Discipline – Parenting Like Hannah

When Helping Your Kids With School Hurts

I am not sure why, but it always seems like the Spring semester in school is the worst. School stress to your kids feels as burdensome as job stress does to adults. They may even have unpleasant physical and psychological symptoms as a result. Worse yet, if they get too stressed, it can become difficult to focus and remember the things they need to do well in their classes. As parents, we hate to see our children suffer. So what do loving parents want to do? Help them of course!

As a parent and someone with a degree in education, however, I can promise you that there are ways some parents help their kids with school work that actually hurts their children in the long run. The most obvious reason is that they aren’t learning when you are completing work for them. The other reason is easily forgotten by parents. Giving your children too much help with homework is cheating. Cheating on schoolwork is basically lying – you are both trying to make the teacher believe your child did the work you actually did. And lying is one of those sins God mentions He hates multiple times in scripture.

Beyond the actual lie of cheating, you are basically telling your kids to ignore any and all of God’s commands when they become inconvenient or they don’t like or agree with them. Putting it bluntly, you are undermining your children’s faith foundations in a critical way.

So where is the line when helping your child is acceptable and when have you crossed the line to cheating? Here are some tips.

Remember your child is supposed to do the work. Homework is supposedly assigned because the teacher believes their students need extra practice or a learning opportunity for which they don’t have time in class. Trust me. I am well aware this is not always the case and some homework is more of a time waster than anything else. Even then, your child is learning to obey authority and “work as though working for the Lord”. Let’s be honest. In every job or career there are moments when you are asked to do things that are just as exasperating. Boring homework is building that “muscle” in your kids.
Ask the teacher. If you have any doubts that you may be crossing the line, ask your child’s teachers. Different teachers have different standards for what they consider acceptable parental engagement with their child’s work. Better to clarify than risk stepping over the line.
Remember helping is not doing. Math homework is a great example of how to help without doing the work. Talk your child through the steps of the problem. “What do you do next?” “What number goes there?” If you have to show an example, make up your own problem instead of using one from the assignment. (BTW YouTube is your friend if you have forgotten how to do it yourself or they are using a method that is different than the one you were taught.)
Your child’s projects should look like a child did them. I remember our daughter had to build a city or something similar in elementary school. I helped her buy the supplies and turned her loose. When we took the project to school a few days later, I remember watching a child walk in with a project who obviously had an architect for a parent. My heart sank for a second as our daughter fretted a bit. The bottom line was that she still got an “A” and had a fun learning experience she would have missed had I done it for her.
Sometimes your kids just want company and encouragement. I’m in grad school at the moment and I totally get this. Writing a paper is not fun. Doing math is not fun. Having someone close by you can complain to and who will encourage you just makes it seem more doable and less lonely. This is particularly true if your kids are extroverts or high energy. Sitting for long periods of time alone is almost painful for both groups of kids.
Avoid using AI at all costs. There isn’t enough space here to go into the problems of using AI in school, but it can destroy your kids’ abilities to think for themselves and problem solve. Not to mention the output of AI at the moment is much more questionable than the average person realizes.
Have conversations with your child about cheating, lying, plagiarism and other related topics. The older your children get, the more carefully teachers will check for any hint of cheating. And as we have seen, careers can be ruined years after a cheating incident occurred – even if the person has been honest since then. Teach your kids how to cite sources and give credit for the things they use that were created by others. Help them establish good habits of academic honesty.

Homework is never fun for kids or parents. Doing it for them may make it seem less painful in the moment, but the long term negative consequences can be substantial. Encourage academic honesty in your home.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids – Fasting

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at spiritual disciplines as a way of helping kids and teens develop habits that will help their spiritual growth and health. These are practices done by Jesus, the Apostles and/or early Christians. Perhaps the discipline most common in antiquity and least practiced today is fasting for spiritual reasons.

By the time of Jesus, fasting had several purposes. People might fast while in mourning, in the face of a local or national tragedy, to prepare for something important or as part of repentance or in service to God. In the time of Jesus, Yom Kippur was the only fast commanded by God, but many observed additional days of fasting associated with holidays and remembrances, like Purim.

Although we think of fasting mainly in terms of not being able to eat, it really had greater significance. Fasting was used as a time to stop a daily routine and use that time to reflect and connect with God through prayer. It also provided time to linger in those prayers and “listen” to what God might want the person to know. Finally, it was used as a time of introspection and repentance.

Our idea of how to conduct a fast is also very different from that of the Jews during the time of Jesus. Their fasts generally lasted from sunrise until the first stars appeared at sunset. Some fasted by not partaking of food or drink during those daylight hours while others only abstained from food. The fasts were generally broken at the appearance of the first stars during sunset.

Jewish children are not required to participate in fasting until they have reached the age of twelve or thirteen, the time at which they begin to take personal responsibility for their faith. Younger children, however, would have watched the adults they know fast on a regular basis and may have even looked forward to their first fast as a rite of passage.

Since health experts question the wisdom of children fasting for a number of reasons, it’s important to teach your kids the principles behind fasting without actually making them go without food for an entire day. (Having said that, our congregation does a special month of praying and fasting every January and the teens are some of the most willing participants.) Encourage them to fast from something they enjoy that takes up their free time for a day and use that time for the same purposes Christians do when they fast from food. For some children, going without their devices for an entire day would be more difficult than going without food.

Even though they aren’t fasting from food, go ahead and plan a special dinner for any night they have fasted. Serve it after sunset. Talk about fasting, its purposes and what they noticed about fasting from their activity. If you fast regularly, talk about how your attitudes and perceptions about fasting change over time. As they approach the teens years and may want to fast from food, make sure to set some safety parameters. Fasting for spiritual purposes is not a way to diet. It should be broken after the ten to twelve hours of daylight with a healthy meal. It’s probably best if they continue to drink water while fasting and teens with certain medical conditions like diabetes should continue to fast from something other than food. Remind them to focus on the spiritual and not other more secular things during the times they would have normally been eating.

While fasting for spiritual reasons has fallen out of fashion, Christians over the centuries have found it helps their focus, their Bible study and their prayer lives. It’s worth teaching your children how to fast and help them make it a regular habit.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids

As a Christian parent, you may or may not have heard of the concept of spiritual disciplines. Periodically, it gets some focused attention in various circles, but doesn’t seem as popular as it may have been in the past. For those of you new to spiritual disciplines, they are practices Christians have participated in since the beginning of Christianity. Many Christians believe these disciplines will help them become more like Jesus and more pleasing to God. The lists vary from person to person, but they all have in common things that are commanded or modeled in scripture, like prayer and Bible study. While the term “spiritual disciplines” is not found in the Bible, the individual practices on most lists are found in scripture.

The problem with these disciplines is that they don’t always come naturally. At least not doing them consistently and constantly. Perhaps it is because often Christians don’t try to start making them habits until they are adults. What if we spent more time helping our children develop these disciplines when they are young? Would they be able to be more consistent and benefit spiritually from doing these things regularly?

Part of the problem I would imagine many parents would have is that most of these disciplines sound very adult in nature. I believe, however, that they can be tweaked in such a way that they are appropriate for even very young children and can help them develop healthy spiritual habits while it is still relatively easy.

Over the next few weeks, we will spend one post a week going into more depth about specific disciplines and how to get your children started in participating in them. (Our other post each week will feature other topics, tips and activity ideas.) For now, here is the list we will be using,

Prayer
Bible study, including reading, memorizing and meditation.
Fasting
Worship
Service
Fellowship
Solitude
Confession
Giving
Hospitality
Simplicity
Reflection
Stewardship
Evangelism
Gratitude

As you look at this list, in which spiritual disciplines do you personally participate in consistently? With which do you struggle? How could these disciplines help your own spiritual growth and health? That of your children? Join us next week as we begin taking a closer look at individual disciplines and adapting them for children and teens.

Are You Accidentally Undermining Your Children’s Trust In You?

Are you a counting parent? Counting parents use counting as a way to try and force their kids to obey them. You know the routine. “Amy, I am going to count to three and then there will be a consequence if you haven’t obeyed me.” Children learn from this type of correction, but probably not what their parents were hoping.

When you don’t expect immediate obedience and follow through with consequences for open rebellion, you are teaching your children that you cannot be trusted. Yes, they are also learning they don’t have to obey you immediately – if at all. They learn your mood impacts your patience level. They are learning they can keep rebelling until the very last second. They learn a rebellious attitude is okay as long as you pretend to obey at the last second. They learn that consequences are usually idle threats.

But they also learn they can’t trust you. Why? Because your word is not reliable. It’s impacted by your mood. Your promises to give consequences for rebellion are regularly broken. Your “no” doesn’t really mean “no”. They can’t trust that the rules you tell them are put in place to keep them safe are really as important as you say, because you regularly allow them to be broken with no consequences or real correction.

Oh, they may not be able to verbalize this growing lack of trust in you, but it’s there. The next time you say obeying a particular rule is critical, they are a little less likely to believe you. The next time you tell them that breaking a rule is so dangerous, there will be consequences, they won’t believe you are serious. Their lack of trust in you begins to fuel a growing rebellious spirit.

We took a parenting class before our daughter was born that emphasized the importance of first time compliance. Children could appeal if there were extenuating circumstances, but in general were expected to obey immediately when told to do something. It’s critical, because one day their actual lives may depend upon it.

It’s also critical, because your children learn they can trust you. When you say something is important, you back it up with action when they ignore you. This trust builds over time so that when you teach them about God, they trust you are teaching them the Truth. That when you tell them they shouldn’t do something because it is dangerous, then it must really be dangerous.

The next time your children refuse to obey you, don’t undermine their trust by counting or ignoring their rebellion. Deal with it. If you want to Christian parent well, you need their trust. It begins with enforcing what you say consistently. Say what you mean and mean what you say, is great parenting advice!

Surprising Tip For Getting Kids to Obey

AI can be truly amusing at times. I requested a stock photo recently and typed in “paper turkey”. What I expected to get was this

Instead, what it generated was this

While technically correct, a crumpled paper flag of the country Turkey wasn’t even close to what I wanted or had imagined!

Your children are not mind readers. Nor do they necessarily have the life experience to know what it means to “clean your room”. They may also have very different definitions for the words you use (Not too many years ago, the word “bad” actually meant “good”!). Sometimes their supposed disobedience is actually a breakdown in communication.

The next time you ask your children to do a task, try these tips.

Carefully and fully explain what you want them to do. For example, instead of “clean your room”, try “I need you to pick up your toys, put your dirty clothes in the hamper and make your bed.”
Make sure they know how to do the things you want them to do. My father went to military school, so when we made our beds, the sheets were expected to have “military corners”. That is a skill that must be taught and practiced before a child can do it well independently. Teach your children how you want a particular task done and then help them practice until you are confident they can do it to your satisfaction independently.
Explain terms they may define differently well. For example, “wash your hands, means soap them up really well and scrub every inch of all of your fingers back and front and then rinse all of the soap off”.
Give deadlines. Often the breakdown comes because the parent wants something done immediately and the child thinks he or she has all day to do it. Giving a specific deadline (for little children, you can use timers or things like meals as markers) can help tasks be completed on your desired timeline.

Eliminating communication mistakes can also help you know when your child is truly rebelling against your commands. Otherwise you may be correcting and giving consequences to a child who really was trying to obey you.