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Help the Challenged Child

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Over the last months I’ve been sharing from my husband’s web site: Intermin on parenting. This month will be the last in this series. We have been talking about different reasons children might not behave as you would expect. One reason is rebellion, another is discouragement, and this one is when they have a weakness. If we take the same approach to every misbehaviour, we will miss some of the most important opportunities to influence our children to do their best. To read the entire article go to: Help the Challenged Child.

There’s a mystery about Vincent. Here’s the explanation of it. Vincent has learning disabilities: special problems that make it hard for him to learn in a normal school room setting. His problems aren’t serious enough to detect easily, and that makes things worse. Vincent’s difficulty isn’t his intellect, but the way he processes information. With the proper help, Vincent will become an outstanding young man. However, if someone doesn’t help him, if he is ignored or misunderstood, Vincent’s true potential will be wasted.

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Making it Work

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Barbara Nicols is one of our First Steps family. She has a gift for writing. Thank you, Barbara, for sharing a day like we all have from time-to-time and telling us what you did with it.

Diane

Okay so I don’t exactly enjoy grocery shopping. I love making food, dreaming up new recipes and combinations, pouring over my favorite worn Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, measuring & ingredients for a new recipe.

I love seeing the excitement on little faces as they clamber to the table on a Saturday morning, grabbing eagerly for a homemade cinnamon roll or banana walnut waffle to eat with their blueberries or pineapples.

But I don’t love shopping. In fact sometimes, most times I dread it. And it is even more dread-worthy (is that a word) when I must bring my little twosome along. The twosome are jolly and raucous and completely adorable and mostly manageable when they are within the familiar confines of home and yard. But put them in a brightly lit supermarket with hundreds of thousands of hands off items, anchored to a rickety and crowded cart, forced to watch me linger over which head of broccoli is the firmest, which type of milk for my tea, which bag of frozen edamame has more…and they go just a little bit cuckoo. Grabbing things off the shelves, giving a poke or an unwanted tickle to their sibling, fighting over who gets to put the steel cut oats in the cart (yes, just about anything looks exciting when someone else is getting to do it!)…Needless to say I don’t exactly enjoy shopping with my children. At least not all of them at once…when I’m pressed for time and on a strict budget..

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Encourage the Faint-hearted

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For the last few months I have been sending parts of Positive Parenting from Mike’s web site, Intermin

These lessons come from a parenting teaching my husband does on I Thes. 5:14-“Now we exhort you, brothers, warn the unruly, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

Children do not do what we expect of them for different reasons. We’ve spent the last couple months talking about warning the unruly. This month we’ll discuss encouraging the faint hearted. I realize the examples are about older children than yours, but the lessons are good reminders of ways we can deal with our children when they don’t meet our expectations.
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The Race

It’s Track and Field Day at the international school. The high school boys line up for the 1600 meter race. At the sharp, “Crack!” of the starter’s gun the runners explode from the starting line, each boy straining to get the maximum results from his body. Sixteen hundred meters later, one would win, one would be the fastest, the best. Four others would lose, though they may have trained and competed just as well.

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How to Warn the Unruly

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Last month we talked about the need to warn unruly children. This month we talk about how to do that.

We can learn how to warn our children and enforce those warnings, no matter what our temperament is, or theirs. The key is to not allow yourself to become a passive parent. Here are some strategies that will help:

Be Definite in Your Warning

Indefinite warnings are wasted warnings. As an example,. which one of these parents will get the best results:

  • Parent number one: “John, don’t be so naughty. If you don’t straighten up, you’re going to get it!”
  • Parent number two: “Susie, do not hit your brother. If you hit your brother again, you will sit on your time out chair for ten minutes. Do you understand?”

If you picked the second warning, you are right. Little Susie will get the message. If she doesn’t, her parents will know exactly what to do.

A definite warning is much stronger than an empty threat. The second warning identifies the unruly behavior, states the parent’s expectation, and explains the consequences of disobedience. The first warning, though full of emotion, is vague. You can almost hear the shouting and feel the tension. But it doesn’t really say anything. John will probably ignore the first warning, and the parent who gave it will become very frustrated.

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Positive Parenting

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This article and a few more will be from my husband’s book called 21st Century Parenting.

The great news for parents is this: God can make you a better parent than you are, and you will like it! So will your kids, and so will all the people that interact with your kids: teachers, neighbors, extended family members now; employers, spouses, neighbors and friends later.

Couples conceive a child in a moment of pleasure. For nine months they wait patiently while a tiny life develops in the mother’s body. Then, after hours of painful labor, Mom and Dad finally hold their new baby in their arms.

Many years of pleasure, patience, and sometimes pain await them. The same darling baby whose every new accomplishment brings joy and pride might some day make them want to hide their faces in embarrassment. One day they’ll boast about what great children they have, ready to tell the world their formula for parental success. The next day they might feel like the worst parents who ever lived. They will laugh, and they will cry.

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