A Culture of Accountability

October 4, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

I read the following article this week and wanted to share it with you. I know that some of you have very tiny babies and children too young to practice accountability. Perhaps as parents, you can begin to practice staying accountable for your own actions. Then when your child is old enough to understand this, they will already have role models to follow.

Many of us have the habit of shifting the blame for our mistakes or behavior. Or perhaps we don’t know how to take responsibility and make necessary changes. As Christians, we know we should be humble and ask for forgiveness and make amends. We should also readily forgive others.

There is an epidemic of selfishness and rudeness today. Let’s do our part to raise children who will not buy into that behavior.

How to Create a Culture of Accountability in Your Home

By Megan Devine, LCPC

Have you ever wondered what it means to hold your child accountable? It’s an excellent question and one that we receive often during online parent coaching.

[Read more…]

Relationships

September 17, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

This year on home leave, we spent a week with our son and grandchildren, time with my Dad’s family and my siblings, time with friends in our town, time with a former student, and a friend we have not seen since university. Each visit was special and relationship strengthening. So this month I want to emphasize the importance of relationships.

The lives of young families today are busier than ever before. Work, kids, church, chores, and more make it hard to build relationships with others. You barely have time to keep your marriage in tune. But as hard as it is, it is vital that you build relationships with others, too.

With cellphones and other media, there is a de-personalization of relationships. We can have instant access to people, but we no longer have as much time in their presence, feeling their hugs, tasting their food, and hearing their stories. When was the last time you received a hand written card or letter?

We need, we All need, to have family ties, friends, and some very important people in our lives.

You may start with your parents. If you are nearby, you probably already have significant time with them. Hopefully your children are benefitting from time with their grandparents. None of us crawled out from under a rock and made it all on our own. We had family who taught us what was important in life and showed us what it means to be loved. Knowing our parents and grandparents helps anchor us in the real world. Their stories of overcoming hardship encourage us when life doesn’t go as planned. Provide these connections for your children.

Some of you don’t have parents nearby. If they are still alive, make every effort to visit as often as possible. But should your parents not be able to have a part in your children’s life, find an older person or couple to ‘adopt’ as your children’s grandparents or aunts and uncles. They can be a wonderfully good reference point for your children’s growing foundations. Your church may be the first place to look for this relationship.

You should have some other friends in your life to help you stay focused. These friends may be close for a short while or for a season in your family life, or life-long friends. To keep friends, you must spend time together. It is difficult to be confidential with someone you have never shared life with. Sometimes moves have torn you apart, but with these good friends, as soon as you are reunited, you pick up where you left off, hardly missing a beat. Take the time to stay in touch.

My great treasure from this home leave is time of reconnection with my grandkids, my extended family, close friends and reconnecting with a former student and a university classmate! So precious were these hours together. So uplifting to all of us!

I believe we neglect relationships at our peril.

A Sampling Period

July 10, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

There were two professional athletes. One started learning his game at the age of 7 months and beat his own dad at the age of 8. This was Tiger Woods.

The other played a variety of sports: skiing, wrestling, swimming, skateboarding, basketball, handball, badminton and soccer. He didn’t begin to focus on tennis until his teens. His name is Roger Federer.

Roger’s path to greatness is more common than Tiger’s. There are some very good reasons for this. Those who stay in the same sport, master techniques that work against their current opponents. Those who try many sports, are more flexible as they face new opponents. Those like Tiger, develop their bodies for their sport. Those like Federer, develop all-over physical strength and agility.

In areas like the arts, like music and dance, there is less interaction with others of their age group. Often by the time they could be professionals, they have lost interest and enthusiasm for their talent and want to change fields to be in a more social atmosphere.

Childhood is the time in life when we should allow and provide for our children to try a variety of interests. Most parents want to give their children the benefit of starting early in sports or music. This is good. These activities help children learn how to learn. They learn to listen to and respond to different teachers and different methods of teaching. They learn how to practice until they are good at something. They learn to overcome obstacles by persevering. These are all great benefits of early involvement in sports and arts.

Here are some things to consider:

Why do you want your child in an activity? Is it because you are good at that or wish you were? You may have a very good reason, but make sure they also want to learn it.
What does your child want to learn? Can you teach them that skill or can you provide a teacher for them?
After choosing the activity and teacher, let your child know this is for a specific period of time. Make it long enough that they will learn basic skills. At the end of that time, perhaps a year, reconsider if they want to continue or if a change should be considered.
Don’t give into your child’s whining or frustration before they have completed the first agreed upon period of lessons. If you do, they will not learn the lesson that anything worth doing, takes practice and determination.
After a reasonable period of lessons, if your child shows no aptitude or interest in the sport or art, help them chose a different activity to learn. Wanting to play the piano with some musical gift is radically better than forcing a tone-deaf child to learn to read music. The first one will enjoy playing a song he has heard before, while the second one only makes noise and hates it.
If your child shows exceptional ability in a sport or art and wants to continue pursuing that, don’t force him or her to change. Some children develop like Tiger and can stick with one focus their entire life. You may consider encouraging them to enroll in some other activity in addition to their focus to help them stay well rounded in relation to their peers.

Even if your child chooses to pursue an activity that you don’t enjoy, be careful not to demean your child for his or her interest in it. Find something good about it and be sure to applaud their development. Your boy may become a chef of renown or your girl become a forest ranger. Your reputation as a parent does not rely on your child’s chosen field of interest. But your child’s respect for you as a good parent will make all those lessons you paid for worth your while.

If you like this article, you may like a previous article I wrote on the Benefits of learning music

Words, Words, Words

July 4, 2019 By Diane Constantine 1 Comment

As parents of babies and small children, we are very anxious for our baby to talk. We listen carefully for their first words and hope it is Mama. Then we eagerly try to teach them words to help us know what they want or need.

Your little ones hear many more words than they are able to say. They begin to associate words with things around them and activities that happen. They recognize whether the tone is pleasant or tense or angry. All of this happens long before they can speak well.

I was just reminded about the effect of words spoken to or about us as children. Sometimes the echo of those words reverberate in us even to our old age. Nicknames can cheer or haunt us our whole lives. We must be very careful about the names we call our children. What sounds cute when they are little and is meant as a reminder of their sweet little baby behaviors can be very hard to live with as a teenager.

I know a mom who adopted several children from a foreign country. Thinking she would help her children be strong against the teasing she anticipated when they would go to school, she nicknamed them for their most different traits. She thought that if they got used to it at home, it wouldn’t hurt so bad later. For some of her kids it worked the way she expected. But for a few, it only made them feel more different and ashamed and isolated.

Unless it is a positive comparison that will help your child realize their potential, it is better not to use comparisons. Encourage your children to compete against themselves. By this I mean, saying things like, “Wow, look what you learned to do! Well done!” Comment on things they have done or attitudes they have, not on traits they have no control over, like their body type or intelligence.

One other caution about words. Words children hear in their environment are imprinted on their brains. Those words will pop out at random times. It is not just the words you speak directly to your child that they remember, but all the words being spoken in their presence. Pay attention to the vocabulary on the TV shows you watch or the music you play or your arguments with each other. Minimize their exposure to language you don’t want them to use.

Keep listening for your baby’s new words. Celebrate their achievements. And above all tell your baby how much you love him or her!

Team Parenting

June 4, 2019 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

I was talking to a young mom this morning. Her situation is different from most of my readers, but she reminded me of something we all have to do to succeed in parenting together.

We must face parenting as a team. If only one parent is making all the decisions and doing all the work of parenting, the children are the ones who suffer in the long run. So for the best parenting results, work together.

The glue that holds our marriage and family together is trust. Trust is based on the commitment we made at our wedding to love and be faithful to our spouse no matter what. But just keeping that commitment by gritting our teeth and meeting our obligations is like a skeleton. Building trust is like the muscles that keep our relationship strong.

Trust is the “WE” in our marriage. We are not doing marriage and parenting by ourselves, but as a team. Instead of looking at how the problems we face affect ‘me’, we look at how they will affect ‘us’.

Teams practice together. We must have time together. We cannot build a friendship without spending time. We cannot know each other if we don’t spend time together. If we don’t know each other, how can we possibly trust that they still have our best interests at heart?

Time together gives us time to keep updating our ‘love maps’ as Gottman calls them. That is all the ways we have learned to reach our spouse’s heart, to build their confidence, to encourage and help them. Asking questions, really listening, and sharing our thoughts and experiences help us to trust each other when we must be apart.

Trust is built by how we speak and when we refrain from speaking. It’s when we say things we know will help and refrain from whining or griping or accusing. We speak well and don’t embarrass or hurt each other when with others.

Trust grows when we see that we can rely on our spouse to handle money well. When we talk about large expenditures and don’t act impulsively or speculate with our resources, trust grows. We live within our means and our budget. This doesn’t mean we cannot be spontaneous or lavish at times, but it does mean that we don’t go into debt without making it a joint decision.

Trust develops as we decide together for our children’s best. Childcare and early education should be a joint decision. One parent may do the research, but talking about it before committing to it, means we take mutual responsibility for the successes or failures. Talking about discipline tactics before-hand builds a team approach that keeps children from playing one parent against the other.

Be sure both parents know each child’s character, behavior, personality, and development. Be sure to share the successes, as well as the failures, in your children’s day. Make knowing your children a team sport.

When you cannot be together with your children because of work or other responsibilities, every day make sure you take at least a few minutes for FaceTime or Skype or phone call. Children will treasure those calls.

When you are together, make sure you play together! Children learn so much during play. Don’t miss out on this joy! Laughing together relieves tension and replaces it with joy. Enjoy being a family!

The most important way we can parent together is to pray together. Pray for each other and the challenges you are facing. Pray for each child and wisdom to know how best to raise this child. Pray for yourself that you will be open to the influence of God and your spouse.

Find ways to Parent Together. Talk together, work together, play together, and grow together. Make it a ‘team’ sport!