Author: Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

The “Missing” Bible Stories

I had a lot of fun this summer leading a Bible study for a group of teen girls. At the end of the summer, I asked what they wanted to study next. Their answer surprised me. They wanted to learn the “rest of the Bible stories”.

I realized after talking with them for a few minutes that we are missing a big part of spiritual training with our children. Parents who are trying to raise their children in a Bible based environment usually make sure their children learn all of the basic Bible stories. Our children are familiar with Adam, Noah, Moses and the major stories of the Bible. When they reach the older years though, they usually start more topical studies which may or may not involve Bible stories. But what about “the rest of the story”.

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Fun Ways to Teach Manners

The normal parental course of action for manners training is constant correction. Eventually though, this can stress out even the calmest parent and child. So is there something more fun than cotillion (a Southern manners staple for the upper classes), to get a child to have good manners? I have listed a few ideas below to get you started.

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Good Manners Gone Bad

Leave It To Beaver has probably one of the most annoying characters on early television. Eddie Haskell was a smooth talking teen whom all of the adults loved. He was mannerly and full of compliments. The kids all knew though that his middle name was actually “trouble” with a capital “T”.

Unfortunately, I think we are beginning to raise a lot of Eddie Haskell’s. I love to meet a child who has been taught good manners by his or her parents. Let’s face it, even marginal manners in a child (or an adult, but I digress!) are becoming more rare in our age of flash point anger, entitlement and a lack of personal responsibility. I applaud any parent who has taken the time and effort to insist that their children say “please” or hold open doors for other people.

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Children with Special Needs and God

Peter is one of my favorite apostles. Mainly, I think it is because we have very similar personalities. He is also probably one of the best examples of God taking someone from where he was. With Jesus’ love and training, God used Peter to do amazing things in His Kingdom. Peter was very likely a poorly educated fisherman, at least compared to someone like the apostle Paul. Yet Jesus took him from the fishing boat and worked with him patiently for three years. Let’s face it, Peter made some major mistakes that could have gotten him fired had the apostles been a corporation. Yet even after his denial of Jesus, Jesus still sought him out and worked with him. Just a few weeks later, Peter preached the sermon on Pentecost basically creating the first congregation of believers. Later God also used Peter to preach to Cornelius and open the church to Gentiles. Evidently, God can see past any weaknesses we have and help grow us to where he can use us.

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She’s Breathing On Me: Dealing with Conflict

My daughter likes to joke that the reason she doesn’t get punished very often is because she is an only child. Honestly, she is probably not too far off base with her assessment. If you analyze what you correct your children for, I would imagine much if it is a result of some sort of sibling conflict. The next most frequent category of stress, especially for parents of tweens and teens is the conflict between the child and one or more parents.

My husband and daughter will confirm for you that I am far from an expert on handling conflict. My training as a teacher, though, has taught me some better ways of handling disagreements. While it definitely won’t resolve all of the conflict issues in your home, it may eventually make them more pleasant to deal with when they do happen. (These are listed in no particular order.)

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