Wednesday, February 10, 2010

How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You??

Understanding Attitudes and How To Change Them
"Attitude" is a shorthand term used to summarize many different feelings, thoughts, and behaviors all at the same time. Various triggers provoke attitudes and simply hearing a word or seeing a signal can change a person's perspective. All Mom has to do is say Derek?! with that certain voice, for instance, and Derek knows she is going to ask him to do something. He responds with a disgusted groan.

Victoria gets to school and sees a pink slip taped to her locker again. She doesn't even read it but rolls her eyes and moans, knowing that it's a call to the office. Triggers like these quickly move people into attitudes that in part determine how they’ll respond to a situation.

Attitudes actually have three components: behavior, emotion, and beliefs. Each of these components can be useful in the change process. The behavior is the flag that tells you there’s a problem. Emotion adds energy to the situation and helps to determine when’s the best time to address the issue, and the beliefs tell you what needs to be addressed on a heart level.

Many parents only focus on the first component, behavior, telling kids to "stop pouting," or "Don't roll your eyes at me." Furthermore, these parents tend to focus only on what not to do instead of what the child should do. It usually isn't helpful just to tell a child to "Stop having a bad attitude" without giving more guidance for developing a better response.

Remember that the goal of discipline is not just to make your children less annoying. As you correct your children for bad attitudes, you are preparing them for the future. After all, they will experience similar situations continually throughout their lives.

Look for ways to help your children think differently. Listening carefully to your child can help you identify thinking errors that lead to a bad attitude. What hidden belief might Jeremy, age ten, have? He complains and argues when you ask him to do the dishes? Maybe he believes, "Chores are an interruption to my life and not my responsibility." If pressed, he may also reveal a belief, "All work is hard and unpleasant, and I must try to avoid it." A positive attitude about work comes from several new values such as "Work is necessary in order to brings benefits to me and to others" and "My contribution to family life is a statement of gratefulness for what I have."

Changing attitudes requires exposure to new ways of thinking. You can provoke your children to more healthy attitudes through dialogue, modeling, and correction. But remember, heart change takes time. We can change behavior quickly, but heart change goes deeper and lasts longer.
Have you discovered ways to adjust attitudes in your children, or even in yourself? Share what works for you.

Excerpt from http://www.biblicalparenting.org/.

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Think about all the times you have been ignored in your feelings or misunderstood. You discover faulty thinking and training as an adult and wish someone had taught you the truth earlier. Still many others of you still have faulty thinking about some issues. Now is your child's time to set out on the right path with a clear understanding of correct attitudes and perspectives on the issues of life.

Take the time to observe and respond to your child's behaviors instead of just reacting. Don't perpetuate the problem, be part of God's hand in setting it straight. If you have a recurring problem with your child, take a step back and ask yourself or them what is really going on. Ask an outside observer to offer their insight. Sometimes we are too close to a situation to see the answer, but whatever you do don't ignore it.

May God grant you wisdom and peace as you parent your children today.
Brenda

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Loving the Unlovable - GET REAL!

No matter where life takes us it is clear that the Lord craves to go with us. Each life we walk past is experiencing a day we can't understand fully. When you are cut off on the road and an irritation wells within you, did that person just learn of horrible news. Have they just experienced a bombardment of events making your presence on the road with him invisible? We can't walk in everyone's shoes, but we can live a life that reflects the mercy and forgiveness we have all been blessed with through Christ. Be slow to anger, give and given mercy, forgive, live in peace, fret not. The Word of God is filled with a call to love and care for even those that are hard to care for.

How do we help children understand what is hard for many adults to grasp? By living out our faith with reality. Share the challenges you experience with loving the unlovable. Ask for forgiveness in front of your children. Be with them as you ask the Lord to give you a heart that can love those that are hurtful. Do the same for them as they battle with their emotions and encounter tough people. This is a life journey. You will not raise a perfect loving child. But if you show them humility and a need to lay all at the feet of God, you give them the tools to build with.

God is faithful. All we can do is live out our humanness in a real way. Don't try to be superman or superwoman. Share what is appropriate and let them know that you need God just as they do. Your journey will be the richer for it. (as a side note: Don't share really serious issues with children to young to process them. Children count on you for their security. Bring things down to an appropriate level. )

May God bless you as you live in truth before your children and share ---His "commandments that He gives you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deut 6:6-9

Brenda

Monday, February 8, 2010

The Devil Made Me Do IT!

The Conscience and the Holy Spirit

The heart contains a number of internal prompters but some of them lead children in the wrong direction. For example, the heart contains emotions, but sometimes those emotions prompt children to act inappropriately. The heart contains desires but when those desires are wrong we call them temptations.

God has placed two governors in the heart to guide the internal motivations of a person. Those two governors are the conscience and the Holy Spirit. The conscience is a part of the heart. The Holy Spirit is a person. The conscience can prompt children to do right or avoid wrong, but the Holy Spirit can empower them to change.

As you help children develop a strong conscience you’re making them more aware of internal promptings. In doing so, you’ll be preparing them to learn to listen to the voice of God in their lives.

We have no record of the conscience speaking in the Bible. Instead, it feels good or bad, but the Holy Spirit does speak. Children can learn to listen to the voice of God in their lives. How does God speak to a child? Through his Word, through an internal sense of peace, through prayer, and even through parents.

Talk to your kids about the internal prompters. When you do, help them to know what to do with those promptings. Just because you feel like doing something, doesn’t make it right. We must always check our hearts against the scriptures. That’s the only way to know what is truly the right thing to do.

This tip comes to you from http://www.biblicalparenting.org/

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When you talk through what a child feels, and you identify what they are feeling as a temptation, help them to identify what triggers that temptation and to create steps to avoid it or flee from it. Children can eventually construct this level of reason themselves, but until then, clear and concise identification and steps to get through something is needed. Be on the look out for teachable moments and take advantage of them.
Some good memory verses for them to use are:

Mark 14:38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

James1: 13-14 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

Enjoy your kids.
Brenda