SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

by Annie Mueller

I've stated before that one of my goals as a parent is for my children to be as independent as possible. That doesn't mean they get to run wild; it means I make strategic choices to encourage them into independence on my terms, which looks like this:

• able to play by themselves without my constant intervention and direction
• able to handle conflict by themselves
• unafraid to try new things
• ready to learn and use new skills
• equipped to do what they can for themselves

You have to make conscious choices to encourage independent (not rebellious) children, which means children who will be independent learners. These choices don't always look like typical parenting. Be prepared for some funny looks... and for a great pay-off: intelligent kids who can entertain themselves and who are interested in the world around them. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few days, I've been skimming through Dr. Kevin Leman's Becoming the Parent God Wants You to Be.
I picked it up from the church library after one of those weeks when I figured my fertility must have been oversight on God's part. "Oh no, Annie had kids? That wasn't supposed to happen..."

Yeah, yeah, one of those. And after one of those conversations in which a recently-returned-to-town friend casually threw out the, "So, what are you guys up to? What's been going on with you lately?" bomb-of-a-question.

Eh? I wanted to say, Do you see these small people following me? They are what has been going on lately, and as far as I can tell, they are what will be going on for the next ten or fifteen or (dear God please help me) twenty years. That's what I'm up to.

I held my tongue and said something vague and more appropriate. One of these days, though...

Anyway, on to the point, which I have now forgotten. Oh, yes, the book. The book that I brought home and which subsequently sat on my desk until another one of those weeks went by, at which point I pulled it out and thought, Maybe this would be more helpful if I read it.

Indeed.

"...godly parenting means treating your children the way God treats us, His children. He lovingly helps us make wise decisions about the realities of life." (p. 21)

The line "treating your children the way God treats us" made me stop and think. God is not a taskmaster. God is not set on vengeance. God is not offended by our failures. God is not demanding our perfection. God is available. God is listening. God is speaking in ways I can understand, over and over again until I get it. God is not interested in the outward appearance, but in the heart. God is understanding, loving, gentle, kind, and merciful. God is truthful, firm, strong, and secure. God is happy: the joy of the Lord is my strength. How can He give me joy if He doesn't have it Himself?

Ready for the obvious translation?

I should not be a taskmaster over my children. I should not be set on vengeance toward myself, for failing, or toward anyone else. I should not be offended my my children's failures. I should not be demanding their perfection. I should be available. I should be listening, aware, watching. I should be speaking in ways that my children can understand, over and over again until they get it. I should not be so interested in how they look and should be completely interested in their little hearts. I should be understanding, loving, gentle, kind, and merciful. I should be truthful, firm, strong, and secure. (Not wavering. Not a pendulum.) I should be happy, too. It's good to be happy.

I say "should be" not to pour guilt on myself or anyone else but to show us all what is possible.
Of course, with man these things are impossible. They are too high, too wide, too deep for my narrowness. But with God... with God...
all things are possible.

I congratulate myself on my skills of observation. It only took me a month to notice that those boxes of toys I keep tripping over - in the sun room, the front room, the bedrooms - are left emphatically alone by my children. Dismally untouched.

I don't want to think about the amount of money represented there, now just sitting, unused. Little plastic pieces and rubber gizmos and wooden blocks -- they've even abandoned the wooden block set! That one hurts because I like the idea of neat little towers of wooden blocks. Maybe if all the wooden blocks weren't lost in the jumble of MacDonald's toys and raggedy baby dolls.

I'm thinking of a drastic change. I'm thinking of just getting rid of the toys. Chunked. Out the window. To the Good Will. I can do this, I think, because I haven't bought most of them. They were gifts or hand-me-downs or maybe thrift store purchases. And they are taking up space while my children play with non-toys. Things like

• my bowls and spoons in the kitchen
• random lengths of ribbon and yarn
• sticks
• gravel
• dirt
• mud
• water
• markers and crayons and play-dough and glue sticks
• bubbles
• sidewalk chalk
• books

Today Mara and Robbie spent an hour standing on little chairs in front of the sink washing dishes for me. An hour. And I actually had to tell Mara it was time to stop... Sure, they got wet. They got water on the floor. I needed to mop anyway; it actually made the job a bit easier to have some sudsy water there.

I'm getting a message from the kiddos and the message is this: hey, Mom, we like to play but we like to play with real stuff. These other toys are boring.

That makes sense. The only toys around that they do pay attention to at all are things like

• trucks and cars and tractors
• train table with trains
• purses and "fancy" dresses
• play kitchen with play kitchen stuff
• a few special baby dolls

They like things that are helpful for playing at real life, because that's what kids are interested in. Real Life. The real life that Mommy and Daddy are part of.
The real life that they're going to grow up and have. That real life. The one that matters. They know this, instinctively. They care. They are playing at it because that's how they learn about it and that's how they prepare for it.

Two days ago Mara spent 30 minutes chopping mushrooms with a butter knife. A few days before that, Mara and Robbie sat at the counter diligently peeling boiled eggs. They were more absorbed in this "work" than they would have been in a movie or any fancy shiny new plastic thing.

So, hmmmm, let me think: I can entertain my daugher with a handful of mushrooms and a butter knife, and she's learning kitchen skills, or I can spend $25 on a toy that will teach her nothing and will break and will lose its appeal before it breaks. You can buy a lot of mushrooms for $25. That's a lot of chopping.
That's a lot of time with my daughter at the kitchen counter, chatting me up while she works away, helping me with dinner, not just playing at real life but actively participating in it.

This is getting to be less and less of a tough decision and more and more of a given. I'll keep you posted.

Images

1. Who needs toys courtesy of Ernst Vikne on Flickr.

Oh, joy, the haunting questions of motherhood. If you females didn't have a guilt complex before you had a baby, I bet you got bit by one full-force in the postpartum days. Suddenly everything matters. Everything could be it - the mistake - the one wrong thing you do as a parent that is so wrong it warps your child unalterably.

What should my kids learn, what do I deal with, what is a normal part of childhood, what do I ignore?
What will they just grow out of?
What matters?
What will mess them up for the rest of their lives?
What will they tell their therapist about me?

More Haunting Questions. I'm Feeling Very Haunted Today.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to a kind of parenting style I haven't heard much about. It's not permissive, it's not authoritarian. It's pendulum-swing-style parenting. It works like this: I know, know know know know know, that my children need boundaries, need to respect authority, need to know absolutes. So I set the line and I hold the line. I instruct, I train, I reprove, I discipline, I get exhausted, I feel overwhelmed, I feel guilty.

Am I going overboard?
Am I keeping them from expressing their creativity?
Am I stifling their little souls?
Am I damaging their emotions?
Am I making everything too big of a deal?

Wheee This Is Better Than Disney World

So I hop on the pendulum and swing to the other side... I ignore things. I only deal with "the big stuff." I let it go. I give sweet little phrases meant as admonishment. I ask questions. I just dump choices on their heads. I check their preferences. I follow. They lead. I realize this is wrong. I realize we are falling apart.

I get back on the pendulum and swing to the other side.

And so it goes until we are all dizzy and confused.

This morning I read a verse that, I think, must be new to my Bible. At least I've never noticed it before.

"Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the tablet of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man." (Proverbs 3:3-4)

Let's Get Together, Yeah Yeah Yeah

It's that first part, do you see it?
Mercy and truth. Both of them. Mercy and truth together. Mercy and truth as a pair. Mercy and truth working together.

You see the connection, I'm sure. Truth, the authoritarian side, the black is black and white is white, the walk-the-line parent. Mercy, the empathetic heart, the emotional response, the nurturing, explaining, protecting parent. They're supposed to work together. Really close together. Bound on your neck and written on your heart together.

I'm not sure how I missed that all this time. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like in parenting: how does it become an even, steady gait instead of a dizzying ride back and forth? I think now would be a good time to find out.

-

Images

1. Requisite photo courtesy of EdenPictures on Flickr.

Alternate Title: When I Was Your Age, I Had to Get Up at 4 a.m. to Milk the Cows

"Children are thoroughly human and if all their needs are provided for, with little effort on their parts they fall into habits of inertia and moral flabbiness as surely as their elders do under similar conditions. What we parents need to realize is that ordinary modern conditions more and more tend to put children in a passive, receptive mental attitude, and not in an active and masterful one; and further that we can not better this condition without taking a great deal of very intelligent thought" (1).

A lovely woman by the name of Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote that back in 1916, which I personally didn't realize was such a time of modern convenience. Comparative, I guess, to 1816 or thereabouts, I guess things had gotten significantly easier.
Wonder what she would have thought about video games? Talk about a passive, receptive mental attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

My goal is for my children to be as independent as they can be without hurting themselves or ignoring my authority.

Guilt-Free Independence

The only way children can have guilt-free independence is to be given clear limits and designated areas of freedom within those limits. Independence, too, is not the freedom to do whatever, whenever, however you want without regard to others. No true Christian ever has the "right" to that kind of irresponsibility, falsely deemed independence or freedom.

Freedom comes with limits, automatically, and the right way to teach children the real nature of freedom is to give them independence within certain constraints. For example, Read the rest of this entry »

Here are a few things I do to make mealtime as conflict-free as possible:

• I try to introduce one new food at a time, or to balance something I know they don't like a whole lot with something they enjoy. Don't overwhelm your child with new foods all at once. Try to stick to something familiar and something new. Read the rest of this entry »

It is 8:30 on a Saturday night and I am about to gorge myself on good chocolate and books. I am full of resolution. I am full of cheer. I am alone with the hot running water, in a cocoon the color of the shower curtain. My library loot is stacked beside me on the handmade, colored "Mara HEARTS Daddy" step stool. A pile of Ghirardellis on the ledge of the tub, next to my bottle of cold water.

Joe's out snowboarding, the 3-under-3 are sleeping, and tonight I'm kicking it Mommy-style. Mommy after 3 days of no-routines, messy-house, movie-overload, good-times chaos. Mommy after 3 days of feeling slightly guilty that she has trouble going with the flow and that
she kind of resents the extra work that results from all this fun. Read the rest of this entry »

The most potent influence for good that the world knows is a whole minded Christian home.
In such a home the life of the parents expresses their convictions rather than their frailties and their instruction of the children in the truths of the Christian faith is easy and natural, for it is but an explanation of the motives which actually determine the behavior which the children see and the conditions of life which they share.
Such a home is quiet, unhurried, without strain and stress.

The feelings and emotions inducted within the children by the contagion of sympathy are unhectic, sound, and wholesome.
The suggestions of such a home are in right directions, its unconscious models worthy of imitation.
Its authority is reasonable, its spirit that of mutual affection, its members are friends and comrades who stick together in work and in play.

In such a home the kingdom of God begins to come on earth,

that Kingdom which will come fully when all men realize that they have one Father and are brethren.
To such a home many of us can look back, and we thank God that it imparted its spirit, not just by precept or instruction, but by the uncounted, unintended vital influences of its atmosphere.
Text from " The Training of Children in the Christian Home" by Luther Allan Weigle.