03/25/12

 

John 17:9, 20

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their [His disciples] word;

I am so thankful that Jesus prays for me.  He prayed for me before I knew Him and He prays for me now.  There are days I try to pray for others and fail miserably because of my sin-cursed body/brain.  

I may forget someone accidentally,  I may fall asleep while praying because I am so tired, or I may not pray for the person at all because they didn't come to mind.

No matter what, we have an Intercessor, Jesus Christ, who goes to the Father on our behalf and He never forgets, never gets tired, and always keeps us in mind.

What a blessing to know!

If you have never received Christ as Savior... just know He is praying for you to come to Him.  

For those who know Him, shout with joy for the fact that Jesus prays for you! 

03/24/12

 

I have been discussing all kinds of parental topics this past week.  

Today I will talk about - DISCIPLINE.

There is a lack of it in our world today.

Discipline hinges on all things I have discussed this week:  respect, entitlement and responsibility.

Why are parents scared to actually discipline their children?

There is a difference between punishment and discipline. 

Punishment is:

the act of punishing.

the fact of being punished, as for an offense or fault.

a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc.

severe handling or treatment.

Discipline is: 

training to act in accordance with rules;

behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control:

 

So many people mix up these two words.  

 

Punishment is the act of punishing to punish without showing love or trying to teach your child to learn something from it.   

 

Discipline is the act of having consequences to train your child to know what is right or wrong.  Discipline entails showing love while still expecting rules to be followed.  It also teaches self-control.

 

The Lord chastens us to bring about fruit in our lives.  We get in trouble and have consequences, but He still loves us and moves us forward from it, learning much.

 

Parents today want to talk their children to death without having any consequences.  They want to use time out to an extreme.  They want to re-direct always instead of telling the child "NO."  They do not want to discipline with love.

 

They *think* they are disciplining with love when they talk, and talk, and talk, and talk.  

 

There is nothing wrong with talking, in fact, you have read on here many times how I have talked things through with my own kids.  However, when there is only talking and no action, the kids begin to realize they can manipulate a situation.

 

I have heard so many parents through the years say "If you do that one more time, this will happen..." and they repeat it fifty times... and the child learns that the parent does not mean what is said.  Then, the parent becomes overly angry and reacts in a way that is not appropriate.. it is more of the punishment and not the discipline.

 

Discipline takes work.

 

It takes patience.

 

It take consistency.

 

Steve and I are not perfect parents.  We do not always do everything right, but when our kids hear us say we expect them to do or not do something, they know there will be a consequence if it does not happen. 

 

As my parents used to tell me "I mean what I say, and I say what I mean."

 

We are creating a generation of ME, ME, ME children.  We are not doing them any favors by allowing them to continue in ways that will not produce respectful, responsible, hard-working adults.

 

I began this with God's Word and I will end it in the same way.

Proverbs 29:17

Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.

Ephesians 6:4

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Colossians 3:21

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

 

I hope these posts this past week have been a blessing and given you something to think upon.

Remember - we are held accountable for how we rear our children.  Let's take it seriously.

 

03/23/12

 

Responsibility.

It is the polar opposite of what I shared about yesterday - entitlement.

God's Word talks of this in many passages.  Here is one I found:

Proverbs 10:4-5

Poor is he who works with a negligent hand,
But the hand of the diligent makes rich.

He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely,
But he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.

Over the years I have also been exposed to parents who do not think that responsibilities at home are a big deal.  They believe that as long as their child does OK in class, responsibilities at home are not necessary... they would rather do everything for the child because the child doesn't know how to do it very well.

Of course they do not know how to do it well... that is what responsibility teaches - how to do a life skill!  These life skills flow over into the classroom.... more than parents realize!!!

This is where we, as parents, have a responsibility to teach our children about life.  Chores and expectations are something that do this.

Why would it benefit your child to make life so easy that they do not have to do anything to be responsible?  Do parents really think that responsibility automatically kicks in when they hit college or something?

This is why we are seeing a whole generation of lazy kids coming out of college.  My Dad works at a Vet hospital and he said that all new graduates that come to work there from college think they should have the same as someone who has worked longer.  They don't think they should do "the dirty/low work."  He told me it is frustrating because "kids today," as he calls them, do not want to do anything or work for it.

This goes back to entitlement.  This goes back to respect.  

Parents... do we see what we are creating when we want our children to have "easy lives?"  

Responsibility does not harm your child.

It forms character.

It teaches life lessons.

It produces adults who are not afraid to give their best in any situation... whether it is cleaning a toilet or working a major project.

Here are a couple more words of wisdom from God's Word that I have on Wesley and Mikayla's chore charts:

Colossians 3:23

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

Ecclesiastes 9:10a

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.;

I challenge you... if you have children at home and they do not have responsibilities... start them today.  It is never too late to teach responsibility.  They may not like it at first, but, remember.... you are the parent, not their friend.  :)

03/22/12

 

Yesterday I talked about respect.

Today, I want to talk about entitlement.

Entitlement - verb - to give (a person) the right to do or have something

This word is what many children think they should have today.  Unfortunately, we as parents feed into that manipulation that began with lack of respect.

Over the years I have been exposed to parents who wanted their children to get something for nothing.  They want everything to be on equal ground whether the child has worked for something or not.  They do not want their child to be singled out and not given something even when they have not earned it.

Those parents are creating entitled children.

God's Word tells us that we are truly entitled to nothing in this life, because everything we have is a gift from the Lord.

Why, then, do parents today think it is OK to expect our children to get something for doing nothing?

In our society, we give rewards to everyone on the team because we don't want anyone to feel badly.

We make sure everyone gets a trophy whether the team wins or not.

That list could do on and on.

Don't get me wrong - I want to help children succeed and do their best, but when we don't expect them to do their part in a job or a team, but expect them to get rewarded anyway, we are silently teaching our children that they don't have to work hard to get anything.  They are entitled to get a reward or prize just because they are a child or because they were on the team.

They become lazy.

They become complainers.

They are never satisfied.

That is far from what the Lord wants us to be.  The following verses are good to use in teaching our children.

Proverbs 6:6-11

 Go to the ant, O sluggard,

Observe her ways and be wise,

 Which, having no chief,

Officer or ruler,

Prepares her food in the summer

And gathers her provision in the harvest.

 How long will you lie down, O sluggard?

When will you arise from your sleep?

 “A little sleep, a little slumber,

A little folding of the hands to rest”—

 Your poverty will come in like a vagabond

And your need like an armed man.

Hebrews 13:5b

... and be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

God does not like laziness and, to me, that is what entitlement breeds.  

Tomorrow I will talk about responsibility.

03/21/12

I'm sharing about parenting skills this week.  I hope you are joining me.

"I'm not your friend... I am your parent"

This is something a lot of kids today do not hear.  

Instead of parents being the actual parents, the children seem to be telling the parents what to do.

The other week I was in Walmart and I heard a boy a little older than Wesley and Mikayla tell his parents after they had repeatedly told him to come to where they were,  "I heard you the first time!" He said it without respect and as if he were an adult talking with another adult.  If he "heard it the first time" he should have enough respect to obey!

The world would say he was just exercising his independence.

God's Word says he was being disrespectful and rude.

We have forgotten that we, as parents, have a huge responsibility to teach our children respect.  If they do not respect us, the parents, they will not respect other authority, and most importantly will not respect the Lord.

Television is full of idiotic parents and "smart" children who think they know much more than their parents.  I do not like the way television portrays fathers and mothers as incompetent and too weak to discipline their children.  It is sickening the way kids on these shows are made out to be so smart when they lie to get out of something and the parents just laugh it off.  I miss the shows like Andy Griffith where there was a true moral to the story.  Today, morals are thrown out the window.

The first thing we must teach our children is RESPECT. 

Respect of adults.

Respect of others.

Respect of authority.

Respect of things.

Respect of their own bodies.

Respect of the Lord - their Creator.

If children don't have respect you will have a hard time teaching anything further.

Proverbs 20:11

Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

03/20/12

 

 I am going to share something I taught the kids from Scripture a few weeks ago.

It goes with what I spoke about yesterday with my own kids.

It involves Eli and his sons.

The Bible tells us how the Lord revealed to a little boy Samuel that Eli, the priest, and his sons were going to face consequences because of their behavior.

If you remember the lesson from Scripture, Eli's sons were pretty evil.  They were not following the Lord as they should have done.  Through Samuel, the Lord revealed that Eli's house would be judged because of how Eli was allowing his children to continue in sin without saying anything to them.  They were judged by the sons being killed in battle and Eli dying when he heard the news of his sons being killed. 

It was impressed upon my heart that day as I was teaching just how important it is for us to rear our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  I realize our children are going to make mistakes, and they have the capability of doing things that we didn't rear them to do.  However, if we just sit back and let our children do as they please from an early age, we may see the same thing that Eli saw with his household... a mess.

The Lord has kept putting something on my heart that I will share for the remainder of the week.  

I am going to share about parenting.

I do not claim to be a perfect parent.

I do not claim to know it all.... I am still learning, too.

I do not claim that my children are perfect.

What I do want to discuss is common sense parenting, which I do not always see anymore in this world.  In the 17 years I have been teaching I have seen a huge change in parenting skills.  I think it is time that we get back to the basics of God's Word and common sense and stop listening so much to the world's reasoning of what is best in rearing our children.

 

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

We, as parents, WILL be held accountable to the Lord for how we rear our children.  I realize that as they get older they begin to make choices of their own, but we have a huge responsibility to lay a foundation that will help them stay on the right path.  What they do with what they have been taught is between them and the Lord.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week....

03/19/12

 

Both of our children had some life lessons this past weekend.

Life lessons are never easy, but they are necessary as we learn what the Lord wants to teach us from our choices or our mistakes.

I'm keeping it "generic" so that they do not feel "picked on" and that I am on here "telling all." I just see these as great learning experiences.

Here is the first:

One of our kiddos got angry with me because I wouldn't help him/her with a part of something they were studying.  Actually, let me say this differently... I did help, but my precious one wanted me to give him/her all of the answers instead of having to think of it on his/her own.  

Life would be so simple if we just gave our kids all of the answers and made things easy, right?

NO.  We actually wouldn't learn as much.

This same child stayed angry with me for a few hours.  When I asked this child why he/she was still angry, he/she began to tell all of the reasons why... and it boiled down to the fact that I did not "help" him/her as he/she wanted.  I made him/her think.  I made him/her go and research the facts on his/her own.  That caused the irritation.

Isn't that the way we are with the Lord?  He is trying to teach us something but we just want the answer right now?  We don't want to work for it or learn from it, we just want to have all things the easy way.

After talking it over with him/her, I shared that I knew what he/she was feeling because I had lived it... I had done it.. and I knew how I ended up in that situation.  I learned it wasn't worth giving Satan a stronghold even if it is just a few hours.  Bitterness and wrath can harbor up and create problems the longer they stay.  It is never healthy.  

I was thankful for the restoration with him/her and the ability to move past and learn from mistakes. 

Here is the second learning experience with my kids:

The other child got angry at him/herself because he/she did not do well at a task he/she had done.  He/she wanted to quit.  When I tried to encourage, he/she said I didn't know what it was like and he/she did not want to be embarrassed when doing this in front of others.

No matter how much I "cheered," the child continued to be upset.  I finally told him/her that the Lord is using this as a time to learn something.  It was a time to learn that he/she needed to depend on the Lord for all things, and if things do not go as he/she had hoped, still learn from it and see what the Lord is teaching.  I shared with him/her that I had experienced the same thing and knew what it felt like.  I had to learn something from it.

This is also something we have with the Lord - He gives us what we need to do a task, but we give up too easily.  We think that we can't do what He has asked.... and WE, as an individual, can't.  But with the Lord's help, WE CAN.

I kept helping him/her see that the Lord wanted him/her to keep going and just learn.  The situation became one of "helplessness" to realizing it is a learning process and the Lord is teaching us with everything we do.  I was thankful for that change of attitude and the realization that only the Lord can help us in anything.