Tag: parenting

For the perfect Christian Mom

A poem for the Christian Mom

A early Mother’s Day poem for the mom who’s already planning the perfect Mother’s Day for herself and the family.

Afraid of anger
Ashamed of tears
She’s always smiling
But hasn’t laughed in years

Tons of friends
Always on the phone
Everyone loves her
Yet she feels so alone

Husband won the lottery
Such a great wife
“Proverbs 31” woman
Weary of life

Immaculate house
Everything in place
Driven to perfection
What she needs is grace

Grace from the hiding
Grace to let go
Grace for the fears
Grace to be known

When being great parents disconnects you as a couple

Being a great parent doesn't have to cost you your marriage.Reconnecting when being awesome disconnects you.Day 3 Mental Health Awareness Month, a repost from a FB post for parents: 

In the pursuit of something awesome, like being a great parent, sometimes moms and dads become less than awesome as a spouse.
Just realized this morning, that that is something I am passionate about helping families with.
If you ever find yourself in that space, here’s something I hope will help you talk about it (and maybe skip a session or three of marriage counseling).
Make gentle invitation to a hard conversation with your spouse.
Don’t let feeling neglected, resentful and/or distant build up.
Try saying this, parts of it, or something like it:

I don’t like how this feels right now.
I don’t like where we are right now as a couple.
I miss you.
I don’t want you to feel attacked or blamed but I’m unhappy and I need your help.
I’m sorry for my part in getting us to this place.
I’d like to talk about this.
This is important to me.
I want to be close to you again.
Let’s make a time to talk about it.

Something the Seahawks taught me about parenting

A Throwback Thursday post


You’ve probably seen this video of last year’s Seahawks comeback playoff victory.
If you haven’t seen it, watch it, it’s awesome.
As you watch or re-watch it, note the silences.

When the onside kick leaves the kicker’s foot and takes the big bounce.
When the Wilson hands off to Lynch
When Green Bay lines up for a field goal, three points down
When the ball leaves Wilson’s hands
When the play starts, when you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

There’s a lot of agonizing in the silences.

A lot of parenting is the silences.

You let fly and you hold your breath wondering how it’s going to turn out.
You let go, give them the responsibility of a choice, and hope they end up where they should.
Sometimes the time the ball leaves your hand till the time you see what plays out lasts for years.
The suffering in the silence makes the outcome that much sweeter.
The hugs, the tears, the screams, the euphoria.

I’m writing this because of today’s sunrise
A simple thing
It happens every day
At least somewhere in the world
But it was really special this morning
Because it’s been so dark lately

In more than a few ways

I’ve been talking to lots of patients about death and life lately
But what limits them, what they are afraid of
Talking to clients about what holds them back and their fear of failure
Talking to people who are tired

Wives who are tired of broken promises
Parents who are tired of the same fights with their kids
Moms who are tired of feeling guilty and not good enough

And what I realized this morning driving in, soaking in the clear sunlit sky was that what they are missing
What I am missing
What that football game last weekend gave us a glimpse of
Is the abandonment to joy that comes after suffering for a time.

“The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning.
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me.
Let me be singing when the evening comes”
– Matt Redman

Seven Ways Pixar’s Inside Out Can Help Your Parenting

 

I’ve blogged some takeways from Pixar’s Inside Out before.

Here’s a Periscope video I did a bit ago when the DVD was released that expands a bit on that post to look at 7 ways Inside Out can help your parenting.

 

Update (11/14/15)

Here’s the 7 points briefly outlined:

1) The movie helps us identify and name our emotions.  It helps makes emotions less overwhelming and scary.  Being able to identify our emotions helps us to be able to recognize and understand the emotions in others, to have empathy.  When we are able to identify our emotions we are better able to communicate what we want and what we need in relationships.

2) The trailer scene.  The emotions and noise in our heads make communication challenging.  This is hard enough when it’s just you as a couple, adding a child adds another handful of emotions; the more you add the greater the complexity.

3) Change makes us vulnerable to our emotions.  As parents, it helps to be especially attentive to your kids, and yourselves, when they go through transitions and change.  Even small ones can trigger big emotions.

4) Our emotions affect our memories.  Often what we “take away”, what we bring into the present and future, when we go through stuff is not just the facts of the experience, often our emotional experience is the most real and powerful thing.  What we focus on, how we frame the experience, what we tell ourselves, the meaning we make are tied together with our emotions.  So, as parents we can coach and help our kids cope and reframe their experience.  And, our examples of resilience and hopefulness – or despair – when going through hard things can greatly influence how they learn to cope with struggles.

5) The Islands.  Riley had islands that formed her identity. These elements affected her self-esteem and her sense of self-worth and she was.  As parents, we can help affirm our kids’ talents, abilities, strengths and potential by giving them opportunities to express who they are and grow into themselves.  We don’t want them to believe that they are worthwhile and loved because of what they do but we do want to help them develop skills and abilities that give them a sense of self-efficacy, strength and industry.

6) Don’t take your kids’ emotions and outbursts personally.  When Riley was struggling, what her parents said and did didn’t always help.  It made an already hard transition, even harder.  It helps to remember not to withdraw from our kids when they desperately need more support, understanding and patience.

7)  The importance of all the emotions.  As parents, we may struggle with anger, fear, disgust – with “negative” emotions.  Inside Out teaches us that all emotions serve a purpose, they can each help us.  They aren’t “bad”, what can be unhealthy and destructive is how we react, what we do and say with them.  Emotions can isolate and destroy us or they can help us ask for help and be even more connected than ever before.

How stress affects your parenting

 One of the best things that can really help with healthy parenting and effective parenting is dealing with your stress.

Because it doesn’t matter what parenting books or DVDs you watch – what parenting podcast or blog you listen to or read- if you’re swimming in stress,  you’re not going to be as effective as you could be because stress will impair you.

These different ways stress can affect you as a parent often overlap and connect and because they’re overlapping and connected stress can easily snowball and overwhelm you. When you add the kids acting out in reaction to your stress – that becomes a gnarly vicious cycle.

1) Stress disconnects you from your best self.  Stress is useful, it creates energy to do what you need to do. Too much, for too long, takes a toll; the rest of this list details how.

2) Stress is distracting and prevents you from being focused and present. You aren’t as attentive. And that can lead to mistakes, inefficiency, frustration, tasks taking longer than you wanted, forgetfulness or even neglect.

3) Stress is draining and exhausting.  It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy when you’re in it so you can’t bring that energy that you need to your kids.

4) Stress makes you vulnerable to resentment and bitterness. Because it’s draining on and that makes everything harder you can start to feel trapped.  When you’re under stress you can be vulnerable sacrificing even more than is healthy for the good of your kids.  In the effort to be a great mom or dad in the short term, things can backfire and fall apart in the long run with undealt-with stress. 

5) Stress makes you reactive and feel out of control.  Stress speeds up your thinking, too much and it can also distort your thinking.  Stress is the triggered fight-or-flight response, it makes you reactive and vulnerable to over-reacting with your kids.

6) Stress makes you vulnerable to inconsistently enforcing boundaries, limits and consequences.  It’s tough to stick to your guns and stay consistent with discipline and consequences. Stress breaks down your resolve and patience. It makes short cuts tempting.

7) Stress can make you feel guilty in a few ways.  Besides feeling guilty for the previous reactions to stress, under stress you may not be experiencing the joy of parenting and as a mom (or dad) you’re “supposed to” have joy as a mom. And what kind of a mom would you be to not enjoy your children?  Now, I don’t believe that and you probably don’t either sitting on the computer or reading on your phone, you can see that cognitive distortion clearly.  But in the middle of a bad day, a nightmare trip to the grocery store or in the middle of another sleepless night that type of thinking seems very real and true.

8) Stress triggers and perpetuates anxiety and depression if you are vulnerable to it or have it.

9) Stress can also trigger self-medicating with addictions or acting out.

10) Stress can affect your sleep and and make you sleep deprived (or even more sleep deprived). And the stress and problems of sleep deprivation are a whole other burden to deal with. I’ll certainly blogging more about sleep later.

11) Stress can make you question your faith. In yourself and in God.  In yourself because it makes you uncertain and unsteady, it shakes your confidence, makes you feel incompetence, feel like quitting or running away.  It can shake your faith because it can make you feel alone and isolated, disconnected and abandoned.

These are some ways that stress makes parenting harder. I’m guessing there are others you might add or are going through. When you are under stress which of the ways above does stress affect your parenting?

Despite all that, I hope this will encourage you to see that often the “problem” isn’t you, or isn’t the kids, often the “problem” is stress. I hope thinking through this list helps untangle the complexity of the different consequences of stress. And inspires you to do what you need to do to address it and take care of yourself.

Remember, sometimes taking care of yourself is not really doing more or adding one more to-do to your already overfull plate; taking care of yourself may mean just giving yourself permission to ask for help, accept help, to let people see your need and let people in to help.

I’ll be posting ways of managing your stress in the future.

In the meantime, a few more questions: what’s causing your stress right now?

Is it low, medium or high?

Getting worse, staying the same or getting better?

What’s one thing you could start doing – something you’re in control of, something you can concretely do differently –  that would help with your stress?

 

To my daughters on dating

image

Dear lovely daughters of mine, 

It’s not easy for me to think about dating when it comes to you. Maybe a lot of it has to do with my work. Mostly, it’s because I love you so much, want to protect you and what’s best for you. As you grow and have relationships with dudes you’ll have to make your own decisions but here are a few things to watch for when you think about dating and relationships.

Look for a young man, not a boy 
so that you can grow as a young woman and not stay a child. 

And in this young man look for one who 

follows Christ first 
so you are encouraged to do the same without restraint and you’re not put in the place in his life/heart you aren’t meant to be. 

who looks people in the eye and has a firm handshake 
so your parents (ie. your father) doesn’t think he’s sketchy.
(Well, honestly your father still may think he’s sketchy after all that anyways. But that’ll be my problem to get over, not yours or his.) 

Is kind 
so you are valued and treated well 
so that your worth is never in doubt.

is responsible 
so you can trust and respect him.

is able to apologize and laugh at himself 
so you can too and continue to let go of perfectionism and control.

is courageous and mature enough to exhort and encourage you 
so you don’t hold all the accountability and responsibility of truth speaking and end up being another parent to him but have a mutually edifying relationship.

is gracious 
so you can make mistakes and be yourself around him.

is pursuing purity and protects yours 
so you can be protected from 
being defiled or shamed in this area.

lives with purpose and knows who he is or lives with a sense of discovery and desires growth so you are free to pursue yours and expressing who you are doesn’t intimidate him or make him feel insecure.

shows an interest in your family 
so you don’t feel isolated or your loyalty doesn’t feel divided and your parents (father) can trust/like him.

is free from addiction 
so you don’t get sucked into its destructiveness.

is generous, not selfish 
so you sense he loves and cares for you, not just himself.

This list isn’t meant to be burdensome or some impossible standard. 
Relationships are hard enough. 
I hope it’s actually freeing in that it helps you to find someone who can pull his weight and share the burden as well as the joy and peace of a healthy relationship. There might be many boys who find this list unrealistic but I am still optimistic that there are young men who might rise the challenge of it, who aspire to be men of character and not shy away from it.
I believe it might benefit them too in their desire to be the man God wants them to be.
Thank you for listening to my heart for you. Remember to trust and seek God and wise counsel to pursue God’s best for you. Please always feel free, as awkward as it might be, to come and talk with me about relationships and what is going on in you.
Love,
Daddy 

The B word

It’s that time of year when the B word starts rearing its head,
Bored
 
The kids know that the B word is not allowed, nothing will make their parents breathe fire and go insane like the B word.

If you are fighting boredom
Clean your room.
If you’ve done that, clean the house.
If you’ve done that, clean somebody else’s house.

Find work
If you can’t find work, volunteer.
Find something new to learn.
Or a good book to read.

Find your purpose, mission, passion.
If you’ve found that, do what you do better and do it with others.
If you haven’t, find a mentor or try something new.
(If you can’t find something new to try, clean your room again)
If you can’t find a mentor, find someone to mentor.
If you can’t find someone to mentor, find someone to serve.

Find God.
If you’ve done that, pursue Him, go deeper.
If you’ve done that, tell someone else how they can too.
Create something.
If you’ve done that, share it, give it away.
If it’s not awesome, find a way to make it better.

Pray.
If you’ve done that and are still bored, listen better. 
Ask God, what does He want you to do. 
I don’t know what that is, but I am pretty sure He doesn’t want you to be bored. 

(If you can do one or two of those things and still say you’re bored come over to my house and I will throat punch you. Just kidding. Kind of.)

If you can honestly say you’ve done all that and you are still bored, then help someone else do those things.
If you can do all that and still are bored, maybe you aren’t bored, maybe you’re burnt out. 

I hope if you’ve read this that you realize life with God and others is too awesome to be bored.

Don’t be bored.
Be awesome.
Be responsible.
Be generous.
Have a great summer.

First post on being and becoming a parent

Parenting: growing into the world’s biggest feet

awkward at first

it gets easier if you don’t wreck yourselves

in the falling down parts

Amazing really, in the other parts of life we learn, work and serve, demonstrate things like dependability, loyalty, integrity and character and then we are given more responsibility.

With parenting, you’re given this huge responsibility from the start!

It’s not earned.

It’s this amazing gift, to be responsible for another living breathing human being.

We start with the gift and we grow into the role.

And depending on how we’ve grown up how ready and confident we are to fill that role varies, greatly.

As big a job as it is, I think understanding it just is – that it’s not something to be earned or something that can be taken away – can take away a lot of the pressure and stress, especially for young parents.

You don’t have to be perfect to become Mom.

You don’t have to fight your way to become Dad.

You just are.

You’ll have to fight to stay connected and be awesome for sure.

But there’s always time for stress later.

For starters, and on some later days in the adventures and journey, it’s enough to just know that it’s both

who you are becoming

and who you are.

The same gift, the same grace, at the start is still available and true for every day thereafter.