Book Review: Motivate Your Child Action Plan by Scott Turansky and Joann Miller

Earlier this year I reviewed Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller's book, Motivate Your Child. I loved it, as I've loved all of their books! So when the National Center for Biblical Parenting gave me the opportunity to review the Motivate Your Child Action Plan, I might have jumped up and down in excitement! 

The Action Plan is a workbook, of sorts to help parents very practically get started with the ideas presented in Motivate Your Child. The Action Plan also comes with 12 30 minute audio downloads, so even if you're an auditory learner, or a mom of little ones who doesn't have time to sit down and read a book, but could listen to audios while doing housework, in the car, or nursing babies, you have that option as well! The audio and the book together are ideal! AND through the end of May, the book is 25%, making it only $29.95!!!

I have to admit, when I first got this book, I dove in . . . I wanted to develop an action plan with all three of my children, but because it's a very child-specific approach, I would need a separate action plan for each child, and I found myself feeling very overwhelmed. Add in a busy season of life (aren't they all?) and I felt overwhelmed. I decided to take a deep breath, step back, and start with one child. I fully intend to use this plan over and over with each of my children as different issues pop up in our lives. Perhaps most importantly, and one of the things I always love about the National Center for Biblical Parenting every time I attend one of their seminars, listen to one of their audio or video products, or read one of their books, is the reminder that God isn't finished with ME yet. That often when I come up against parenting challenges, the change has to start with me. And this book is no exception. I have been convicted repeatedly, going through this book, of things I need to pray more about and do differently. Working through this process has also reminded me of all the amazing things my kids do and are! (and for those parts I did step back and go over those portions as it relates to all 3 of my children, I wanted the chance to be reminded of EACH of my children's amazingness! And I will likely revisit those pages often, especially when I'm struggling. 

After the first couple of chapters, about the same time that I realized I needed to focus on developing a plan for one child at a time, I also realized that as I continued through the book, I wanted to go back and change some of my answers. At that point I decided that, for me, it would work better to read through the entire book before I started actively developing a plan with my child. I also had to let go of timeframes and deadlines (exceptionally hard to do when I'm doing a book review . . . I desperately want to get through the book, and be able to say "this works" (or it doesn't) and here's how I know that! Here's the RESULTS!) There is sooo much in this book, so much to think about and pray about and truly take time at each step along the way. I had to give up my initial idea of "finishing" during the review period. Instead I took time to read through the whole book and now I'm going back through it, and working with my child. Another challenge for our family right now is that each chapter encourages having a "meeting" with your child. Most of the time I love that our family does things together, the girls share a bedroom, much of our school is done together . . . I love that togetherness and have been intentional in encouraging it and fostering it over the year. However, it does make it challenging to find time for lots of one-on-one time with one child, without the other children questioning it. I'm still working on figuring out that part. . . 

So, I'm moving slowly with this one. I'm digesting it, praying a LOT . . . praising God for all the positive things He's reminding me of through this book. I can't tell you the end result of it, but I CAN tell you that it's already helped me so much, and is continuing to do so. I strongly recommend it to parents at all stages!!!

N is for Notebooks

My daughters are 10 1/2, and at this age, I am very aware that communication between teens and parents tends to break down. So, as they approach the teen years, one thing I'm being very intentional about is maintaining, and building, communication with them.

Awhile back, probably on Pinterest, I saw a suggestion to have a mother/daughter notebook. The idea is, the mother and daughter share a notebook, the daughter writes in it, then the mother reads it, and replies. I mentally filed the idea away as something that might build communication.

While we don't give Christmas gifts to our children (they chose, a few years ago, to receive their gifts during Hanukkah instead of Christmas), we do still fill stockings. Stockings are easy to fill for the 4 yr old, but are more challenging for 10 yr olds. Then I remembered the notebook idea. So the "big" thing in Lexie and Ashlyn's stockings this Christmas was a small, pretty notebook, and a pen in each girl's favorite color.

In the front of each journal I wrote a note, explaining that this is a mother/daughter journal. During the day she can write anything she wants in her journal, then leave it in a designated spot at bedtime. I will collect the journal when I tell her goodnight, and respond to any questions she might have asked, then leave the journal on the bottom step for her to find in the morning.

Both girls were THRILLED with their gifts! They later told me that was the BEST GIFT they'd gotten (lest you think that's not saying much, while WE don't give them gifts for Christmas, the grandparents more than make up for that, and they also exchange gifts with each other for Christmas).

Lexie's had a rather challenging year and there have been many discussions about not speaking rudely to, or about, others. One of her first questions was "can I say WHATEVER I want in this journal? Even if it's rude?" Yes, this is a place to be completely honest!  That said, when I called her on something in the journal, and she asked about it, I pointed out that it goes both ways, she can say whatever she wants, but I can also be completely honest and tell her if I don't like what I'm reading. This is what I sooo desperately want for my daughters. I want to make sure that I KNOW their hearts. If they are angry, I want to know it. As they get older, and potentially hear about things that aren't in keeping with our values, or they or their friends are doing, or considering doing, things they know we don't approve of, I want them to know they can tell me anything.

Two weeks later, they still love their notebooks. Sometimes, they write alot, sometimes a sentence or 2, sometimes nothing, and it's all good. . . We are keeping the lines of communication open and they are getting practice writing at the same time!

This post is part of Blogging Through the Alphabet.

How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. For Your Kids Chapter 1

This week we are blogging about Chapter 1 of How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. For Your Kids at The Pelsers.

Chapter 1 focuses on the H - Have a Heart for the Things of God
Some quotes I liked from Chapter 1 include:

• In order to reach the hearts of your kids, you must first have a heart for the things of God.
• As intentional parents, we do not panic, we pray. We do not give sermons; we give scripture.
• . . . Then someone is rude to someone or grabs or yells or something, and I pray because I'm in danger of slipping back into my old habit of sermonizing. At a time like this, God wants me to seek Him, ask Him for insight, and wait for Him to touch my child's heart.
• Our praise should be complete, total, unashamed, and enthusiastic. 
• Have a heart for God and don't be afraid to show it! Praise Him out loud. Pray and lift him up!

This chapter is a combination of showing how ME having a heart for God is SOO important in having a heart for my children! That they are going to learn about God, not from what I say, but what they see in me. That is something that is somehow so easy to forget, at least for me. 

The other thing that stood out to me in this chapter was that we need to be "loud" for God. I'm not sure how I feel about that. . . the examples given were how we loudly and unashamedly cheer for our favorite sports team but keep quiet about God. The thing is, I don't cheer loudly for favorite teams and such either, it's just not me.  . . so that has me pondering . . . I get what she's saying, if we're willing to speak up about other things but not our God then what's that say about who's most important to us? But on the other hand, I would feel awkward yelling and screaming and jumping up and down about a sporting team too, so if it's just not something that's part of my personality, does God really ask me to be loud and enthusiastic about Him? Because I just don't think there's any way around the fact that it would seem (and feel, and be) fake and forced and put-on, and that's not a good witness for God either.

That said, I do think the underlying point is valid. We need to truly love God and not be ashamed of Him, in front of our children and the world! I just think How we are "unashamed" will look different in different people depending on our personalities.

Go over to The Pelsers to see what others thought of this chapter.

What I Learned & How I'm Implimenting It . . .

Many of the seminars I went to while I was at CHAP this past weekend were on parenting/character building in our children . . . a speaker team that I especially enjoyed were Scott Turansky & Joanne Miller from the National Center for Biblical Parenting. Interestingly, I didn't realize until I got there, I was already receiving, and thoroughly enjoying/learning from their e-mail newsletters, I don't remember how I happened upon the site to sign up for the newsletters, but I highly recommend them (and they're free).

Turansky & Miller focus on character building (or "heart issues") as the core to parenting, rather than just behavior modification, etc. I attended several of their seminars over the 2 days, and purchased the CDs for those I didn't attend. I also purchased 2 of their CD sets from their booth (I'm anxious to read several of their books, as well, but will purchase them from half.com, and I'm not finding alot of reading time at the moment anyway, but can listen to CDs while nursing Little Bit late at night).

Now obviously, I can't impliment EVERYTHING they said right away, it would overwhelm the kids, and me, for that matter. So I'm going to impliment things abit at a time (besides, I still have several CDs to listen to), and thought I'd document how that goes here.

Conveniently (and completely coincidentally) when we sat down to have worship this morning as part of school, this week's character trait (of the Prov 31 woman) is submission/obedience. What a perfect time to talk about some new things we're going to do around here when the children disobey!!!

So I explained it kinda like this:

Some of the things I learned at the meetings I went to this weekend were about how to help kids obey better, so we're going to work on using some of those things in our house, and here's the first thing. It's kind of like what we already do, but a little different. When you do something wrong and get upset, you need to take a break to calm down before we can talk, we're still going to do that. Where do you go to take a break?

They (correctly) answered the bench in mommy's room or our beds (A prefers the bench, L prefers her bed). A reminded me that she can calm down better if she's on my lap, so we talked about how we can try to do that, but sometimes I can't because of Little Bit. I suggested that if she can't be on my lap, perhaps she could sit on my foot (still providing the physical contact, that I think "grounds" her) and we also talked about how, for that to work (her to be with me) she needs to not be screaming, if she's screaming she's going to need to go up to the bench because we can't have the screaming around other people. None of this (other than sitting on my foot) is new information, but it's helpful to reiterate it, including reiterating that the bench/bed is NOT a punishment/time-out, but rather a method of giving them a break/cooling down period (also not new information, but I think because we see time-outs used so frequently in others, and sometimes the bench/bed IS used in more of a timeout way by Daddy, it's helpful to remind THEM that it's not a punishment. I also reminded them that how long the "break" lasts depends on them, whenever they have calmed down and are ready to talk, the break is over (this is the key difference between the "break" and "timeout", it is not punative for a set amount of time, it is simply . . .well . . . a break (LOL) for however long it takes for them to cool down so that we can talk rationally.

NOW we get to the new part . . . when you have calmed down, you need to come talk to Mommy, the same as before BUT now EVERY time, Mommy's going to ask you the SAME questions, and if you're not ready to answer those questions, you must need a longer break. Here are the questions:

1) What did you do wrong? (note to other parents: they may not know/remember the answer to this, if that's the case, remind them,but then have them repeat it back to you. This is "confession" and a part of the process of working on their heart issues)
2) Why was that wrong? (again, they might need help, but have them say it)
3) What will you do differently next time? (again, they might need help/suggestions. And they might not remember "next time" but eventually if they keep saying it, they'll start to internalize it . . . This is not a "quick fix" this is changing their heart and teaching them skills that will help them relate to others throughout life)

Another note to the parents: After going through the 3 questions, "release" them with this statement: "Go ahead and try again."

They were receptive to it all, again this is not a huge change from the way we were already doing things, mainly just formalizes what is said during the "talk to mommy" part of the process, but I think that will be extremely valuable because they will know what to expect during that talk.

So of course, awhile later they were playing and started fighting, so I called them in, asked if they needed to "take a break". L did not, A came & sat on my feet while I talked to L. We had to deviate from the "script" abit (and I'd warned them of this during the initial discussion) since I didn't know what had happened. So first L gave me a run-down of what had happened. Then we went through the 3 questions with L. By then, A had decided she was ready to talk, so we went through the same questions with A (if I'd felt L hadn't given a balanced story I'd have asked A for "her side" as well, but in this case, it appeared balanced, combined w/ what I'd heard thru the window). It all went very smoothly, they were thrilled to know what questions were coming. . . and in the process of figuring out for A"what she'll do differently" we were able to "touble shoot" their interactions with each other as well.

In a nutshell this conflict was, A did something L didn't like, L got mad but (and this is also something we've been working on & L has been doing better about) w/o even telling A what she had done wrong, L "walked away" (taking a "break" when you're mad is good . . . but in this scenario results in a hurt/confused/angry sister who doesn't understand the abrupt end of a game). So we talked through that for awhile. I suggested that even if L is angry (or vise versa) perhaps she could SAY "I need a break" so that the other one knows why she's walking away. I also suggested that, just as when they take a "break" during correction with me, they then have to come talk to me, if they "take a break" from each other, once they've cooled down, they come back and talk about it. A agreed that if she knows L will come back, she won't get so mad when L walks away (which was the conflict I "heard" in this case, she got mad & started yelling at L when L walked away . . . ). They also suggested w/o my prompting that they could come talk to me about it, to get additional ideas and such. So . . . since 99% of the fighting around here is some form of one kid deciding she doesn't like how the game is going & either blowing up about it, or walking away (usually while saying some form of "if you won't do things my way, I won't play with you"), I'm cautiously hopeful that over time they will learn to resolve those issues using the same basic model that we're using for correction (though just hte "what can we do different" part of it in some cases) and things will be much less volatile/dramatic around here. We shall see . . . but certainly the initial use of this new model was highly successful, and well recieved by the kids as well.

I want to stick with this element for a few days (or longer, as needed) and get it well ingrained in them (and me) before we move on to other things, but will try to post here as we work through things in case this parenting advice is helpful to others.

Incidentally, this technique came from their seminar on "Correcting Wrongs Wisely" (you can buy CDs or download an mp3, of this or any of their seminars from this weekend at the CHAP site. Ok, as I look at it, they don't have the '09 seminars up yet, but they should be there soon).