What Moms Need to Understand About Men

What Moms Need to Understand About Men - Parenting Like Hannah
For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn

One of my favorite musicals is My Fair Lady. I particularly love the character Henry Higgins. Here was an extremely well-educated, wealthy man who didn’t have a clue about women. He looked upon Eliza with derision for the better part of the movie, only to realize he couldn’t live without her.The truth is, we women don’t understand men much better than they understand us. Oh, like Professor Higgins, we think we do. Yet, if our husbands were painfully honest, we would realize we don’t understand them as much as we believe. Those misunderstandings can lead to spats, fights and even divorce if we aren’t careful.

I was curious when offered a chance to review For Women Only (revised and updated version) by Shaunti Feldhahn. Upon first glance, my inner Henry Higgins surfaced. What woman didn’t know about the eight subjects she was covering in her book? As I continued to read though, I realized most women don’t understand as much as we think we do about how the male mind works.

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Finding Parenting Joy

Finding Parenting Joy - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by Raja Singh

Have you ever seen one of these extreme close-up photos? They usually look really bizarre, but are often an extreme close-up of something mundane. Once you pull back and see what it really is, you often find you have a new appreciation for the entire object.

The Bible makes it clear children are a special blessing from God. Yet, we often get so caught up in their future, we forget to enjoy the present with them. Instead, we find ourselves stressed, frustrated and exhausted. We suddenly realize not only is our joy gone, but we are not even thanking God anymore for the blessing of our children.

How can we remind ourselves of the joyful blessing our children are instead of constantly stressing about their future? Perhaps, we need to find a way to take a look at the extreme close-ups of parenting our kids. Maybe then, we can marvel at our children and find our joy for parenting refreshed.

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Teaching Children to Recognize God’s Dreams

Teaching Children to Recognize God's Dreams - Parenting Like HannahOn Sunday, the adult Bible class I attended had more fun, excitement and pure joy happening in one place than I had seen in awhile. Our teacher was discussing the idea of dreaming big dreams for God and with God. He divided us into groups and handed each group a sheet of paper with a ministry from our Church written on it. We had several minutes to dream big dreams for that ministry. The only stipulation was that we could not censor the dreams as to whether or not they were “viable”.

We haven’t had a chance yet to see everyone’s dreams, but it seemed like every group was excited about their list. It was refreshing to dream big dreams without censorship.

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Teaching Children to Set Priorities

Teaching Children to Set Priorities - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by Horia Varlan

Life is about choices. Every choice we make has some sort of consequence. It may be good or bad, but something happens because of the choices we make. Many are so minor we don’t even notice them. Others can change our entire world. Some consequences may be immediate, while others will happen years later. As Christians, we also believe that some of our choices have eternal consequences.

Part of teaching our children to make good choices is teaching them how to prioritize. Eternity changing decisions need to be made with the most thought and prayer. Choices about what to have for breakfast shouldn’t require as much of our time and effort. Yet often, we find our priorities have gotten all out of order. Suddenly we find we have spent hours searching for the perfect outfit, but don’t have the time to read our Bibles or attend Church.

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Month Four Challenge: Helping the Hurting

Month Four Challenge: Helping the Hurting - Parenting Like HannahIt’s not too late to join our 12 month challenge to teach your children to live more like Jesus. This month we have been adding the idea of teaching our children to help the hurting. Not just serve them by meeting their needs, but sharing the Gospel message with them as we show them God’s love.

If your family has been searching for ways to help the hurting people of the world, you may just be overwhelmed. It seems like every time I open the paper, read my mail or turn on my computer I am bombarded by stories of people who are hurting. Some in ways I can’t even imagine. All of these people could use our help, but we only have a limited amount of time, energy and resources to give.

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