to her children that this is the time she will put aside to play/read/do what they want. When the time is up (the stove timer can be set to help!) she stops and goes back to her own work, reading, talking with her husband, or whatever. She knows that her child will initially be unhappy with this arrangement, but he will adjust to his mother's terms...the child-centered woman feels like unless she is doing something FOR her child at all times, she is a bad mom. She somehow believes that she has within her, the ability to BE all that her child needs in life. So she keeps trying to win an unbeatable war.

OK, so does this approach to child-rearing seem impossible, old-fashioned, off the wall, maybe even heredical?! Let me know your thoughts! We're all in this together and being a mom is a life-time endeavor, one that evolves and changes with the seasons of our life, but once-a-mom-always-a-mom, that's for sure!