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Parenting

How to Find Your Purpose in Parenting

I know many of you can’t picture this day, but it will come. The day you drop your child off at college. When we dropped off my oldest child at her dorm and drove away, my husband was in tears. I couldn’t cry because I was thinking of the 500 things I wanted to make sure she knew! I kept asking myself: Is she ready to stand on her own? That day changed my thinking in how I would parent the children I still had at home. It made me zero in on my purpose in parenting, to help my children develop a solid faith that would enable them to make wise choices. What is the purpose for your mindful parenting? If you don’t know, we want to show you how to find your purpose… and believe me, having a clear purpose will help you with so many aspects of your job as a mom. To get started, you’ll need to answer these three questions: What are your core beliefs? What is your goal for your children? What is your purpose as a mother, and how will you work it to reach your goal? Every mom will answer these questions differently. For me, the answers to …

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Parenting

How to Deal With Toddler Tantrums

If you’ve ever wondered how to deal with toddler tantrums, we have the answer for you—very carefully. Yes, that’s a joke, but it does have some truth in it. The toddler stage can be trying for a mom as her baby turns into a little person with preferences, a desire for independence, and the ability to express himself. The best toddler tantrum approach is one that’s not reactionary, spur of the moment, or born of fatigue or frustration. Here are 5 tips for how to deal with toddler tantrums effectively and lovingly. 1. Stay calm. Let’s just jump right in, shall we? When your toddler has a temper tantrum, rule one for moms is to stay calm. If we snarl at our child or yell at her to “calm down,” it will likely make things worse. Try to identify the source of the tantrum. Is your child tired? Put her to bed. Is she frustrated that her blocks keep falling down? Give her a hug and help her rebuild. Does she want her own way? Explain to her why your answer is no and then move on. Is she just trying to get your attention? Ignore her. If your child’s temper tantrum continues, tell her, …

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Parenting

What to Teach Your Child Before 12

What is the purpose for your parenting? Before we can parent effectively, our purpose needs to be clear. When we have that clarity, we will be able to train our children to be responsible adults when they leave us. One of the most important developmental stages of children is the transition from preteen to teen. These years before the age of 13 are golden because we can help our children build the moral warehouse they’ll need as they face life’s challenges and dilemmas. Teach them these things before they turn 12. Teach them to make wise choices. Teaching them this will save them a lot of pain from making bad choices. Teaching your children to ask this one question will help them make the best choices. Teach them to discern right from wrong. There are three levels to helping children determine right from wrong—here they are. Teach them a life perspective. What do you believe? What do you want to teach your children about having a worldview? They’ll hear other views, so be sure to share yours. Teach them contentment. Out of contentment comes joy. Without contentment, they will never feel like they have what they want. A lack of commitment will rob their joy. …

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Parenting

What Will Your Child Struggle With This Year?

When Emily (my second child) went to kindergarten she had a totally different experience than Megan (my first child). Same school, same teacher but not the same kind of year. By the end of Emily’s year, I was mildly concerned and asked for a conference to discuss a few of my observations. A good teacher is always teaching and on this day Emily’s wise teacher taught me. I learned a lesson that has served me well. This is what she said. “Susan, you are observing something that I have observed for over 40 years in thousands of students. Every child is different. Megan and Emily are no exception. Children grow every year in four different ways–intellectually, physically, emotionally and relationally. Some children grow quite evenly in all four areas. Other children have rapid growth spurts in one or two areas and then are delayed in others. For example, a 5-year-old child may have the intellect of a 7-year-old, but the social skills of a 4-year-old. At some point in the future, if you as the mother and me as the teacher stay the course by training and teaching, they will all reach their potential. It just won’t look the same.” …

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Parenting

How to Handle Your Child’s “Frenemy”

Have you ever had a “frenemy?” That friend who goes through the motions of being a friend and even says that you’re good friends, but who routinely does things to hurt your feelings, dash your confidence, or stir up trouble? It can be exhausting to deal with a person like that—trying to decipher the passive-aggressive slights and figure out if she is someone you can trust. Can you imagine how much harder it is for your child? That’s why you need to know how to handle your child’s frenemies, Mom. Bad friends aren’t healthy for your child. Sometimes kid frenemies just need to go their separate ways. At other times, it’s more complicated than that. What if the moms are good friends, or the children are trapped in the same class at school? Disentangling your child from the tentacles of a hurtful “friend” may require a bit of maneuvering on your part. I have watched my five children experience friendships of all kinds: some positive, some negative. Here’s what I’ve learned about dealing with your kids’ bad friends. Help your child understand the reasons why. One of my girls had a friend in grammar school who was really insecure. Her insecurity caused the child to react with …

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Parenting

5 Ways to Build a Strong Mom-Daughter Bond

A strong mom-daughter bond is not a given! Just like every relationship the mother daughter relationship is vulnerable. So many things can come between a mom and her daughter, not the least of which is hormones! I have three daughters and my relationship with each has been different because they are different. Personality, temperaments, experiences—all of these can affect your relationship with your daughter. And because of these variables, I have had to work harder at having a good relationship with some of my daughters than with others. My girls are adults now. As hard as some of the seasons we went through in our relationships were, I am so thankful that we worked to maintain our mom-daughter bond. As moms, we have the opportunity to teach our girls how to grow up in this world—to be their guide, confidant, and friend for life. {Tweet This} To do that we must maintain a connection even in difficult seasons of our relationship. So, how do you build that bond if you don’t have a natural connection? Or, how can you strengthen it if you’ve already got a bond? There are a few things that I always tried to do—especially while my …

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Parenting

8 Things Parents Should Do for their Kids Every Day

There are lots of things parents do for their kids. In fact, the list is endless. And, while all are important, they are not all equal. And that is the problem. Sometimes the less important but seemingly urgent tasks like packing lunches and helping with homework take precedent over deeper, more meaningful things that help build connection. So, to bring the important things to the top, here are 8 things parents should do for their kids daily. 1. Be fully present As parents we can get distracted and when our child asks us something we won’t even look up. And while we can’t be fully present with every child every minute of the day, we can remember to check their pulse at certain times of the day. I totally missed one of these. My daughter was driving herself to and from school. The front door opened, I said hello but never looked up from my laptop, and my daughter went upstairs without replying. I didn’t think anything of it until her sister said, “Aren’t you going check on her? She came in the house crying and has been locked in her room for the last fifteen minutes.” I was so engrossed …

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Parenting

Drs. Warn About Your Child & the Forbidden Apple as iPhone Turns 10

Bar Taco was packed, as usual, but we got a table along the outer wall. I grabbed the comfy bench and sat facing Mark and the animated crowd inside. Standing next to me, on the bench that ran the entire length of the wall, was a toddler. She was happily playing on an iPad while the three women at her table chatted and laughed. Over Mark’s shoulder, I saw the back of a baby sitting in a high chair. He must have been around eighteen months. His parents sat across from each other enjoying a quiet, relaxed conversation. As our dinner progressed my interest in the relaxed couple also progressed. Perhaps it was because they were right behind Mark yet I couldn’t help but notice how chill they were and how quiet the child was. They finished dinner and then ordered dessert. I was impressed. My babies were so active that dessert was never an option unless I wanted to eat that first and skip dinner. The couple’s leisurely chat continued as the dad occasionally spooned a little bit of ice cream into the child’s mouth. The child never looked up. No eye contact. No squeal of delight at the cold, yummy …

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Parenting

School Options: From Someone Who Has Done It All

It is rather bold, I admit, to say that I have done it all when it comes to school options. But I have participated in almost every kind of schooling. I have had at least one of my five children in the following: Elementary school–public, private, private home, charter Middle School–public, private, public online, charter High School–public, public online, military, dual enrollment College–public, private It sounds crazy, but my kids are all crazy different. I have biological, adopted, boys, girls, artistic, athletic, gifted, and disabled. In fact, I have one child that never went to school until we adopted him at age nine and didn’t learn to read until he was 2 weeks short of eleven years old. I have another child who was so creative she got a music scholarship but we had to homeschool for a year and change middle schools to foster her gift. And I have a child that is so brilliant (she is adopted so not boasting here, she did not get it from us!) that she did high school online in 2.5 years and went straight into the Nuclear Engineering Program with the Navy at age 17. All five of …

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Parenting

3 Reasons You Should Spy on Your Kids

We got in a pretty heated discussion during an iMOM meeting the other day. The topic: should you spy on your kids. One of our iMOM writers had written about three ways that she spied on her children. A couple of the younger people in the room thought it wasn’t right for a mom to snoop. I disagreed, and here’s why. One of my children went through a very, very tough time in high school. I could tell this child was struggling but I had no idea to what extent until God dropped a gift right into my lap. For some unknown reason, all of my child’s texts started showing up on my phone. Did I run to my child and announce, “Hey! Your texts are showing up on my phone!” No—I did not. I read the texts, lots of them. And I learned a lot of things that as a parent I needed to know. I learned that this child was in a very bad spot and I used the information I gathered to guide my child to safety. Then, after about three weeks, those texts…they stopped just as suddenly as they started. But I had seen what I …

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