Self-Control
I love this picture of my kids and some of their dear friends (we will not be mentioning today that some of those dear friends are moving because I am currently pretending it's not happening). It's not the best picture of most of them, but it's just them, and they are all on the couch...for the moment. Oh how it is hard for little ones to have self-control (and big ones!!!!). Some great friends of mine inspired me to teach our kids a "value" of the month. I am super excited for this month's value - self-control! We have many fantastic ideas on teaching this and a SUPER DUPER song. Sadly, I haven't found many good children's books or stories on the subject...hmmm. Please hit me up if you have any resource recommendations or things that have worked for you in teaching your children self-control.
I've found parenting a fascinating tool our gracious Father uses to grow us as we seek to train our kids and so I'm excited for what I'll learn, too, and the reminder that little eyes are watching me! I'm excited to look for and reward Anna's self-control - we will have a chart where she'll get a star each time she exhibits self-control (i.e. does not interrupt conversations, doesn't sneak bites of food before we pray at mealtime). The coolest thing I'm teaching her perhaps, I got off the Girl Talk blog - they trained their kids to sit on the bottom stair for up to 10 minutes at a time quietly and then use this whenever they are trying to get out the door. You can get your kid ready, tell them to sit and get everything else ready and loaded without the house getting cluttered up again or kids hurting each other or whatnot. I think this will be very useful, not just for getting out the door, but for preparing her to sit through longer things - like church.
Nadi will also be learning self-control this week as we will try to train her for play pen time and floor time. I'll put painters tape down in a square and train her to stay inside to play - i.e. don't cross the boundary (another idea from a friend I am VERY grateful for). This will probably be more stressful than fun for me, but I know our training with Anna has proved fruitful, so I think it's best...I think :) Hahahaha.
Anyways, keep us in your prayers, and seriously, fill us in if you have any good ideas for teaching! We'll post on our progress, if there is any :)
During our self control month we had the girls memorize Prov. 25:28 - "Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self control." So on our first family night when we introduced the virtue we got out all our legos and building blocks, built a city and then a wall and then had a lot of fun destroying them in order to teach and model the concept. Have fun and keep us updated on what you do find. BTW, I would love to have email addresses of local women that we all may know (or not) that are choosing to be intentional about teaching their kids at home so we could share not only ideas but some resources. Do you have any interest in this?
ReplyDeleteMegan (sorry for the long comment)
I have to admit those are some pretty cute kids in that picture. Good ideas on the self control topic. J and G can use a little encouragement in this area, just like their Mommy can!
ReplyDeleteThey are some cute kids! Megan, I would be totally interested - I actually just replied to your post on the matter recently. However, I think I would be getting the better deal because we just started a few months back and my kids are younger so things might not all pertain to your girls. But, shoot me an e-mail or give me a call and we'll see what we can do!
ReplyDelete