Tag Archives: parenting

Eight Ways to Make Parenting a Pleasure

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Parenting is a big job, and can also be a rewarding one. Ultimately, it will most likely be a pleasure when the proper ground work has been done. Here are eight tips to help you lay that ground work so you can enjoy parenting your children in all their stages of growth.

#1: Minimize Choices

Yes, it’s important to develop independence in our children by letting them make choices: Red shirt or blue shirt? Ice cream or cookies? But if every decision becomes theirs, we raise kids who think they’re in charge. Let them make choices sometimes, but make sure most of the decisions are yours. As your children grow up, you can gradually cede control of more issues to them. But if your kids are under age 12, you should still be fully in charge. This keeps life uncomplicated and less stressful.

#2: Limit Activities

An overload of activities is a real problem for many families. Just because something is offered doesn’t mean your child has to do it. And the more children you have, the fewer activities should be packed into the hours after school and on weekends. Limit your children to one activity per semester and watch your stress level decrease. Be sure the activity each one attends is related to their interests, not yours. And be willing to let them switch if they discover something isn’t their thing. Be very selective with organized activities and watch your unstructured, relaxed family time grow and become more fun.

#3: Develop True Self Esteem with Chores

If your five-year-old doesn’t make her bed or set the table, or your twelve-year-old doesn’t do his own laundry, my question to you is: Why not? Kids are completely capable of doing chores around the house. More importantly, the self esteem they develop by being part of the household team is far more genuine that what develops when you tell them how special they are all the time. Put your kids to work around the house at age-appropriate tasks and you’ll relieve some of your own burden while building your child’s self-esteem in a logical and healthy way.

#4: Take a Child to Lunch

Alone, just with you. Or take one to a movie, a park, or to see Grandma. Build your relationship with your child while talking in the car en route, while laughing together and while just enjoying each other’s company. I didn’t do this enough with each of my four children, but when I did it do it, we always had a great time. (Note: the more children you have, the more important this tip is.)

#5: Limit Your Use of Technology

Children who are forced to interrupt their parents to express their needs because their parents are always on their phones (talking, texting or surfing) often become very demanding children. When your child is born, three umbilical cords need to be cut: his to his mother, and his parents’ to their devices. Limit your use of technology during your child’s waking hours and you’ll raise a happier child. Besides, there’s nothing sadder than seeing a parent pushing a child in a cart through the grocery and ignoring him because they’re on the phone.

#6: Keep your #1 Interest

Once we become parents, we find that we don’t have time to do all the things we like to do. This is natural, but be sure to make time for your favorite activity, whether it’s reading, playing basketball or making things by hand, like quilts or guitars. Even if you only get to do it once a month, it will help you relax and remember who you are, because in the parenting trenches, it’s easy to forget that you’re anyone but Mommy or Daddy. As your children grow and become more independent, you will get to do more of your favorite things, but for now, one thing is probably all you can squeeze in. Enjoy yourself when you can!

#7: Bedtime

A regular (and reasonable) bedtime is extremely important. It produces rested kids and relaxed parents. If you start when your children are tiny, this habit will be easier to create and maintain. Studies show that today’s children are having learning difficulties because they’re not well-rested. Put them to bed at an age-appropriate time (always before 9 p.m.) and then go do something for yourself: surf Facebook or Pinterest, have a beer, spoon with your spouse… I’m sure you can think of something. Having that time at the end of each day is invaluable for managing stress and becoming a great parent.

#8: Don’t Expect Perfection

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, you find yourself or your child losing it. Don’t forget that there are no perfect parents; children can’t be perfect, either. Besides, children are constantly changing and growing, which brings new challenges. Expect change, expect imperfection, love your child (remember, love is a verb) and go easy on yourself.

Child vs. Lesson Plan

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My youngest nephew is seven, and a very bright child. He loves science, and keeps busy at home with educational toys that would bore or overwhelm many boys his age.

Up until recently, he did very well in school. But his second-grade teacher expects her students to sit quietly and read; she thinks he has a problem with this so she’s been sending notes home about it, which is upsetting him and his mother.

As I said, he’s seven and he’s a boy. Sitting quietly and reading is not his natural behavior. I’m not saying he shouldn’t learn this, but I’m sad that his current inability in this area is affecting his grades.

But that’s school. The teacher plans a learning experience for the entire class; those who can’t do what she says will be graded down.

Don’t think this only happens in school. When I was homeschooling, especially at the beginning, there were times when I found “the perfect curriculum” at a homeschool convention, brought it home, made lesson plans using it, and watched my children for signs of “delight-directed learning” or whatever the catchphrase was on the cover….but was disappointed to see none of that on their faces. That’s when I realized that they didn’t do well with the curriculum. I had to learn that children learn best when the subject is presented in a way that works for them…..which may not be the way that works best for the teacher.

Ultimately, gearing materials toward the child’s interests, intelligence level and developmental stage is what works. Successful homeschooling parents learn to do that for their children. Teachers, even very good teachers, can try to do that but how do you accommodate the needs of 30 children from a variety of backgrounds? You can’t.

That’s why homeschooling is so successful, especially once we stop trying to be a school and concentrate instead on giving each of our children what they need at a particular point in time.

Why Your Child Doesn’t Need Preschool (No Matter What the President Said)

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Apparently the president pushed universal preschool in his State of the Union speech the other night. Aside from the fact that we as a nation can’t afford it, most kids don’t need it. In fact, studies have shown that kids who go to preschool often burn out on school by second to third grade. There’s just a small group of kids who need it, and your child isn’t one of them.

How do I know this? Because you’re reading this right now. The kids who actually need preschool have parents who have no interest in educating their children or even raising them properly. Check out this experience of a Lucianne.com commenter with the government preschool program Head Start:

I worked for Oakland Public Schools in 1965…Headstart was cranking up then. And..one focus of Headstart at that time (I witnessed it) was to teach the kids to sit around a table to eat their orange slices and dry cereal rather than grabbing their food and running to a corner of the room to eat it like animals.

It’s very sad that there are children like that, children who would be better off raised by wolves than by the parents they have. But that doesn’t mean all children need preschool just because a small percentage of them have lousy parents.

Just the other day, my daughter-in-law posted an adorable video on Facebook of a “conversation” she had with her 3-month-old baby, our grandson. You see his happy little face, cooing and giggling, while in the background you hear her immediate responses to him.

I’m sure you’ve talked like this with your kids. It’s what all good parents do: they respond to their children and meet their needs. This is the kind of environment kids need in order to develop properly. They don’t need preschool unless their parents’ parenting ability is non-existent.

So why is the president pushing universal preschool? I think we know why, but let’s let another famous leader tell us:

Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. Vladimir Lenin

My Son’s Impossible Dreams

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My son and I have a daily routine of eating breakfast together while I also try to read my Bible and a chapter of a Christian book.

I use the word try because while I’m trying to read, Josh is trying not to interrupt me. He has access to me all day long, so it’s good for him to learn not to interrupt. He just hasn’t learned it yet.

This morning he was discussing his desire to buy a black car, in which he will drive to the next state to see our old neighbors, his best friends from childhood. After a little while, he segued into his plans to get married and have a baby boy and baby girl. (We’ve heard this lecture more frequently since his first nephew was born last fall.)

We listen to him talk about his plans all the time. Without the right mindset it can be quite depressing, because he’s not ever going to be able to buy a car (most people with Down syndrome can’t drive, and he’s not able to hold down the kind of job, i.e. most jobs, that would allow him to save up for a car anyway). As for becoming a parent, even if he had the maturity to be a parent, which he doesn’t, he’ll never have the ability because men with Ds are sterile.

And yes, these facts have depressed me in the past and occasionally still do. The irony of this morning is that the book I’ve been reading after my daily devotions is Heaven by Randy Alcorn, and check out what was in today’s chapter:

Joni Eareckson Tada writes from her wheelchair, “I haven’t been cheated out of being a complete person—I’m just going through a forty-year delay, and God is with me even through that. Being ‘glorified’—I know the meaning of that now. It’s the time, after my death here, when I’ll be on my feet dancing.”….God is big enough not only to fulfill your dreams but also to expand them as you anticipate Heaven. When you experience disappointment and loss as you faithfully serve God here, remember: the loss is temporary. The gains will be eternal. Every day on the new Earth will be a new opportunity to live out the dreams that matter most.

I believe in God, not coincidences, so I know this specific passage turning up in my reading while my son was expounding on his future (impossible) plans is God reminding me that while there are many things my son will not be able to do on this earth, he will not be hampered by his disability in the next life.

I find this very comforting, and I hope other parents of kids with developmental disabilities find it comforting, too. But it also applies to parents of kids who don’t achieve their dreams: parents of the lovely young woman who dreams of the satisfaction of marriage and children but never finds a good man to share that dream with, or parents of bright young people with promising futures who suffer brain injuries in accidents and are left seemingly a shadow of their former selves.

It’s so easy to get caught up in an earthly perspective that makes you view everything in terms of now, but the book Heaven is reminding me that my perspective’s timeline is much longer than merely “now.” Great book, by the way; many thanks to my husband for recommending it to me.

Check out Thriving in the 21st Century….

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to get the latest on preparing your kids for the “new normal.” Find out about:

  1. the surprising link between homeschooling and Tumblr
  2. yet another student loan-related tragedy
  3. and what happened to the high school student who refused to wear a tracking device/student ID

plus oodles of great links for all parents, right here.