Your Child's Journey

wisdom for the big steps little children take

Welcome to Your Child’s Journey

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Please take a little time to look around at our collection of information about children from birth through early childhood. A good place to start is You’re Invited!

Take a look at First Steps Bulletins These monthly bulletins help you know what to expect each month from birth to 3 years. Many other resources are also available in Steps on the Way, Development, Resources, and Links here on Your Child’s Journey.

If you have ideas for expanded content, questions you’d like answered, or resources we could link to, please click: Comment

Routines

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The holidays are finally over. Christmas, New Years, and Chinese New Years and all the fun and hard work is finished. The older kids are back in school and if you are working outside your home, you are commuting again.

This is the perfect time to consider your routines. Think about which ones are working and which ones cause more frustration.

  • Do you have a regular bedtime with enough sleep to wake naturally in the morning? If not, consider ways to create an earlier bedtime. Morning routines are easier when everyone is well rested.
  • Do you have a routine for getting everyone dressed, fed, and out the door on time in the morning? Maybe you need to consider setting out before bed, everything that will be needed in the morning. A basket by the door for each person is a way many families manage the morning rush.
  • Do you have a time that is yours with your Heavenly Father? Even a short time is better than no time. Consistency with this will put you in a better frame of mind for the rest of the day.
  • If you are working from home with a baby or small child, do you have a routine that allows for time and attention to your child and yet a way to complete your work? Perhaps sharing childcare with another SAHM would provide you both with some valuable time without your children.
  • Do you have a routine for meal planning and preparation? One of the handiest kitchen appliances we have is a slow cooker. It means the main dish is ready with just a short time putting together a side dish just before sitting down to eat. Steamers are another way to shorten preparation time. It takes a bit of planning, but reduces the time commitment for healthy, home-cooked food.
  • Do you have a plan for family time together every day? If you don’t plan it into your routine, the time will get chewed up by other more ‘urgent’ things. I heard someone say that if we spend more time on the important things in our life, we will have fewer urgent things to attend to. When we are running around ‘putting out fires,’ we miss time for the important people in our lives.

OK, I’m sure you get the idea. I’d love to hear about any changes you make in your routine that gives you more time for loving on your kids and letting your spouse know how much you love and appreciate them.

Last year I wrote a post about Goals you might like to read it as you consider changes in your routines. See: New Year Goals

Truth Telling

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I’ve been thinking about truth telling. We want our children to be truth tellers, not liars. We have a part to play in developing honesty in them. About four years ago I wrote an article on Ways to Encourage Honesty. Since then I’ve read more articles on teaching our children to be honest. This article will give you a few more things to consider.

Every parent is going to face the fact that their children lie. It is one of the sins in our fallen nature. For some children, one or two occasions of lying and facing the consequences of those lies cures them of the penchant to lie. But for some of our children, they have a very stubborn streak that causes them to lie about big and little things. If we cannot see that streak broken in childhood, they will face very hard consequences later in life for the lies they tell as adults.

I don’t want you to be shocked when your little angel tells a lie, straight to your face. I hope you will have some tools ready to use as a result of reading these articles. Maybe you saw a very effective way your own parents dealt with your first lies and you are ready to nip this bad behaviour in the bud.

Your spouse, your child’s other parent, may well have a key that will help in dealing with lies. Be sure to talk about your response to lying before it occurs and then debrief afterwards to see how well that approach worked. Be willing to adapt.

But not matter how well prepared you are, you need help when it happens to you.

Pray!

Wow, that sounds like a cliché! But every parent and every child is an individual. There is no one size fits all answer to lying. There is one prayer that the Bible says will always be answered. James 1: 5, “If any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all.” If you ask for wisdom, God will give you the wisdom you need to deal with each child.

If you don’t know what is behind the lie, you will likely treat it incorrectly. Yet, you’re only human. How could you possibly know?

Discover why they lie

There are so many reasons a child may lie. They may have heard someone else tell a lie and get what they wanted. So, they want to try that tactic to get their way. They may have just said the first thing that popped into their head. They may be afraid of punishment. Or they may be afraid of hurting you or facing your emotions. They may be trying to get a sibling in trouble. Or they may not know that what they said is wrong.

Depending on your child’s age, ability to understand, and whether this is the first or umpteenth time they have lied, your response may need to be quite different.

Stay quiet and calm

You cannot go wrong by getting quiet and calm before reacting to the lie. A wise person once told me, “Ask a question.” That question will be different for each occurrence of lying. But it may help you get a window into your child’s mind.

Model truth telling

As in any other bad habit we want to eliminate from our child’s life, we must be a good model for them to follow. If you say you’re not feeling well, when your children know you are well; they just saw lying modeled. If you often say, “I forgot,” when they know you never intended to run that errand; you have modeled a lie. We need to model speaking tactfully so as not to hurt feelings, and still tell the truth. Instead of pleading sickness, we can say, “I’m busy right now, but could we meet up tomorrow?” And instead of forgetting, we can say, “That is not something I’m good at. Is there something else I can do for you?”

One well documented way to encourage truth telling is sharing examples of truth telling as a good character trait you want your children to be known for. George Washington’s, “I cannot tell a lie.” Is an example. But watch for good examples that your own children can observe.

Promise of truth

Another tool that may be helpful is to ask for a promise of truth. This is especially effective when it involves people outside the family. Begin by asking your child to promise to tell you the truth, before asking other questions. But this must be used sparingly or it loses its power to work.

My bottom line is, pray! Pray for God’s wisdom. Pray for His grace to help you respond in the best way possible for your child. Pray for a tender and teachable heart in your child. And if you have a child who deals with this character flaw for many years, don’t give up praying! God has a way to get through even when we cannot. After all, we are stewards of our children, not owners. They are ours for a time, but ultimately God is their Father and loves them and will lead them home.

Other articles about honesty and lying:

Multi-purpose Toys

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At Christmas time, we think about toys for our children. Let’s consider what kinds of toys are most beneficial for our children.

In this age of electronic gadgets and toys that talk and have colourful displays, it may be one of the things you consider giving your children this year.

I get it! In a restaurant the children who each have a phone or tablet to watch a video or play a game are quiet and still. In the same restaurant, children who brought their toys may be in the aisles playing and disrupting the peaceful atmosphere. The ‘electronic baby-sitter’ keeps kids quietly entertained. There are times when electronic toys are the best possible toy for your child.

Choose the toys you buy carefully

Electronic toys that talk, do not teach your child to talk. Children do not learn speech from gadgets. Children learn speech from watching and hearing live people talk. They watch your whole face, they see that there is a connection with you and with the words you speak. Electronic toys are not a shortcut to a child learning to speak.

When you play with your child and talk to them about what you are doing, they associate your words, expressions, and touch with the words. They see and feel the things being spoken about. Speech is more than mechanical, it is social and relational. There is no substitute or alternative for talking and playing with your child.

Screen time means less time for personal interaction of your child with adults.

The benefits of affordable, multipurpose toys

Blocks and balls, dolls and vehicles, puzzles and books all stimulate development in your child. Toys should stimulate your child’s imagination and problem-solving abilities. Toys should encourage your child both mentally and physically. These are the best choices.

There is a window of opportunity for children to learn specific developmental tasks. If they miss that window, there are synapses in their brains that are pruned. It is not that they cannot ever learn those skills, but it will be much more difficult and will take a lot more work to learn. One of those skills is spatial relationships.

Building with blocks, catching and throwing balls, stretching and reaching for objects and even puzzle assembly contribute to strengthening these pathways in their brains. Hand-eye coordination is not developed by pushing buttons on a phone or tablet.

To get the best benefit from the toys they play with, they need you and all their caregivers to spend one-on-one time with them to talk and ask questions and stimulate their interest and creativity. Modelling a new way to play with a traditional toy will challenge them to repeat that and then to find an even more creative way to use it.

The bottom line

There are no toys that can substitute for a warm, loving, dependable relationship. Use toys to enhance interactions between parents and child or caregiver and child. These relationships are vital to all round good development.

For more research based information see:

Pediatricians Say Kids Need Simple Toys, Not iPads and Electronics

More on Your Child’s Journey about toys:

The Positive Parent’s Creed

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A parenting plan with a future

We will let our children know we love them no matter what they do.

Our children will learn that love is not earned, love is freely given.

We will be honest about our mistakes, remembering to ask our children to forgive us when we fail them or misunderstand them.

Our children will learn the value of personal honesty instead of hypocrisy.

We will give each child some individual time and attention every day.

Our children will learn that they are important to us, not a nuisance that we endure.

We will listen to our children as well as talk to them.

Our children will learn that listening to one another is one of the most loving things we can do for each other.

We will help our children develop a genuine personal faith in God.

Our children will learn, through our example, the value of a genuine faith.

We will correctly love and lovingly correct.

Our children will learn that discipline is an expression of love.

We will teach proper relationship to authority.

Our children will learn that respect for authority is the key to a successful life.

We will encourage proper independence.

Our children will develop a strong conscience.

They will learn to withstand and overcome the negative pressures around them.

Owning Our Own Behavior

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I read the previous article about creating a Culture of Accountability. It is excellent, though it will take some work to implement.

The reason this resonated with me is that there is an atmosphere of self-centeredness that is common today. This results from not being responsible for our own behavior.

Perhaps it is because children have not been taught that we are responsible for our own behavior. It is far easier to blame someone or something else for our bad behavior. “He made me do it.” “She called me a bad name, so I. . .”

Hitting, name calling, grabbing things are all symptoms of selfishness. Wanting our own way starts as a little aggression and becomes a habit if we don’t stop it. Nip it in the bud. “No one else makes you behave badly. Instead of . . ., next time choose to . . .”

Create an atmosphere of sharing and helping.

Helping our children learn that we all have a part to play in having a happy home. We can start by asking the question, “What can I do to help?” If we are each trying to help the others in the family, we aren’t focusing on our own will and wants. Even children coming to two years old can be given things to do that will help.

This month, try to involve your children in helping around the house. Make it an enjoyable challenge to finish ‘helping’ before recreation. Bad attitudes and stubbornness result in loss of ‘fun’ time. Don’t get sucked into a power struggle to get the kids to do what they are asked to do. But do let them know the consequences of not co-operating mean loss of whatever recreation they would have had (for a limited time that evening).

This takes some planning and the will to carry it through, but the benefits far outweigh the trouble.