Evening family devotions is one of the most important things a family can do. I’ll tell you a story that illustrates the importance tomorrow.
Evening devotions doesn’t have to be fancy or require preparation. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time either. Sometimes when it’s late our family devotions is just a prayer time. We take prayer requests and then everyone takes a turn. On REALLY late nights, we divide the children into Boys and Girls and Darren and I split up to say prayers with one of the groups.
On an ideal night, we all gather in the living room and find a comfy spot. We practice the hymn we are learning and then Dad reads a story from Arthur Maxwell’s Bible series. We love the realistic pictures and the conversational way Maxwell tells the stories. We finish off the devotion with prayers.
When we tuck the children into bed, we do something important. I believe it is the thing that kept my parents and I close through the years, especially the teen years. And it is my personal belief that a strong connection between parents and children can prevent rebellion in the teen years. I’ll tell you the secret Saturday.
When I was in college I would stay some weekends with a nearby family who had 3 sweet daughters. Part of their routine was morning devotions where each child found a quiet corner to curl up in before breakfast to read and pray. I adopted that habit from that moment until my first child was born when I let sleep deprivation derail my efforts.
The benefits of personal devotion time are many. I remember feeling a closeness to God and felt like I could ask him anything and He would answer. I still have many verses memorized just from those daily readings and am able to find things quickly in the scriptures because I spent a lot of time in them. I think too about the impact of growing up in a home where you saw your mother reading the Bible daily, just for enjoyment! I want to be a mother like that, and be a good example for the Children.
Personal devotions doesn’t have to be first thing in the morning. It can happen any time it works out well for your family. I plan to stick it in when we have been working long and hard at a task and need a break. I’ll ring a bell to signal the children to grab their scriptures and find a comfy placethat’s private. The non-readers can look at the Bible in pictures for little eyes. To help us stick with it, it won’t be a long time, about 5-10 minutes.
Have you sucessfully impleneted personal devotion time for you and your children? What works for you?
I’m on the lookout for ways to reward my kids that reinforce our family values. I was super excited last year to read about Daddy Dollars in Family Fun magazine and wrote a post about it here. These types of ideas are hard for me to stick with for a number of reasons. I don’t always have them with me when a child earns one; they try to interrupt an important project or time with another child to turn the dollars in; and I wonder sometimes if they take the dollars from each other or the bank–gasp! Because it seems like they have more than I remember them earning at times.
It’s worth persevering with the system though, because it really motivates my children! I’m making some changes this year that should make this a lot easier on mom.
1. A chart of what earns a daddy dollar. For example, Getting up, bed made, dressed and breakfast by 8:00 = 1 Daddy dollar. All music practiced by 9:30 = 1 more daddy dollar. And I’ve left myself a random act of kindness clause that lets me reward daddy dollars any time I see fit.
2. A chart of what they can redeem their daddy dollars on. For example 1 piece of gum or candy is $5. An extra hour of computer time is $30. A friend over to play is $50. Family to dinner at Pizza Street is $100 daddy dollars. I try to make the rewards in tangible for the most part–and activities I wish we would do as a family but rarely make time for.
3. A specific time to reward and accept payment of Daddy dollars. We are going to tally up at dinner each night. This way our children will be rewarded in front of an audience and it helps build excitement for dinner time where we all sit down together. This means I don’t have to keep the dollars with me all the time or constantly be interrupted during the day to deal with them. They learn delayed gratification even if just for a few hours.
4. A record sheet. I will let the children hang on to their dollars, but I plan to keep track of what each child earns. That way if a child comes up with $200 daddy dollars but they only earned $40, I’ll know a character issue needs addressed without falsely accusing someone.
I’m about to reveal the single thing that has been the most effective obedience training in our family. It’s fun for everyone and you only need one supply–tiny treats. Our favorite is Reeces Pieces, but mini marshmallows, MM’s, fruit snacks, or yogurt covered raisins would also do the trick. The only rule is that the treat has to be something that your children absolutely love. This is not the time to get all worried about nutrition.
Here’s how to play: Line all your children up, sitting on the couch. If you have a baby or toddler too small to play, have Mother sit with the children and hold the baby. Dad calls out a child’s name and gives them a command. It can be something silly, or a small chore. We often get our house picked up at night playing this game.
An example of a silly command is, “Heidi, go put your nose on the front door.” An example of a chore command is, “Warren, go pick up 3 books in your room and put them on the shelf.” If the children pop up immediately and say, “Yes, Sir” and cheerfully complete their command, they get a treat. If the children pop up to obey right away and forget, “Yes, Sir.” Then we cheerfully sit them back down to try again next time. (Similar to Mother May I.) Dad gives Mother a command for the baby and she pops up with a cheerful, “Yes, Sir” and helps the baby do it. As he grows baby learns to say “Yes Sir,” and play right along. “Yes, Sir.” is the first phrase I remember Brandon saying as an infant.
Play the game for about 30 minutes, giving each child several turns. Be sure to stop the game while everyone is still having fun and they will be excited to play again the next time.
Mother can play the game with the children when Dad isn’t home, and I highly recommend it. The game should be played 3 nights in a row, and then space it out to every other night, then every 3 nights. Eventually playing it once a week or twice a month will be enough to keep the children on their obedient toes.
This is basic behavior modification training, but it helps our children so much. It works by changing the chemical reactions in the brain to make being obedient pleasureable for them. You can keep this positive chemical reaction going all the time by giving lots of praise when a child remembers to say, “Yes, Sir” and obey right away even when you aren’t playing the game. This moves the child’s need for extrinsic (outside of themselves) rewards to intrinsic rewards (the good feeling that comes from doing the right thing.) My dream for my children is to raise them to do the right thing, even when no one is looking :).
Last August, I wrote this article to remind myself how to encourage my children to sit in church and think it’s worth reposting in preparation for the first Sunday of family month:
Going to church with my children has been my greatest joy and my greatest challenge. My methods have changed from when my oldest daughter was born 10 years ago and how we manage things today. When I realized things weren’t working for me I sat down and thought about what my goals were in taking my children to church and what was stopping me from reaching these goals.
My desires for my children
To associate joy with church
To love and worship God
To learn more about the Holy Scriptures and God’s plan for their lives
To build godly friendships
To learn new hymns and scriptures
To feel God near
Why wasn’t it working?
1. The children were hungry and tired–big church comes right at lunch time and nap time
2. They distracted each other–hugging, kissing, and poking soon turned into screaming and wrestling
3. If I brought books, snacks or toys into the sanctuary…
a. They quickly went through them and wanted more
b. They made a mess with everything
c. It distracted them from getting much from the service
d. It distracted those around us
e. The older children wanted what I brought for the baby
f. I lost my cool quickly from sensory overload (too much visual movement, noise, and things bumping into me)
4. When I took all things away, the children started to hate coming to church.
5. They used bathroom breaks as an excuse to leave the service.
What does work?
1. Bringing a snack for everyone to eat before entering the sanctuary. This keeps blood sugar levels stable and helps the children control themselves. They learned noone would eat upstairs, not even the baby–except for nursing with a cover.
Here are some things I’ve taken for snacks: cheese and crackers, mozzarella cheese sticks, sliced apples, peanut butter finger sandwiches, wheat thin crackers, homemade bread, muffins, bagels, grapes, raisins, animal crackers…
2. I take them all potty and to get drinks before the service and let them know they won’t be leaving the service for these reasons.
3. When we sit on the pew I carefully order the children so that the ones that are ornery aren’t together.
4. Not bringing a lot of toys or books for the children. It keeps their entertainment expectations low.
5. There are some things I make sure to keep with me for those tough moments. They are ordinary looking things, not labeled as toys. It helps them be more interested if they think it’s something real. Here’s a small list:
a. A mechanical pencil for each child and if they start to fidget I let them doodle quietly on a scrap of paper before it turns into a discipline problem. (If I wait until they have been really naughty to hand them something it’s like rewarding their bad behavior.)
b. A small photo book in my purse with wallet size snapshots of family and friends
c. A handkerchief to roll up as twin babies in a cradle. I couldn’t find any instructions online so here’s a little video how to do it.
d. Chap-stick
e. Hand cream
f. Band-aids and Kleenex eliminate 2 more reasons for getting up
6. Also there are small things I can do to help the children stay focused.
a. Give them a gentle hand massage
b. Illustrate the sermon on a bulletin
c. Help an older child make a list of words they might hear during the sermon. During the sermon when they hear a word on their list, they place a little tally mark. It really keeps them listening.
d. Fold the bulletin into origami while they listen. I only know how to make a boat, but it works.
7. If my very small child (less than 2) gets fidgety I’ll stand in the back and hold him. A change of view usually does the trick.
8. And I’m not above having a little sweet tart treat for the children that don’t have to leave the service for discipline :).
f. After church I try to stay long enough to allow them to talk with their friends or run on the lawn a little bit.
Does it really work? Well, it works better than anything else I’ve tried. If you’ve sat near me during church, you’d know it’s not a perfect system. The children are still children and we all get weary and short tempered and sometimes I have to leave the service with a toddler under one arm. But they do grow and learn…and so do I. I’m so glad church is a place for sinners to find the grace of God :).
In the bedroom across the hall is a long gangly boy that used to look surprisingl;y like the infant in the bassinet beside me. And in the pink bedroom downstairs is a beautiful young woman who might grow completely up before I’m ready and leave home. And while their brothers and sister still seem small, they used to be so much smaller!
Where does the time go? I still feel like a child myself in many ways, so how could I be the mother of so many–and so many big ones?!
Unless I take control of time and actively use it, life will continue on as it has and my children will leave home one by one and I will have regrets. So today, I will take a moment and make some “bucket lists.” What do I want my girls to know before they are wives? And when and how will I teach it to them? What skills should my boys have before they are husbands? What memories do I want to make before the summer ends and school starts again?
I’ll be printing off calendars for June, July, and August and pencil in the memories and life skill building times so I can take action before time trickles away. What’s on your parenting bucket list for this summer?
P.S. I’ve found the best memories are made in surprisingly simple ways. The most important thing to planting the seeds for shared memory, is to set aside time to BE together. It can be a very simple time of eating a meal outside instead of indoors. Or a more elaborate time like a planned vacation. And the best, longest lasting memories come when things didnt’ go according to plan, but the family bonded together and made the best of it. So instead of stressing over things gone wrong, think of it as a future, “Remember the time…” story.
Whether you prefer a strict time dependent schedule or a looser routine, building predicatbility into our families’ lives helps with discipline, eases anxiety, and allows us to get more done. For those of us with children with high anxiety levels, autism, or ADHD–this is not optional!
Every summer before school starts again, I mull over our past failures and successes and make a new schedule. I think hard about what I want to happen and hwo to pack it all in the day. For the last 5 years my scheuldes look pretty much the same even though at the time I thought I was coming up with a grand new plan. And every year my new schedule falls by the wayside after a few days.
Finally, I had an AHA moment. I was trying to pack too much into a day and running ourselves to burn out in a short period. Instead of building my dream day–I thought about what we already do routinely, and built my day around that. For me, I had to let go of specific times we do things at the home, except for appointments. Instead, we do things in a certain order at the pace that works best for the needs of the family at the time. This allows me to take care of a newborn and toddler around working from home and schooling older children.
For example, I’d love to get up at 5 am each morning. But parenting a newborn makes that wake up time torture. I can get up at 7 without trouble and after a good night, I’ll wake up naturally at 6:30. If it’s imperative that I get up earlier, I can slowly eek the time up 5-10 minutes for several days at a time until my body ajusts to the new schedule.
To get a routine that works with my family, I had to let go of what I thought others expected of me. I don’t normally discuss in circles that I wake up at 7. It feels late, and I’m embarrassed by it, but it’s what I need to do right now.
Also, we do not sit down and have breakfast as a family. My husband leaves for work at 7:30, and I wake up the children at 8. I’ve eaten long before both of those times. Instead, I trained the children to get their own breakfast while I’m doing my exercises. I try not to stress about family breakfast and focus on that family dinner instead. I’ve learned I have to choose between family breakfast and exercising and picked what works best for my family.
Also, I learned that if we don’t get our music practice out of the way before lunch, the day snowballs and before we know it, it’s meltdown time and no practice gets done for the day.
In short, I’ve learned that my routine needs to be relaxed (not too full), predictable, and organized so that what we need to do gets done when it is easiest for us (physically and emotionally) to do it.
Happy June! For most of us school is out or nearly so. It’s a great time to redirect our thoughts towards building strong family relationships, addressing holes in our child training, and creating memories. This month I’m going to give you my best ideas on gently teaching children to listen and obey right away, building respect, creating routines and good habits, forging strong parent child relationships, helping brothers and sisters be friends, and passing on values. It doesn’t require a lot of money to accomplish these things, but it does require time. And I need to warn you, even though it’s simple, it’s not easy. Which is why I stumble with it even though I know what to do.
Here’s the hardest part: Our children learn best by watching us. If big changes need to take place in our homes with the children, then we are going to have to change our own behavior in a big way. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
And believe it or not, doing these things will SAVE you a bunch of money. You’ll buy less junk food, bribes, appeasements, fines, and replacing lost or broken items. There’s also a potential medical savings, both physcial and psychological. All this savings means we can redirect our money to the greater benefit of our children and teach them how to manage money at the same time.
This month I’m going to get specific and practical. Do you have trouble getting your children to practice their music, keep their rooms clean, or eat their food? I’ll tell you what works for me, but I want you to know things are far from perfect around here. Our children are a work in progress and so am I, so I’m looking forward to hearing your own ideas in the comments sections each day this month.
I also want to be clear that this is not a “Do this or reap eternal consequences” kind of guide. Just a month of ideas to consider and take or leave.
The classic combination of bacon, lettuce and tomato is widely loved, but often forgotten when we make our meal plans. I like mine with cheese and pickles too :). For those watching their carbs, it can be made into a wrap with a tortilla, pita or flatbread. For those wanting to bulk up a bit, try making it club style, layered with several slices of whole grain bread as pictured above.
Add nutrition by adding veggies such as thinly sliced cucumber, sweet peppers or avocado. Ad flavor by spreading the bread with fat free plain yogurt and sprinkling with lemon pepper.
To keep from heating up your kitchen, fry your bacon on a glass plate between two layers of paper towels in the microwave. If you have an aversion to microwaves, a Foreman style indoor grill does wonders too. We prefer Turkey bacon as it cooks up flat and has more meat than fat on it.
Serve with fresh grapes, veggies sticks and a large tossed salad (hopefully from stuff you gleaned from your kitchen garden.)
This is not a gluten free recipe, but it’s a nice treat for people looking for reduced carb recipes. The extra fiber from the coconut flour promotes colon health too!
1 cup unbleached flour (I haven’t tried this with fresh ground 100% whole wheat yet)
1/2 cup coconut flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 packet purevia stevia blend (optional)
1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon coconut oil, or butter
1 1/4 cups skim milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set a large cast iron skillet in the oven to heat up with it. In a mixing bowl combine flours, baking powder, salt and stevia. Useing a fork or pastry blender, cut in 1/4 cup of coconut oil or butter. Stir in milk and set aside for 3 minutes. This allows the coconut flour to absorb the moisture. Turn mixture out onto a silicone baking mat, or pastry cloth. Pat 1 inch thick and cut with a 2 inch cutter. Place the remaining tablespoon of coconut oil or butter into the hot skillet and allow it to melt. Place the biscuits in the skillet and bake for 15 minutes. Makes 11-12 biscuits
1 biscuit has 134 calories, 7 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of protein, 11 net grams of carbohydrates; 4 grams of insoluble fiber
