Addressing Behavior Problems With Heart

Ask any mom and we can quickly identify a behavior that we would like to see improved in our children. For some moms, it’s just simply that we find a particular behavior annoying or challenging to deal with. Most of the time; however, we identify bad behavior and try to change it because we desperately want our kids to be “good kids” and we want our kids to grow up to be “good people.”

That is normal! I mean, we know that many undesirable behaviors that are left undisciplined can lead to bigger problems later on, right? We know that our child’s selfishness, rudeness, or lack of self-control could leave them vulnerable to making poor choices that will bring them pain later in life. That is a completely legitimate and honorable motive for changing your child's behavior.

Sometimes; though, if we really want to dig deep, we may find that we feel our child’s behavior reflects on us as a mom. It’s hard to admit, but we want to appear to have it all together so we focus on our child’s behavior because we don’t want them to embarrass us or make us look bad, and that can be a strong motivation to work on our child’s behavior.

Whatever our true motivation is, it is very common for us as mothers to get so caught up in our child’s outward actions that we find ourselves treating the symptom instead of the problem. If we want to train our children correctly, we must get to the heart of the matter, that is, our child’s heart. We need to find the source of the behavior and train that instead of treating the outward actions. In addition, we as moms need to learn to parent our children from our hearts, instead of just reacting to their outward behavior out of fear, fatigue, or frustration. It's really about being a proactive mom instead of a reactive one.

One of the biggest problems we face as Christian moms is that we work really hard at training and instructing our children about Godly character, but we don’t have a clearly defined goal for that training. We know we want our kids to know God and have good character, but we aren’t really sure what that is going to look like tangibly.

For example, when my daughter and her friends were about 11 years old they decided they wanted to make a dessert. They wanted it to be really good and taste like chocolate cake, but they didn’t have a recipe so they just threw in a lot of stuff that looked like it should be in chocolate cake: sugar, eggs, flour, and cocoa. Well, as you can imagine, just looking like they were doing all the right things did not result in a chocolate cake. It was funny looking and it tasted terrible, and they were disappointed that all their work resulted in a poor outcome.

It is much better to define your goal and then create a clear plan to achieve it. As parents, we must be intentional! Identify the character traits that your children need most and then work on those. Most of the time, you will find that many behavior problems you identify as consistent problems lead back to one or two main character issues that need to be addressed. Get to the heart of the matter and the outward behavior will change.

“A good person produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil deeds from an evil heart. Whatever is in your heart determines what you say.”
Luke 6:45

Put all your heart into reaching their hearts. Your kids are worth it!

Who Is Cheering You On?

Motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. If you’re like me, you have seasons where you are running through motherhood at a pretty good pace and feel optimistic about how things are going. Then other times, the race gets a bit treacherous, the obstacles are difficult, and it feels like you’re running uphill with no end in sight. In these moments, we sometimes start looking around and comparing ourselves to other moms in the race and we become our own worst enemies.

It is when we are barely trudging along, sweat pouring off, every muscle in our body hurting, looking like a mess and trying to fight through the pain, that we notice her: that perky, upbeat “perfect” mom that trots by without a hair out of place. To make it worse, she is pushing a jogging stroller with twins that are perfectly behaved and she waves as she passes us by. We convince ourselves that she has it all together and we are not equipped to be a good mom. We start feeling like failures.

This is when we need someone in the crowd to cheer us on and encourage us. We need someone on our sideline to remind us that perfection is an illusion; someone that wants us to stay the course and persevere.

Unfortunately, I know too many moms that line their paths with people that are not cheering them on, they are just dragging them down. The women in their life yell things from the sidelines like “You are just a mom, look at all you are missing in life.” They point their fingers and say, “Your kids are bad and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT” or “Things aren’t working out because you aren’t good enough.”

Who is in your cheering section? Do you even have one? Every mom needs like-minded friends and support from other moms to keep us on track and running the race.
Hebrews 12:1 says “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

I often say there is no way to be a perfect mom, but there are a thousand ways to be a great one. A great mom runs hard after God and stays the course, but to be a great mom, you need other moms around you that are running after the same things. If you’re feeling discouraged, don’t give up! You can live a life of courage and faith and run the race with all you have. You can be the mom God has equipped you to be. God has plans for you and your family and He is in your cheering section, He is telling you that He picked you to be the mom of your kids for a divine purpose and you are equipped to do this. It's often said that God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. He called you to run the race of motherhood with all you have. Are you listening to Him?

Go, mom, GO! You can do this! The finish line is closer than you think.

Blessings,

Kym

Asking the Right Questions About What We Watch

At our last event, we discussed how we as parents can use the media to help our children develop discernment and a Christian worldview, instead of letting the media determine our child's worldview. It is all about teaching our children (as age-appropriate) how to ask the right questions about a story and filter it through the word of God. This can be done with movies, TV shows, books, and even song lyrics. We shared the following list of questions from The Culture-Wise Family and many people wanted me to post this list, so here it is:


Who is the hero and who is the villain? How do you know?
What motivates them and how do they handle their problems?
Were there inappropriate words or scenes that were not even necessary to tell the story?
Was the hero someone you would trust?
Were the rules fair and was their accountability for the characters to follow the rules?
Is the hero’s behavior realistic?
Are the consequences fair?
How did events in the story make the hero grow in character? Did the hero become more like Christ? How?
Was respect shown for all people?
Were their actions appropriate and the results of their actions what you would expect to happen?
Was the hero someone you would trust?
Were the rules fair and was their accountability for the characters to follow the rules?
Is the hero’s behavior realistic?
Are the consequences fair?
How did events in the story make the hero grow in character? Did the hero become more like Christ? How?
Was respect shown for all people?
Were their actions appropriate and the results of their actions what you would expect to happen?

I also added that you can teach your child to ask "whatever" :

Phil. 4:8

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Blessings,

Kym