The other day I was in the checkout line behind a young mom with two children under the age of five. She was simultaneously trying to get her older child to help her unload the cart, while also answering her younger child’s questions and keeping his busy hands from handling things she had no intention of buying for him. She looked tired and I don’t blame her.
Parenting preschoolers can be exhausting. Everything is new to them. They are built to explore everything in order to quickly ramp up their knowledge base. This often involves exploring things they shouldn’t, which means teaching appropriate boundaries almost non-stop. They are also trying to figure out what they can and can’t do physically. This means lots of accidents, clumsiness and touching and handling things which shouldn’t be touched or handled. Of course, this requires more limit teaching and limit reinforcing. Experiments with language also require more teaching, more limits, more reinforcement.
Let’s be honest. The parent of a preschooler has basically a non-stop running monologue that consists of “No!” “I said no!” “Please don’t touch that” “Be gentle” and answering thousands of important questions which usually begin with “Why?”. Frankly, there are days when the idea of running a marathon seems easier than keeping up your pace for the ten hours left in the day.
I will tell you what I told that precious mom who was trying so hard to train her children to be helpful, respectful and obedient in the checkout line. “God bless you! Keep doing that hard work every day. If you can be consistent and use godly principles as your foundation, you will never regret it. You will find the rest of childhood and even the teen years a breeze in comparison.”
So hang in there, Mom! I know you are tired, but I promise you there will be time for rest later. Right now love those precious little ones. Teach them about God and His commands. Teach them how much God loves them. Teach them we show our love back to God by obeying His commands and loving and serving others and telling them about God. Set firm, consistent limits and enforce them consistently. Give meaningful consequences for disobedience. Enter your children’s worlds and help them discover their God given potential. You won’t regret it for a minute.
Normally, I am not a huge fan of scripted prayers. I know the Holy Spirit provides the words I may not have and I tend to trust the process of prayer. Sometimes though, I believe parents want to feel more organized in their prayers. Even though they may firmly believe the Holy Spirit is providing words, on some level they want to be able to think clearly about what concerns them.
is a parent’s companion for understanding how to best pray for her son. The book contains seventy-seven prayers covering a wide range of subjects.
Chances are you grew up hearing stories from some older relative who made mud pies or dolls from sticks because they were poor. The Great Depression and World War II taught many of our grandparents and great-grandparents how to make something out of nothing. The relative prosperity in our lifetimes has eroded the skill set our ancestors had developed.
The unfortunate thing about the current “green” movement is they have radicalized it politically to the point many Christians reject anything to do with taking care of the world God gave us. Yet, God commands us to be good stewards. Although he doesn’t give us a list of the precise things he expects us to steward, I think it is safe to assume He expects us to care for any gifts He has given us. In my book, His creation is one of those gifts.
A couple of decades ago “experts” decided the problems in society were caused because children had poor self-esteem. If you have read a magazine or newspaper in the last decade, you are aware of all of the backlash issues self-esteem education has created for our kids and our society. Now, experts wrestle with how to right the unfortunate shift they have created in child rearing practices. As usual, the Bible often has the answers society struggles to find.