How to Plan a Family Service Project

How to Plan a Family Service Project - Parenting Like Hannah
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Parents often have a difficult time finding service opportunities for their family. Many organizations do not allow children and even teens to volunteer because of liability issues. Even churches sometimes make it difficult for a family to do a service project together.

The good news is that it is very easy to plan your own service project. If you follow the steps below, your project should be successful. Someone in need will be served, your family will learn the value of serving others and God will be glorified. As an added bonus, your children will learn a lot of practical life skills that will help them in other areas.

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Lessons From My Grandpa – Breaking the Cycle

Lessons from my Grandpa - Breaking the Cycle - Parenting Like Hannah
Grandpa and his twin sister
Grandpa is ninety years old now. His dementia has reached the point where he acts more like a two year old than the grandpa I know and love. Even though he has changed, I cherish the lessons I received from him. Some were lessons he taught me and others were those I learned from observing him. I realized the choices he made during his life changed the way my life might have been.

You see my grandfather was abandoned at eighteen months old. From what we can piece together, his mother left to go to work for some period of time and left my grandpa and his twin sister with their dad. We think their dad may have been called to work, but whatever the circumstances, the children were left alone in the apartment. Evidently several days went by and they were crying so loudly the neighbors called the authorities. Grandpa and his sister lived briefly with their grandparents and then were left at a local orphanage.

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Christians Can Have Fun Too

Christians Can Have Fun Too - Parenting Like Hannah
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I blame the Puritans. Early Christians like the Apostles were known for their joy. Think about it. Paul and Silas singing praise hymns in jail. Stephen serene in the face of death. If they were that joyous in bad experiences, I have to imagine they were bursting at the seams with joy under normal circumstances.

Then came the Puritans. Technically, it probably started earlier, but they made it famous. Laughing was not for Christians and forget about having fun and wearing bright colors. Having taken an early American literature course in college, I can tell you their sermons were not exactly joyous either.

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Discipline Secrets From a Christian Teacher

Discipline Secrets from a Christian Teacher - Parenting Like Hannah
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I hope I don’t get kicked out of the teaching profession for spilling all of our secrets. I’ll be honest, quite a few professional educators I know get a kick out of disciplining misbehaving children in public without their parent’s knowledge. How is that possible? We have mastered the “look”, a powerful tool that conveys the messages “Have you lost your mind?” and “I know you aren’t doing what I think you are doing.” all rolled into one. It is amazing how many out of control children immediately cave in and behave when given the “look” (even by a complete stranger).

Good teacher training programs aren’t just about how to convey knowledge to your students. They also teach you classroom management techniques. A friend and I were talking recently. We had been education majors together in college years ago. We decided that majoring in education had made us better parents. We laughed about how the classroom management techniques we had learned worked just as well at home with our own children.

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Discipline is for the Daring

Discipline is for the Daring - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo byMary Tempesta
When my daughter was little, we went to a lot of those mother/child classes. I used to cringe every time the teacher gave any instructions to the children. My favorite part was always when the teacher would ask the children to sit with their mothers in the circle. My daughter would quickly come and sit beside me as instructed.

The other mothers’ children would continue to run around the room getting into things. Usually there were one or two mothers who felt guilty and began to try and convince their child to come sit beside them. “Oh, don’t make them come get into the circle.” the teacher would say. “They are too young to be expected to obey.” Suddenly all eyes would turn to me and my obedient child. The look was similar to that you would give a suspected child abuser.

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