Teaching Siblings to Love One Another and Saying No When It’s Hard

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)

As a parent, there are so many lessons to be learned and so many lessons to teach our children. Staying the course and sticking to our “guns” can often feel like a daunting task. Parenting requires consistency and diligence that can be especially hard to maintain when we feel like the kids just aren’t getting it. I’ve felt particularly challenged in two specific areas this last week or so and found great blog posts that spoke to these areas that I wanted to share with you.

Our kids are 3.5 years apart and I thought the large gap in age might make it easier for them to get along but these two spend a lot of time fighting like cats and dogs. They have rare moments of love and peace (the pic below is evidence that these moments do happen on occasion), but it seems the majority of the time they are in conflict, yelling and fussing about something the other did/didn’t do or something the other took. It’s draining to go about an entire day in this type of environment.

I needed some encouragement the other night after putting the kids to bed and found this great blog post from I Take Joy about training kids to love one another (and love others). Since we are trying to be more consistent with Scripture memory, I figured a verse dealing with this area was a great place to start. The author of the article shared the following passage and I decided to use it as our first family verse:

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:11-12 (NIV)

She also shared this family “way” that we are adopting:

“We love one another, treating others with kindness, gentleness and respect.”

See the full post here. I am hoping and praying that the more we discuss and practice loving one another and treating each other with kindness and respect, the more moments of peace we will have around our house. I realize they are kids and will inevitably have conflict, but hopefully we will be able to deal with it in a more peaceful way.

The second difficult parenting task I wanted to talk about is that of having to say “no” when it’s hard and when the thing you are saying no to is not necessarily a bad thing. E is an avid reader and after signing up for the library’s summer reading club, he’s been wanting to read all the time so that he can complete the required reading time as soon as possible (he definitely has a competitive spirit!). Since he’s done with school, I haven’t minded him staying up a little later to read in his bed before he falls asleep. However, after two late nights of reading followed by two days with a tired boy who was finding it hard to listen and behave, I decided to curtail the late night reading. As expected, he was very upset about this decision and proceeded to cry hysterically for more than an hour in his room trying to get me to give in. He claimed I was being unfair and I never told him he wasn’t going to get to read. I was on my own that night and it was so hard to stick to my guns and not give in when I just wanted some peace and quiet and didn’t want him to keep his sister awake too. He came out two times with the notes pictured below trying to convince me to give in. While it was super sweet and I wanted to give in so bad just to make him happy, I knew in the long run the best decision was to stay the course and stick to my original “no” answer. I really dislike being called unfair, but I had to do what was right. I also reminded him of the last time this happened. That time I did give in because I thought it was so clever that he wrote me a note, but then he told me the next day that he cried and cried because he knew I’d give in. I couldn’t let this happen again. I found this blog post (again from I Take Joy) that brought me another dose of encouragement and confirmed I was doing the right thing in this moment even though it was hard.

Two of the many lessons to be learned as parents and children….. My prayer is that our family can continue to grow in these areas and hopefully this brought some encouragement to some of you who area experiencing these same challenges. May God bless you on this beautiful day!

Mother’s Day Surprises and A Great Song

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all you moms are enjoying your day and letting others take care of YOU today. I feel extremely blessed and thankful for my own mom and the many women in my life who have been mother figures to me. I also thank God for the blessing of our two children and the role He has given me as a mother.  I wake up most days feeling ill equipped for this role but He gives me the strength and support I need! I certainly couldn’t do it without the support of Scott and my friends and family. It is true that it takes a village to raise children.

I treated myself to some extra time in bed today and slept until a very late for me 7:30 am!! Both kids were up before me and that never happens. I even got a little time snuggling with C in her (toddler) bed which, I sadly admit, has never happened in the morning. Then I came out to the kitchen to find a few surprises from Scott and the kids. They got me balloons, chocolates, flowers and made lots of homemade cards. (See pic below. The flower crafts with pictures are for the grandmas but we won’t see them until next weekend). We joke all the time how I don’t really like getting flowers because they are expensive and I usually prefer food gifts but Scott wanted to make sure he covered all the bases so he chose fake flowers from the Dollar Store 🙂 Ha! Everything was a surprise except for the balloons. We had to run to the Dollar Store after Es game yesterday and C said “mama, this is where we got you a balloon!” Apparently they were there earlier in the morning getting my surprises while I was teaching. So much for 2 year olds keeping secrets. E had also made me several adorable gifts at school over the last few weeks but he gave them to me on Friday. One of the gifts was a “coupon” pack with coupons for chores and other things he will do for me when I redeem them. I redeemed the “fold laundry” coupon right away on Friday but plan to use it again since the coupon doesn’t specify one time use only 🙂 I have to let go of any expectations when it comes to the kids folding laundry. While he folded the towels very nicely, instead of stacking them up he laid them out all around the room in a sort of obstacle course. I also treated myself to two drinks at Peet’s (used the BOGO offer they sent by email) that I’ll drink over the next few days (yes, I am cheap and even make coffee drinks last more than one day) and took a yoga class after church.

Lastly, I wanted to share these great lyrics from “One Heartbeat at a Time” by Steven Curtis Chapman. What a great reminder to every mom of the impact we are making even when we feel like our lives as moms are tedious and insignificant.

You’re up all night with a screaming baby
You run all day at the speed of life
And every day you feel a little bit less
Like the beautiful woman you are

So you fall into bed when you run out of hours
And you wonder if anything worth doing got done
Oh, maybe you just don’t know
Or maybe you’ve forgotten

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch
And every smile

Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

With every, “I know you can do it”
And every tear that you kiss away
So many little things that seem to go unnoticed
They’re just like the drops of rain, over time they become a river

And you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch
And every smile

Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

You’re beautiful, so beautiful
How you’re changing the world
How you’re changing the world

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch
And every smile

Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
Oh, I believe that you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

Hey, you’re changing the world

 

Have a great day!