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Touch time

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Tonight as I was sending my children off to bed, I felt like something was missing.  Then the words of Gene Cook came to mind.  He related in his book “Raising up a Family to the Lord” how he noticed that even his big children loved to get tucked in.  That is what was missing.  After our story and prayer, I had just sent the children off to bed quick because it was getting so late. 

I immediately stopped what I was doing and went to the bedrooms of all my children and gave them all kisses, hugs, and sang them songs.  This relationship building second is more important than all of the praise

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Do Less…..Our Victory!

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Our family culture involves lots of music time.  It is a huge focus for all of us.  My older two children both spend lots of time singing, and playing piano.  They have a special music mentor who helps them excel in these areas. 

Their music mentor has spoken with me many times about how my daughter needs to be doing musical theatre.  No comment could make me more happy.  🙂  I love musicals.  I own just about every musical there is.  My father was a play director, when I was young, and directed a musical every year.  From a very young age, I was put in these productions.  Musical theatre i

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Fighting with non-family members

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“I have been reading your website and listening to your CD’s and practicing what I’ve learned from you.  It has helped tremendously with the level of peace in our home.  A situation occurred last night with my 12 y/o which has me a bit stymied.  He was at a church camp-out and playing flag football with some other boys.  One boy in particular has given him trouble on and off through the two years we have lived here.  This boy will slap my son and then say it was a joke, yell at hi

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Play

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Enjoy all that the children are and do.  Interact a lot with them.  Play!  They grow too fast to waste any time.  I have spent too many days trying to be “productive” in my life, and missed the really important things.  I have promised myself not to do that any more.  Why would I choose to miss memories and bonding, just for sleep or, getting things done on some check off list?  I decided I was in charge, not some list, and I wasn’t going to miss the fun any more. 

This is just a thought I had today, and felt it was worth shari

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Time for Mom & Toddlers who won’t rest

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills /

There are some great questions in some of the recent comments. 

“…Most women I know are neglecting taking care of themselves on some level (physical or spiritual) to take care of their families or other obligations. Personally, I have been struggling lately to try to find some time for myself on a daily basis for things like scripture-reading, exercise, personal study time, and maybe a nap (I’m pregnant and tired!).

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Re-fuel

2 Comments / All, Home Culture, Relationships /

Tomorrow our family has to leave early for the day. While driving the car tonight I realized that we didn’t have any gas, and if we had to get gas tomorrow morning, we would probably end up running late for our appointments. So, I decided to take some time this evening to re-fuel the car. As I was standing at the pump, I realized that I am not much different than a car. I also need re-fueling from time to time in order to be a happy, healthy mom; the kind of mom that can keep running all day. We all need a little time to re-fuel on a regular basis. I used to take a whole day each m

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Look “em” in the eyes

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We close the end of each day with a prayer as a family.  This is a time of reverence and quiet.  Tonight my four year old son was a little bit hyper.  Normally as soon as prayer begins everyone is silent and part of the moment, so we began prayer.  During the prayer he started laughing and joking.  He thought that he was pretty funny.  This kind of behavior is considered disrespectful and is inappropriate for this time of day. 

After the prayer I noticed that my son wasn’t in any mood to be taught yet, so I told him to go sit on time out for a few minutes. 

When he finished with time out

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The number one mission

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“My husband and I are listening to your CDs. We’ve heard you speak a few times but never got the whole thing before. Your CDs are definitely an answer to prayer. I’ve tried for a long time to figure out how to get my husband on board, but he always gets so BORED, lol! After listening to the first CD, I realized that I’m definitely the big dreamer/big picture/live for the moment type, and he’s the line drive/details/planner type – no wonder my efforts didn’t work. I had a big picture but no good details on how we were going to get there. Having the CDs gives my husband

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Honesty

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

“I have two boys ages 7 and 4.  My 7yo has developed a couple problems: stealing and lying.  I think that I/we have been making the problem worse in the way we have handled it.  We also have a HUGE problem with not minding.  He is a very stubborn child and will not help us when trying to come up with consequences for his actions.  He says either, “I don’t know” or “give me a spanking” or something like that.  Those are NOT working, he seems to get worse with each consequence.

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Mom’s hang-up

1 Comment / All, Relationships, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Thanks so much for all the wisdom and inspiration you share.  I have a son (age 11) who zapps so much emotional energy from me.  Over the last several months, I’ve really been trying to see things as they are and trying to determine how to handle things.  He is a great kid.  He’s the first one to help a younger sibling who is hurt or to give up his ice cream cone is one of his younger siblings dropped theirs.  He is also the one who complains the most, rolls his eyes back into his head and gets “that look” when things do not go his way.  I know that he is often “out of instructi

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Some Days

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Some days I am running so fast from thing to thing that my full life makes me feel empty.

Some days I have such a long list of things to do that I feel overwhelmed.

Some days I realize I am overwhelmed and empty inside and I decide to to sit on the couch and read to my children instead of going for the super woman award.  These connections fill me up emotionally and help me put things in life into perspective.  It does great things for the children too. 

Life is too short to waste on lists and running around town.  Do something that really matters today.  Connect with your family.  Th

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If it’s right, it’s right!

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The following question and answer deals with something that many families deal with.  In order to raise the kind of family that is going to reach our 20 year vision, we have to make choices that are different from the mainstream of society.  These decisions are full of rewards as well as challenges.  Trust me, the rewards far out-weigh the challenges. 

 “You mention something in the beginning of the first CD that struck me right off and I’ve thought about a lot ever since.  “I’ve often felt that the Lord has chosen me to stand apart from the world.”

I had been feeling the same

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Comment on post below

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“Thanks!  It helps a lot to know that I can have both personal standards and a family standard, and to hear your experiences.  I think I have been afraid to set an example and refuse things for myself that he wants because I don’t want to start an argument.  But I guess it is all in the way it is done, not trying to manipulate or judge but just to honor my own standards while still respecting my husband.  I appreciate your help!”

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What if my standard is different than my husband’s standard?

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“My husband and I are in the process of making our family standard, and tonight for FHE we are going to ask the kids for ideas.  We already are running into some difficulty though.  My husband and I have different standards as far as media goes.  I agree with him that whatever standard we set needs to be one we will both be willing to follow.  I think the kids will be willing to give up more than he will in the media department.  We are in agreement that R rated shows will never be watched in our home, but other shows he is more ambiguous about.  How should we go about making the

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Mentor Sessions change the tide.

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There are many times when I feel like my children have a different vision of how the day should go than I do.  They want to play around and get distracted and I want to be efficient and get lots of things done.  At these times I feel like my children are miles away from where I need them to be in order to have the house run happily. 

At these times I have found it very useful to take an hour and have small mentor sessions with my children.  We talk about what their goals are for the day and week and we set them up a schedule.  Don’t forget to add some great play time after you have blocked

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Great Comment

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Well I am back from my camping trip now, and back to my computer.  I wrote a post that suggested taking a week off of the computer.  I hope some of your took me up on the challenge.  It is easier said than done, I realize.  Someone left a great comment about the post.  It is definitely worth sharing. 

 “Oh, I need this one! I am always trying to get something ‘done’. I can’t read right now because I’m doing the dishes, or I can’t play a game right now because I’m making lunch… the list goes on and on.

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Stop Being so efficient!!!

2 Comments / All, Announcements, Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

Two days ago my son set up all of his little army figures in army formation and came to me and said, “Mom, will you play army with me?” 

The first thought I had was, ‘I can’t right now, because I am trying to get this canning done.’

The second thought I had was, ‘maybe I can play for just a few minutes to say that I did and then get back to the canning.’

Luckily, I didn’t act upon any of those thoughts.

I looked at the army guys and looked at my son’s face.  I realized that army is not a fast game, and it isn’t meant to be.  It’s meant to be a game where you figure strategy, and di

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