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“Line upon Line”

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The very first time I was asked to speak to a group of people about Teaching Self Government, I was in such a rush.  I tried to tell the audience everything they would need to make all the changes necessary to become the parents they wanted to be, and to have the learning environment for their children which they also wanted for family happiness. 

I remember talking so fast to try to squeeze in everything possible in the 50 minutes I had to speak.  It is funny to me that I even thought I could possibly squeeze my now one day seminar into 50 minutes 🙂 

I have learned a lot in these 9 yea

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My neighbors fight with my children…friend problems

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My children love playing with the kids next door, but it seems that the neighbor kids do something rude/unkind every few weeks (or more often).  I’m not naive enough to believe that my kids are always totally without blame, but I am good friends with mother of these kids, and she has told me several times that this is pretty normal behavior for her kids and that my kids don’t act like that.  My kids (8 yo girl, 7 yo boy) have learned to pretty much just expect rude comments and behavior from the 9 yo neighbor boy and don’t have a lot to do with him anymore, but the 8 yo old girl

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Dealing with Friends part 4

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How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

The most importantskill you can teach your child is how to determine what is right and what is wrong and how to choose right and stay away from wrong. This is the whole reason children need parents. If my child can’t match his outfits, doesn’t know how to do mathematics well, never changes his bed sheets, ortalks with his mouth full, it doesn’t really matter at all if he has mastered how to discern between what is right and what is wrong and chooses to follow right.

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Dealing with Friends part 3

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How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts? 

I am assuming this question is referring to conflicts with friends and not siblings, although the conflicts aren’t too much different.  In fact, in most cases if we all treated each other like friends instead of siblings, we would all be much nicer to each other.  For some reason, most people treat strangers, and friends way better than fami

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Dealing with Friends part 2

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

 “How do these things change as your children get older?”

Too much friend time makes children selfish.  Children who are around peers too often start to think more about their peers than their family.  This focus on self encourages them to with draw from family. 

If children have limited contact with peers when they are young, they will most likely not become dependent upon having friends around for their happiness.  The last thing I want is a child who thinks that their happiness comes from something or someone else.  Happiness comes from inside us all, and for

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Dealing with Friends

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How often do your children play with friends, and under what conditions?  How do these things change as your children get older?  How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts?  How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

These great questions about friends will take a few days to answer.  The answer to the first question is below. 

“How often do your children play wi

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Family Activities

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Family activities don’t necessarily need to be elaborate!  I am a bit of a romantic, so I always try to think up things that sound memorable. 

Tonight we drove around our small town until we found a place that had a lot of leaves that needed to be raked up.  We made the ever traditional huge pile of leaves and jumped in, rolled around, buried each other, took pictures, and wrestled a bit.  Soon it was time to go.  (the draw back of daylight savings time)  We decided that we didn’t want to be done.  We wanted to take the fun home with us.  So, we quickly went home to get some strong garbage

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My Book

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Readers, 

I have been spending a lot of time writing my Teaching Self government book lately.  It is so exciting to see the progress and know that I am getting closer to accomplishing this goal. 

On this site I have answered many questions.  I would like to use some of these questions (without names attatched of course) in parts of my book, because I know the answers will be beneficial to everyone who reads them. 

This is a notice to let you know that I am planning on using some of the blog material in the book.  If you, for some reason, don’t want your question or comments published

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Changing generations

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Relationships, Toddlers (0-4), TSG Principles, Youth (10-18) /

The Universe is governed by laws. One of those laws is that an older, wiser species comes before the new, innocent young of the same species to guide the younger toward right choices and acceptable behaviors. I have heard parents say before that their children didn’t come with instruction manuals. This is true, and each child is uniquely different, but I have wondered if parents make statements like these to make themselves feel better

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What is YOUR attitude like?

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I have many posts on this site about how to change attitude problems in our children.  This is important to know how to do, but even more important for our family is knowing how to change our own attitude problems. 

Let’s face it, parenting is hard work!  There are many nights that I don’t even turn over in my bed, because my body is so tired, it would take too much effort.  Life is hard, but it doesn’t need to be miserable.  Part of self government, is knowing when you get to choose, and when you don’t.  Attitude is always your own choice. 

So what is YOUR attitude about your work as a

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Family Meeting Question

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“In a family meeting, do the kids actually get to vote on the final decision, or are they just giving input and opinions, and then the parents make the decision?”

Good question.  Everyone votes in the family meeting.  On rarest of occasions the parents could veto a vote if it is dangerous or goes against the family mission statement or family morals in any way. 

The reason that everyone must vote, is because this is meeting where everyone in the family finds their focus and works on communicating to each other.  This is also where all the positive and negative co

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Going against the grain.

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There is an old saying which says, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” 

This is going to shock you all……WHY?   Seriously, I think this is sound advice for school assignments that are due, and remembering to put gas in the car, but after careful consideration, I have found that this advice about not procrastinating, can ruin the days and lives of some mothers. 

How many “homework” assignments do we constantly pile upon ourselves under the pretence of this old adage?  I have found myself canning until 2:00 a.m. when I have to wake up at 5:00 a.m.

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But she won’t do it!

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills /

“What do you do if a child is punished with a chore and they refuse to do it (no matter how much time you spend in the same room with the child)?  Child in question is 8 years old.”

This sounds like a cause of much frustration in the home.  I can imagine in would be. 

One person can’t MAKE another person want to follow an instruction.  Each person has the responsibility to decide for herself. 

That said, this is how I look at this situation.  If a child earns a negative consequence, I do a corrective teaching (see steps).  If the child will not accept the cons

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Balance for a mission mom?

1 Comment / All, Relationships, TSG Principles /

How do you balance your mission with your family mission?  Obviously helping

others learn to teach their children self-government takes a good deal

of your time away from your family so I’d love some tips.  God has

inspired me to reach out more to others and share my talents, but I

sometimes find it difficult to find a good balance with my #1 mission

of raising my family.

This question is a classic!  I love it.  What ambitious Mommy doesn’t struggle with this?

You are right, I have to pull off quite a balancing act to manage all of my missions. 

The famil

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Screaming part 2

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Using TSG Skills /

On September 11th I wrote a post titled “For Crying out Loud ~ Screaming”  This was the first screaming post.  I am now adding another part to screaming, because I have another question. 

My almost-5-year-old has always been a screamer.  He screams this 

high-pitched, shrill, grating scream whenever he doesn’t like 

something that’s going on — which is often.  This screaming pushes 

my buttons like nothing else does.  I HATE it, and I’m afraid I’ve 

reacted to it too strongly and too wrongly, for too long.

So, is this kind of screaming a normal thing for a kid before he ge

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