Church Blog (Page 17)

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 30, 2012 Group Offenses Around Character Qualities When you feel overwhelmed by the poor behavior of your children, here’s an exercise that will give you some direction. In fact, this activity is good for any parent looking for ways to help children grow, but it’s especially helpful when you’re confused and overwhelmed by a problem’s complexity or deeply rooted nature. Take out some paper and make a list of the offenses committed…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 27, 2012   When Addressing Sibling Conflict, Discipline Kids Separately   One of the most challenging aspects of family life is sibling conflict. You want your children to have close relationships but differing personalities, competitiveness, and immaturity often gets in the way. Conflict between brothers and sisters is a child’s first class in relationship school. Your home is the classroom, you are the teacher, and a healthy plan for working on conflict…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 21, 2012 Use Anger to Spark Creativity We say, “Anger is good for identifying problems but not good for solving them.” Once you become aware of a problem, look for a more creative and productive way to solve it. When parents choose to reflect only anger, they limit themselves dramatically. Families benefit when they experiment with other emotional options as well. Marilyn surprised her eight-year-old son after he put his feet on…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 18, 2012 Slow Down the Emotion When the emotion starts increasing in your interactions, it’s time to slow down the process. One mom said, “I feel a lot of intensity and tend to react without thinking. It’s as if my emotions have the ability to bypass my brain. It takes work to understand what’s actually going on. I’m learning to slow down and think more about what I’m feeling. I’m making progress…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 14, 2012 You Don’t Want to Raise a People Pleaser Many children grow up in homes where parents react with explosive anger. These children learn to make decisions based on avoiding the next angry outburst. Unfortunately they then may grow up to be people pleasers. Anger appears to work in the short run. It gets kids moving or motivates them to stop and listen. But in the end, it damages a child’s…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 11, 2012 Dealing With Sarcasm Communication is like sitting at a table and passing messages back and forth. Anyone can take a piece of paper and a pencil, write down a message, and give it to anyone else across the table. A sarcastic remark, however, is like handing one piece of paper over the table and another one under the table. It sends mixed signals as the word message is inconsistent with…

• • • • • Parenting Tip October 8, 2012 A Heart Approach is Different Many parents use a simple behavior modification approach to raise their children. “If you get your homework done, then you can go out and play.” “If you clean your room, then you can watch a video.” Unfortunately children trained this way often develop a “What’s in it for me?” mentality. “If I don’t get something out of it, why should I obey?” God is concerned…

Parenting Insight You Can Use Now As children grow and mature, parents must make adjustments in the way they parent. Some of those changes are minor or subtle; others are more significant. In the same way that children go through developmental stages, parents must learn to adapt by shifting the way they interact, care for, and discipline their children. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, your child changes and you feel like you’re starting all over…

• • • • • Parenting Tip September 26, 2012     Make Mealtimes Fun   In many homes, dinnertime is the only time when the family actually gets together. This becomes more pronounced as children get older and schedules become more complicated. It’s unfortunate that many parents overemphasize manners or food choices or even use the table talk as a time to go over the offenses of the day or to further discipline children. All of these things may…

• • • • • Parenting Tip September 24, 2012 Why a Bedtime is Important One of the gifts parents can give their children is teaching and developing the character quality of self-discipline. With young children, in particular, bedtime is a good place to start. Children often don’t want to go to bed and the continual battle night after night is draining, causing many parents to just give up and allow children to stay up later. A bedtime for children…