Category Archives: Parenting

Sneak Peek #6

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Excerpt from THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE

Little children give moms lots to complain about. They’re messy, loud, demanding, and needy, and that’s just on the good days. Coping with all of this is enough to send a young mom into a tizzy. I (Mary) am going to do a little true confessing here, sharing a motherhood moment I regret to this day, forty years after the fact.

Julia and Karl, ages three and two, were playing happily in the bathtub while I ran back and forth from the next room, working on a project and occasionally checking on them. When it was time to get out of the tub, I instructed them to put all the toys back into the basket, and then I went back into the next room.

When I returned a few minutes later, they had done just the opposite of my instructions. They’d thrown the toys (along with lots of water) all over the bathroom floor, laughing hard at their fun idea. Because it was an overfull day and I was rushing, my response was far from ideal.

I swung my leg back and kicked a plastic truck as hard as I could, flinging it above their heads into the tub wall where it broke into pieces. And it gets worse. Rather than remorse over my anger, my thought was, That’ll show ’em! And I felt really good.

But several hours later I asked myself, What good did that do? What did I teach them by losing my temper as I did? Though neither of them remembers the incident, I certainly do, and I wish I’d shown more self-control. I missed an opportunity to model a quality character trait: forgiveness.

SIDEBAR: CHARACTER TRAITS TO MODEL

  • Integrity
  • Cheerfulness
  • Kindness
  • Patience
  • Gratitude
  • Diligence
  • Perseverance
  • Optimism
  • Forgiveness

Sneak Peek #5

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Excerpt from THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE

In your effort to succeed at mothering, be sure to take advantage of your very best asset: the Lord. Remind yourself often that your children don’t really belong to you but to Him. After all, by the time you found out you were pregnant, He had already been secretly at work for many days.

According to the Bible, throughout those nine months God was quite active in your womb, establishing your child’s personality, will, temperament, and much more, by way of DNA. He was actively weaving your baby’s parts together, readying him for life on earth. Though God did include you in the process, the end result was really a compilation of His choices.

Once your baby is born, it doesn’t make sense that the Lord would step aside and let you own His project. He gave you a critical role to play as the mother, and His hope is high that you’ll invite Him to share in your efforts. He knows it’s a big job with far-reaching consequences, so He offers to help.

It makes perfect sense that God wants to share in the responsibility of raising His children. And on those days when the heavy emotional weight of motherhood settles over you, He wants to share in that too. As you manage your children day to day, the Lord gives you a wide berth to be as creative as you like. But it makes sense to bring Him into the entirety of your mothering, since He knows your children even better than you do.

He created each one to be exactly as they are, placing them into your care, not someone else’s. He equipped you with everything you need to raise them, and He believes you will do an excellent job. God sees every child as a major blessing, and He actually died to save them. Everything that happens to and around them is keenly important to Him.

So when you’re struggling with something, whatever it is, ask Him what you should do. He’s the Creator, and His supply of ideas never runs dry. If you ask, He’ll put one of them into your head. And because He has never failed, if you follow His instructions, that idea is bound to work.

SIDEBAR: WHEN YOU PRAY

  • God hears your prayers
  • God cares about ordinary things.
  • God sees everything at all times.
  • God usually requires you to wait for answers.
  • God does answer your prayers.

Sneak Peek #4

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Excerpt from THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE

I (Margaret) recall a morning when our oldest three children were off at school and the younger two, Klaus and Hans, were ages two and one. After driving the carpool, I was having trouble tackling the breakfast dishes because two little boys were tugging on my legs, whining in discontent, and making me miserable. I felt like a tree they were trying to climb.

I’d done my best to distract them. “Look over there, Hans. Isn’t that your favorite truck? Rrrum-rrrum!” “Klaus, would you like an ice cube to play with? Here, have a whole bowl of them!” But nothing worked.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided to get down on their level to see what they were seeing. On the floor I knee-walked the length of the kitchen counter and back to the sink area, looking up. The problem was evident. My toddlers were trying to climb me simply because they couldn’t see what I was doing.

As they watched from below, they saw my arms moving and heard water flowing, but everything else was out of their line of vision. All toddlers long to participate in the activity at hand, so their low vantage point produced great frustration. Just to see if I’d been right, I put Klaus on a kitchen chair near the sink and plopped Hans atop the counter. Once they could see, the whining stopped, and both boys bubbled over with good cheer.

Of course no mommy can do this every time she does the dishes. But one way to succeed at mothering is to slow your pace to match your children’s. Maybe here and there in your busy life you can screech to an almost-halt and view life through their eyes. If you do, it’ll increase your willingness to include them in your work as it adds to your storehouse of patience.

My brief knee-walk gave me a valuable perspective on toddlerhood that I haven’t forgotten. Letting two little boys see what their mommy was doing put all three of us into the same slow moment. The boys appreciated it, and thirty years later, I’m still smiling at the memory.

SIDEBAR: A PATH TO SUCCESS

  • Partner with God.
  • Slow your pace.
  • Lower your expectations.
  • Cut unnecessary commitments.
  • Prioritize
  • Enlist help.
  • Find a mentor.
  • Enjoy your children.