Tag: raising children

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Preparing the Bride of Jesus Christ

For Mothers: We need more Children!

I would like to thank us all here, who have children, are raising children, are looking after children. This is simply to say, “Thank you” because we need more people like us who have the joy of raising children, recognising it is challenging as well as invigorating. You and I are willing to make the sacrifice to raise children…. so, thank you.

We need more people like us!

So share with your friends who have so far elected not to have children, that we need in our society more children, if society as we know it is going to continue to thrive.

“Bless the little children who come unto me,” a famous person said.

Statistically, we need more children in many of our societies, if our all of our cultures are going to survive. The Japanese are in dire straights with a diminishing population, but so too is South Korea, UK and most of western Europe. Even America, I think, has suggested a population decline amongst its people.

Culture and civilisation is a hodge podge of variety. Variety is good. But too much variety within one society, and we lose the identity, the integrity, of that society. So, “Bring on the children!” folks.

As variety is the spice of life, then important too is the base ingredient that holds the whole dish together.

Be blessed. Children are a blessing. So long as we can afford to feed and clothe them, let us have more children.*

*Easy for me to say, as I’m beyond child-bearing years. Ho hum.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: Calming the Storm

When hearts break, calm the storm.

When pain arises, calm the storm.

When injury — inside our out — happens, calm the storm.

Calming the Storm is our duty as mothers.

Calming the Storm is a necessity for re-assurance.

Calming the Storm through loving assurances, interjections of hope and courage, and big hugs, helps our children (and ourselves) to walk through the tough times, no matter how hard. We can calm the storm simply by ignoring the storm; but even better, acknowledging the storm yet rising above — that is the stuff of heroes and heroines. Teaching our children we will persevere through the storm, that’s what gives them the ability to press through adversity. 

And it’s what books are made of: Going on a Bear Hunt teaches,

You can’t go over it.

You can’t go under it.

You can’t go around it.

You’ve got to go through it!

When we teach our children life is full of fun, they learn joy, laughter and delight. 

When we teach our children life is full of challenge, they learn perseverance, integrity and hope. 

In life, we need fun, but we also need challenge, to make us the best possible people we can be. 

So, when the storms come, as mothers, we bring calm to it, and help our children to grow into the resilient and incredible people they were born to be.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: excitement

Excitement is something we all need.

Excitement keeps our adrenaline going. Excitement brings joy into our lives. Excitement is that incredible feeling of nervousness, expectancy, focus and anticipation that something good is about to happen.

What do you get excited about? How can we each teach our children it’s a joy to have something nice to look forward to.

And it’s important we follow through. 

If a child looks forward to something s/he’s been promised, it needs to come to pass. If it doesn’t, repeatedly, it will lead not only to disappointment, but ultimately, to cynicism or despair. 

Children need to learn about disappointment — that they can’t have everything they want. But if they’ve been offered something, something they look forward to, and it doesn’t come to pass, it will be felt deeply.

Remember Covid? School closure and activities cancelled. My child missed out on playing a concert in a huge professional hall with an incredible orchestra. He missed out on an air plane flying lesson. He missed out on a sky trip. It was hard knocks.

Everything he missed out on, he never went back to. 

Excitement is something we all need. Disappointment is something we all need to learn how to face. Parenting through disappointment is an art I’m still working on. 

I don’t force discussion, and I don’t force activity. But I do encourage. And if that’s the only thing I can do, well, I’ll do it with gusto.

My child may not have gone back to the activities he missed. But he still gets excited about other activities when he’s looking forward to them.

And I always hold my breath (and pray) in silence, that those activities will not be cancelled.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: Keep Looking Forward

We learn from our mistakes and it’s important to reflect from time to time. But in the grand scheme of things, I think it’s really important to keep looking forward…

Keep looking forward to how we can be more loving.

Keep looking forward to precious moments to enjoy time with our children.

Keep looking forward at the new chance for our child to thrive.


Keep looking forward to the next report card, match, or concert, where our child has shown improvement. 


Keep looking forward to the next birthday, or Christmas, or Easter, when we’ll have more opportunity to share with our children what it means to move forward: to live, to love, laugh, learn new things and enjoy new people and new experiences.

Yes, we need to be aware of what’s been, sometimes… to see how far we’ve come! 

And then we look forward again to our aspirations and hopes for the future.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: Seasons

Phases

Kids go through phases, don’t they? An interest, a distraction, an attraction —  a particular focus or passion that our child develops, a temperament, an attitude or a style of dress — which is intense but temporary. To go through a series of phases is very often a part of growing up.

Seasons

But do you know we as parents go through seasons? Our ups and downs can be just as powerful as a child’s phase.

For mothers, seasons are important to recognise, so we can manage ourselves and our families with focus, encouragement, consistency, hope, and joy as we go through them.

As we learn how to recognise our own seasons, we’ll also be better able to recognise where we are at with each child. What makes us volatile, or what triggers impatience, fear, or a short temper.

What’s a season? 

By season I mean a challenge or a set of interlinked challenges that needs to be managed. Life is full of challenge — Isn’t that what makes life interesting? But if we don’t recognise we’re in a particular season but instead roll from one crisis to another, we will find life much more difficult.

Tough phases, tough seasons

When a child is super-challenged, they don’t have the experience to manage on their own and will need our emotional support. Likewise, for us, when we face crises we can best manage the overall problem if we recognise the core issue.

Know thyself

I believe the best thing we can do to be self aware is to make a concerted effort — to take time out — to consider what is most on our minds? 

Ah! But how will we find the time? We’ve got family to look after. We’ve got jobs and / or major responsibilities to fulfil. “I haven’t got time to pause for a time out!”

Well, I believe without those time outs, we can get caught out by circumstances that throw us emotionally, and hit us harder than they otherwise would. 

And if we feel hit hard, our kids will be affected too!

What are our concerns? What are our ambitions and hopes? What are we feeling confident about and what are we concerned or uncomfortable with right now? Ponder these things, get hold of what’s on our mind — really. Then, our self-awareness will be incredibly helpful when we need to manage a crisis. 

And if there is a series of crises

We’ll be better able to see a season for what it is and be able to roll with the punches, if we’ve had time to pause, to take stock of our personal state of mind. This is preparation, a protection against getting knocked off course by what might arise suddenly in our own or our children’s lives.

What can we do to make life easier for ourselves and for our children

Know yourself. Let’s recognise our moods and aspirations. Let’s watch and listen to our children. See their phases, see our seasons, and do our best to roll and to teach our children to roll with the challenging situations as they arise.

Sitting quietly, taking a deep breath: these little moments can make the big challenges so much easier to manage. Every challenge has a flip side: it is an opportunity to grow.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: Belonging

What do you suppose we as human beings need more than anything else? Love is the indisputable, overarching answer. And how do we experience love? I believe it is through a sense of belonging.

Long term necessity

Every child needs a sense of knowing where belongs in his environment. 

I can think of my university days and preferring the students in the year above me to my peers, in the small drama department of my university. I don’t exactly know how it was that way, but I graduated after my third year, rather than my fourth, in order to avoid that fourth honours year without the group of people I preferred. I did return as a mature pupil eventually, to get my honours year. But in the short term, while that extra year and higher degree was important to me, it wasn’t as important as having a sense of “belonging”.

Belonging is a long term necessity.

Early years of development

When a child is raised in an environment in which s/he feels a sense of belonging, fitting in, s/he is secure. The family unit is meant to provide that. Then, when the social environment kicks in as the prime factor to most kids, the child can always revert back to his/her family when feeling compromised, or out of sorts with others. The family — whatever the make-up — is meant to provide that key sense of belonging that will never be denied. This is what can get a child through the turbulent teens.

Teen years

A sense of belonging is what a young person is striving for when desiring the most popular toy or clothing or friend. It’s a way of showing s/he fits in.

A stable family base can over-ride bad choices of friendships. Without that sense of belonging at home, poor companion choices is more of a threat than if the child knows-that-s/he-knows where s/he belongs in the family unit. 

Gangs thrive amongst children without a father figure, statistics say. But father or no father, a child with a close tie with other siblings and one parent can still feel a strong sense of belonging. So, while I would agree a two parent family is ideal, sometimes that isn’t available… And a lack of it isn’t a reason to lose heart.

Let’s build in belonging

As we provide love and security, by providing a strong sense of unity and belonging in the family unit (whether it is a two person unit, a three, or a zillion), let’s do what we can as mothers to ensure our child knows s/he can come to us with concerns and hopes, love and needs, so that our child knows s/he fits and is a valued and important part of the family unit. Our child can be secure in the knowledge s/he is loved.

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for Writers

For Mothers: developing people of character

Perhaps one of the most important things to teach our children is how to make good choices.

How can we model, inspire, encourage our children to look ahead, recognise the value and importance of good choices, and help them to make them?

Making Choices

What are the things we want our children to prioritise? Is it their social choices? Academic education? Putting family first? 

What qualities do we hope to build in our children? Is compassion important? Kindness? Athleticism? Achievement of one kind or another? 

And in each of these areas, what are some of the temptations and stumbling blocks our children will face and have the opportunity to overcome, in order to become capable and honourable adults?

Modelling

What are our own principles and priorities? 

Children watch us and follow us. When we are consistent, ensuring our actions match our words, and when we stick to our priorities and our principles, it will be much easier for our children to face and work through their own challenges. 

Building Character

Sticking to principles builds strength of character; a person of strong character learns to move through challenge, coming through to the other side with greater wisdom, strength, reliability and respectability. There is no substitute for self respect and strong character.

When we help our children to develop character, we help them to live happier, more productive and more fulfilled lives.

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For Mothers

For Mothers: practice makes perfect

Practice makes perfect? Hmm, let’s see…

A time to speak and a time to be silent….

I don’t have the definitive answer to this dilemma. I know when our children are young they need a lot of our guidance and input as mothers. But as they get older, what about then? 

In my heart of hearts, I believe we need to be available to our growing children, but we need to let them work out things for themselves as much as possible, and be available to them as a sounding board. 

That’s hard sometimes. Finding the balance between listening and inputting is a challenge. And yet, this is the balance we must learn to enable our children to grow into healthy, autonomous adults.

That’s perhaps a big reason I pray

I believe there is a GOD we can rely on. And I talk to Him. When I’m really bothered, confused, don’t know what to say as a parent, I tell Him about it. I wrestle with stuff with GOD, which helps me avoid making some mistakes with my son, while also keeping my blood pressure down:)

Who can we turn to?

There are some wise people, well-educated, well-informed, well-intentioned people we can read or watch on social media.

But most of all, we trust our gut! We trust our children to know their own needs. And we aim to discern, recognise and separate out the difference between what they want and what they need, and steer them down a path of moral responsibility and maturity in the fullness of time.

Silence is golden

We love, we encourage, we trust, and we say what is essential for our own sense of rightness, being aware that life is a journey to explore, and sometimes, many times, maybe most times, our silence is golden to our children’s ears.

Practice makes perfect

Certainly we make mistakes. But life is our journey just as it is our children’s. And we get a lot of practice which, ultimately, brings our perfection.

Every blessing:)