Introduction:
1. Find and believe in your individual worth
a. Don’t find worth in deeds.
b. Don’t find worth in other’s thoughts of you.
c. Don’t become dependent on your children or spouses’ approval.
2. Learn to say no.
3. Flexibly schedule your time.
a. Schedule MUST DOS.
b. Schedule WANNADOS.
4. Delegate.
5. If you work outside the home, check your motivation because your kids pick up on it. If your motives are good, don’t worry about your kids, they know you’re not abandoning them.
6. Develop teamwork with your spouse.
One - Dietitian
1. Your job is primarily to nourish them, secondarily to entertain their palates.
a. Determine their likes and dislikes
b. Feed them primarily those healthy foods they like
c. Occasionally throw in those healthy foods they dislike and insist they eat them.
2. Get them to the table.
3. Teach them to eat a little of everything. It’s rude to go to someone’s house and refuse the dish the hostess has worked to prepare.
4. Keep serving balanced meals, expect them to eat enough, and don’t fight over it. Our bodies have an amazing capability of creating an appetite for the food elements they need, over time.
5. Make mealtimes pleasant, friendly, and happy. Save good and funny topics for mealtime.
6. Reserve reprimands or discipline to a private time later.
7. If they balk at certain “good for them” foods, try dipping it in something they do appreciate, like cheese, ketchup, or ranch dressing.
Two – Nurse
1. Choose a pediatrician in whom you have great confidence.
2. Find a friend who will help you when you reach the end of your strength. A mother or a sister?
3. Sometimes a child who has outgrown the need to be cuddled all the time will rediscover the need when it is sick.
a. Hold them.
b. Rock them.
c. Read to them.
d. Entertain them.
4. Remember most childhood illnesses don’t last long. With effective medicines and a little time, sick children bounce back to wellness.
5. Chronic diseases, however will challenge you to the maximum.
a. Be firm and require the child’s cooperation. TOUGH LOVE
b. Find activities that the child can do to make life bearable. CREATIVITY
Three – Playmate
1. Babies don’t need to be entertained all the time. Sometimes it’s OK to get them a toy, show them how to use it and walk away.
2. You do need to play with them, though, to teach them interaction.
3. Play to teach them cognitive and motor skills.
a. Roll a ball to a one-year-old.
b. Teach building with building blocks with a two-year-old.
c. Play “let’s imagine” with a three or four-year old.
d. Run with them.
e. Play hide-and-seek or any game you can create.
4. Playing with your child builds their self-esteem. “I love to play with you.”
5. Playing with your child teaches them social skills. They will become the best playmates in the neighborhood!
6. By teaching them wholesome games, they will be less likely to get into undesirable activities.
7. Preschoolers: Play with your preschool child’s friends.
a. You will help teach them the same social skills and thus make life happier for your child.
b. You will be able to influence them.
c. You can be sure no aggressive or sexual activities harm them.
d. You will get them used to having you involved in who their friends are from the very start so that when they hit the teen years, it won’t be such a battle.
8. School-age children: Be around them, but they will not usually want to play with you.
a. Supervise the play.
b. Offer a snack or a drink now and then.
c. Quietly help settle the arguments.
d. They might need you to help play more complicated games like “Monopoly” or “Clue”.
9. Adolescents: Balance their quest for independence with enough restrictions to keep them out of danger.
a. If they are too often totally unsupervised, you with travel troubled waters with your teen.
b. They are likely to feel angry and embarrassed if you restrict them, due to the degree of freedom many teens are allowed.
c. They will also feel a sense of safety and protection from your concern.
d. Once in a while, they will enjoy having some fun with you.
e. Keep recreational events pleasant, and don’t use them to lecture or vent frustrations.
Four – Protector
1. Infants and toddlers would never survive without constant attention. Up to one year, no child should be out of sight of the parents except when asleep.
2. Up to two years, the parents should be within hearing distance at all times.
3. This does not mean that you need to touch the child at all times.
4. Development requires that you allow them enough freedom to explore within the limits of their physical coordination.
5. Teach them how to manage stairs, but:
a. Be beside them until you’re certain of their ability.
b. Be sure the stairs are enclosed on both sides.
c. Allow them to climb where it is safe and appropriate, but make any other place off limits.
6. Encourage them to participate in sports and exercise:
swim skate ski run climb hike bicycle martial arts team sports
7. Every skill they master:
a. Adds to their confidence
b. Broadens their social options
c. Can keep them from the boredom of idleness
8. Enjoy it while it lasts because there will quickly come a day when you’ll want to protect them and they’ll be out on their own.
9. Remember the ultimate protection lies in the Father’s hands. He loves them so much more than even we can care for them. Even if harm comes He’ll see you through any eventuality.
Five – Teacher
1. Teach deep-down honesty.
2. Teach a solution-finding philosophy.
3. Teach congruency. Help them learn how to be real so that the way they look, they way they talk, and the way they feel will all be congruent – they will match up.
4. You are the blueprint. Your genuineness gives the basic permission to be honest to your family. They will be no more honest than you are.
5. Kindly expression of honesty makes it bearable and useful – another example of the importance of balance.
6. Teach them about individuality, the environment in which they move, and others they will encounter in this world.
7. Teach them balance:
a. Have self-esteem without being egocentric.
b. Be exuberant over your world but to take responsibility for taking care of it.
c. Exhibit friendliness to others but use caution regarding those who cannot be trusted.
Six –
Disciplinarian
1. Teach right from wrong.
2. Give guidelines for discerning what makes any given act or thought right.
3. Establish healthy controls.
4. Don’t deny feelings, but be in charge of the feelings and impulses.
5. To help the child make these practices his very own requires four techniques:
a. Teaching and modeling clearly and consistently.
b. Requiring compliance for a period of time.
c. Relinquishing your authority gradually, and allowing the child to explore on their own how they’re to do it.
d. Monitoring and giving positive feedback on how they’re doing with correction as needed.
6. Good discipline involves:
a. Exploring the child’s possibilities.
b. Expecting the best she can do within her limits.
c. Offers praise and appreciation for her efforts.
7. Do not:
a. Condemn
b. Label
c. Destroy the child’s self-respect or dignity.
8. Give your child a blessing, not a curse.
Seven – Taxi
Driver
1. You can make the choice.
a. You can take your children where they need to go but be resentful and grouchy; they’ll grow up hardly able to wait to drive so they can get free of you.
b. You can turn those times into the private joy of sharing with each other.
2. Set some limits on how many trips you will make each day. Don’t try to please them too hard.
3. Schedule enough activities to enrich his life but not so many that both of you are overburdened.
4. Balance your desire to provide for her needs with the reality of teaching her to think ahead and plan. Once in a while going without something can teach a lesson in organizing and planning ahead.
5. If they forget things on a regular basis, you DO NOT need to become the delivery woman. Children who know their parents will always come to the rescue never need to grow up and become responsible for themselves.
Eight – Comfort
and Grief Expert
1. Following are some of the losses that a child undergoes:
loss of a toy (broken or lost), friends who move away, less parental attention because of a new sibling, loss of certain freedoms and dependency that are replaced by responsibilities (not a fair trade!), grandparents who die, the loss of a familiar environment when moving, the loss of a loved teacher or friend when promoted, the loss of friendship through a fight or misunderstanding, the destruction of his whole world due to divorce, the loss of self-esteem through failure or excessive punishment, the loss of wishes and dreams when she fails in competition.
2. We are often ready to keep a child stimulated, growing, learning, and happy but fail to prepare for a child’s recurrent disappointments and hurts.
3. We need to be comforters: available, soft, absorbent of tears, and quiet.
4. When in pain, children need no lectures, no distractions, no reassurances of how great tomorrow will be.
5. They need to talk and be heard, to cry and find acceptance.
6. Wait till the acuteness of grief is over before doing the following:
a. Offer a few words of caring.
b. Tell of a time when you too experienced pain.
c. Offer some ideas about ways to get out the strong emotions of grief.
7. Master these stages of grief:
a. Denial – the child may refuse to believe that the death has occurred. This stage may vary in length, with some children staying longer than others. It is a temporary stage, but it may surface again at any time.
b. Anger – The child may question why the death occurred. When the answer is not apparent, he may lash out in anger at the seeming unfairness of it all.
c. Bargaining – This is usually an attempt to postpone an imminent death or cut a deal that will lessen the pain of grief or the reality of the separation. The bargaining is usually done in secrecy, with God.
d. Depression – When the child faces the reality of the death, depression often sets in. Sometimes it is accompanied by guilt or remorse.
e. Acceptance – When the child works through the feelings and conflicts that have arisen, he or she may now be ready to accept the fact of the death.
8. Your comfort must be balanced:
a. Too much can teach them to almost enjoy a dramatic grief episode.
b. Too little can allow them to feel insignificant and abandoned.
9. Seek the
Nine – Mediator
1. Stay clear-headed.
2. Be impartial.
3. Listen extremely well.
4. The “Judge Mom Show” – separate them, give them pencil and paper, let them develop a case that Mom will judge. Often, the issue isn’t worth it, they get tired of writing and go back to playing. They start resolving their own issues rather than go through the hassle.
5. Interpret their problems for them. Help them see what the real issues are.
6. BALANCE!
7. Be careful that your love and approval are equal for each child.
Ten – Fashion
Expert and Seamstress
1. Teach them how to complement their physical makeup.
2. Allow them some leeway to fit in with their “crowd”.
3. Teach them colors.
4. Try to recruit an expert’s advice or the help of a salesperson to add weight to your advice to your teen.
5. Sometimes, allow the natural consequence of a bad choice so they can learn from it if they won’t learn from you.
6. Give each child a fixed clothing budget. So if he wants those $95 tennis shoes he can have them, but it means no other new clothes for the month or whatever. Use the opportunity to teach the value of money.
7. Teach them to shop, compare prices, and decide for themselves what they can afford.
8. Teach them to sew new clothes.
9. Teach them to repair old clothes.
Eleven - Social
Coordinator
1. BALANCE
a. Don’t overlook a chance to celebrate due to fatigue or lack of knowing what to do.
b. Don’t overdo every little thing so that it cheapens it.
2. Take photographs!
3. By the ages
a. Age one, a few relatives will suffice without other children.
b. Age 3-4 and thereafter, a few of your child’s good friends and their mothers.
c. Age 7-8, let him invite a friend for a sleep-over. Involve him in the planning. Help him screen the friends.
4. Plan the snacks and food so your home will not get beyond repair.
5. Be prepared to supervise the games and work out arguments.
6. Do not allow coed sleep-overs. They need time to fully identify with their own sex before they’re ready for activities with the opposite sex.
7. Celebrate religious holidays. Invite friends of differing faith. If they reciprocate take advantage of it to learn more about their beliefs.
8. Allow teens to party elsewhere, but know where they are and how the party will be conducted. Check and double check! Even when parents are present, sometimes if outnumbered they can lose control. Some won’t even stay on the premises.
9. Unite with other parents of like mind.
10. Organize parties for your kids with fun games and a safe environment so they won’t be trying so hard to come up with their own.
11. Teach them social skills.
12. Balance the need for friends with the value of family time and opportunities to be alone and discover oneself.
Twelve – Volunteer
Coordinator
1. Teach by example.
2. Teach them about real heroes, about values, about nature and about giving themselves.
3. It can become too demanding. Keep the balance.
4. Give only what you can afford to give.
5. Take care of yourself and your family because no one else will do that.
Thirteen – Study
Hall Supervisor
1. Make it a regular place.
2. Make it a regular time.
3. Make it obligatory.
4. Remove distractions.
5. Make lighting convenient.
6. Have supplies available.
7. Be there and be free to help.
8. Encourage them, drill them, quiz them, give spelling bees.
9. Use the time to study along with them. Keep your mind active and growing.
10. Do not ask them if they have homework. He can never learn all he needs to kow in any class time.
11. Instill the love of learning and he will learn the rest of his life.
Fourteen – Values
Clarifier
1. Don’t depend on the school. Their job is to teach facts and skills, values are low priority. Besides, who knows what their values are?
2. Don’t depend on the 1 or 2 hours per week they may be in church.
3. The ultimate responsibility for teaching them values is YOURS!
4. Teach them fairness and integrity.
5. Teach them to keep their word.
6. Teach them to be loyal.
7. Honesty, kindness, tolerance, compassion, humor, generosity, adventure, spirituality, excellence in work, relaxation, beauty
.
Fifteen –
Comptroller
1. Teach them to budget.
2. Teach them to save.
3. Teach them to give.
a. tithing
b. charities
4. Teach them to plan ahead for large expenditures or troubles.
5. Teach them the value of money.
6. Teach them by modeling.
7. Teach them about credit. Maybe use the new “teen debit cards”.
8. Teach them thrift.
a. sewing
b. gardening
c. hair cutting
9. As she becomes more responsible, increase her allowance, but also increase her areas of responsibility.
10. If she overspends, don’t rescue her. Make her wait until the next “payday”.
11. Don’t be late in paying their allowances.
12. Don’t teach them that they should get paid for helping the family. However, if on occasion there is some extra help that the family needs, contract it to the children if they want it rather than paying someone else. Use it to teach them valuable skills, get them extra money, and perhaps discover a job.
13. Do not underpay or overpay. Make certain the job gets done and add a commendation to the pay when it’s done.
Sixteen – The
“Boss”
1. You are your child’s first run in with authority – make it good.
2. Teach them to be respectful now so they won’t run into trouble at school or work later.
3. Teach them to obey you when you aren’t there so they will be self-motivated and capable of leadership later.
4. Don’t be a dictator, but teach them respect of authority.
Seventeen – Animal
Trainer
1. Do not try to use animals to teach your children responsibility. Ultimately, you are the one responsible for the animal, like it or not.
2. Use animals to teach:
a. responsibility for certain aspects of its care
b. love
c. loyalty
3. Define the chores clearly and make them stick!
4. Avoid reminding your child of his chores. Reminding becomes nagging and nagging creates resistance, not compliance.
5. Instead, establish consequences. For instance:
a. If the animal is not fed, the child is not fed until that chore is done.
b. If he fails to clean the litter box, he must clean up the mess on the floor.
5. The child’s activities must stop until these are taken care of.