discipline children | Encouragement for Today

My eldest son is a graphic designer, and I saw it coming when he was a little boy.

He loved to pick up his crayons to color and draw…on the blank slate in the hallway. Let me rephrase that…on the wall in the hallway. His imagination was always in full gear and that blank, white wall was too inviting. It became his canvas.

One day I walked down the hall and spotted it. “Not the place son, let’s wash it off.” After a lengthy scrubbing session, warning and correction, I assumed he had learned his lesson. Silly me. His three-year old mind somehow did not grasp the fact that he was not to draw or color on ANY wall in the house.

You guessed it. Two days later, in the living room, almost behind the couch…another masterpiece. Continue reading Hiding from Trouble →

BFF “Best Friends Forever”

We’ve all heard that term I am sure. I have three friends that I have had since grade school who are and will forever be my “BFFs”. We have been through a lot together, supported each other in life, and now have to be together in case one of us forgets something…the other one fills in the blank!!

But recently I witnessed something that I had witnessed before…and cringed in the same manner I had before…a momma trying to be her teenage girl’s best friend. Over the years I have seen this with some of my sons’ friends and ….gulp….I am sorry, that is not our job!!

We are to “parent” our children. There will come a time when we become more of their friend, but I believe we are to always be the “parent”. It seems like I became good friends with my own mother when I had my first son. Our circumstances were different, I needed her advice on mothering. We talked a lot, and now that I am older we talk a lot more. We are almost experiencing some of the same things together! (She’s 20 years older for those wondering). But trust me, she is still my “parent” and lets me know sometimes. Usually I needed that parenting myself to be honest!!

The King James Version Dictionary defines parent as “1. A father or mother; he or she that produces young. The duties of parents to their children are to maintain, protect and educate them. When parents are wanting in authority, children are wanting in duty. 2. That which produces; cause; source.”

Wester’s definition- a person who is a father or mother : a person who has a child: an animal or plant that produces a young animal or plant: something out of which another thing has developed

This may be wrong, but if my boys do something or say something “off”, I tell them. I am not afraid they won’t like me anymore. They don’t have to listen, they are adults…and I do it in an appropriate way and don’t nag. At least that is what I think I do!! But we are still friends…just not best friends!!

In fact, truth be told…I “parent” a lot of people around me. I just started a part time job and I am working with young people for the first time in years…I have already been talking like a mother. Guess none of them will claim me as their “BFF”!

Ephesians 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

“Obey” is hupakouo which means to “listen, to harken, of one who on the knock at the door comes to listen who it is; to harken to a command; obey, be obedient to, submit to”

I ask you, how can our children “obey” us if we are too busy being their BFFs and worried they won’t like us anymore? Trust me when I say that kids need boundaries. AND kids want boundaries! They don’t know how to articulate that sometimes, but they do. I have seen it with my own children and with those I taught in the public schools for years.

We can be their friends….just don’t let being their friend overshadow being their parent!

Blessings dear ones~

IN CHRIST ALONE

Isaiah 55:8-9