Day 1: I – Involve your children in positive conversation. Avoid using negative words, like no, not, don’t, etc. Simply changing a firm “no” to “I’m sorry, but now is not a good time. We can do it ___________.” Be sure that the language you use is uplifting and creates a pleasant environment.
Day 2: N – Notice what makes your child smile. When you see that positive outward response to your words of praise, then take particular note of the time, the words you used, and as many of the circumstances surrounding the event as you can remember. And be sure to use them again. Repetition reinforces positive outcomes.
Day 3: S – Salute your child’s achievements. When Susie brings home a great report card and you know she worked hard for that “B”, then take the moment to say how proud you are of her hard work! Celebrate milestones- they pass quickly!
Day 4: P -Praise the efforts. If I expect my children to do a chore perfectly the first time, I’m going to be disappointed. An 8 year old is learning how to wipe down the bathroom sink and mirror. A half a smudge of toothpaste glossed over isn’t going to kill anyone. I can praise for obedience in performing the action to the best of his/her ability.
Day 5: I – Initiate genuine words. Praising your child for something about which you are not earnest will set the wrong pattern. Be sure the words you choose to use come from a genuine heart- kids can read pretense like no one.
Day 6: R – Reinforce positive behavior with rewards. I don’t mean bribe them in the heat of the moment. Set rules that give opportunity for success; success then has its rewards.
Day 7: E- Encourage your child with smiles, hugs and laughter. When there are no words, either because you’re too tired to think of any, or the situation makes you feel like crying for whatever reason, the simple choice to smile and hug your child in the moment can make all the difference in the world.
We all want to raise good kids. We want our children to be kind and compassionate, loving and forgiving.
How in the world do we teach them these things??? From my experience, we simply cannot do it on our own. But we can point them to the One who is good, just, and perfect!
Here are just a few tangible practices that I have found helpful in attempting to draw our little children closer to God. 1. Pray… for yourself. Let’s face it. There is no way that we can show the love of God to our children 24/7 without His help! There are way too many tantrums, spilled glasses of milk, and altercations between siblings to keep us from losing our head in our own humanness. In addition to praying fervently for our children, we also need to pray that we can be the parents God has called us to be!
My favorite prayer lately has been adapted from Romans 8:11. “Lord, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living inside of me this very minute. Surely you, Oh God, can help me handle this (tantrum, fight, vomit-fest) with grace and love!”
Talk to God throughout the day. Although I think it is still beneficial to have a chunk of time dedicated to prayer during the day (like in the morning or right before bed), I’ve found it’s essential to pray ‘breath prayers’ throughout the day (which often are uttered more like pleas for help). 2. Pray with your children. There is nothing more precious than hearing a prayer from the mouth of a child! Even when my 2-year old’s prayer consists only of “Dear God, In Jesus Name, Amen,” my heart still leaps for joy that he is beginning a lifelong process of being in communication with our Creator.
Children need to hear prayers demonstrated in a variety of settings and from a variety of people. They also need opportunities to say their own prayers, even though they might not fully understand what prayer really is just yet. After Christmas this year, we saved all of the Christmas cards and put them in a drawer in our kitchen. Every now and then, we will pull out one of those cards and pray for that specific family. Just the other day, my 4-year old son came to me in the middle of the day with a Christmas card in his hand, asking to pray for that specific family because he had heard one of their children was sick.
Pray for boo-boos, pray for fears during the night, pray for sick pets… nothing is too small to pray for, especially when your child initiates it! 3. Hide God’s Word in their Hearts. Up until this last year, I was not all that convicted of the need to memorize scripture. After all, we can open the Bible whenever we need to, right? In the last several months after a series of circumstances; however, I now see the great and lasting benefits of memorizing God’s Word. I want our children to grow up with a love for the Word and simple passages that they can recall whenever faced with a situation or problem… or perhaps when they just need some encouragement! We have been working on memorizing one new scripture each week with our two boys (4 and 2).
We are currently working through these ABC Scripture Cards I created, with one scripture for every letter of the alphabet. We typically work on it together as a family immediately after dinner a few nights each week, while we’re all still sitting at the table, for a total of 5 minutes or less. And much to our embarrassment, we are normally asking our 4-year old for help! He remembers the scriptures, along with their references, MUCH better than we can! 4. Make Bible stories come to life. Move over fairy tales… the stories and miracles recorded in the inspired text are extremely captivating to little ones and they are all true (we especially love reading the Jesus Storybook Bible with our boys)! Our boys want to hear the same story over and over again. Knowing we have two boys, you could probably guess that their favorite story is ‘David and Goliath.’ We can’t just read David and Goliath anymore, though… now it must be dramatically recreated in our living room. You can see for yourself… and please disregard the fact that each boy is playing both David and Goliath! Can’t see the video? Watch it here. 5. Demonstrate small acts of kindness every day. I am currently working on a goal of doing a small but intentional act of kindness each and every day. I am extremely selfish by nature, so this is something that God and I are working through together… and so far, I’m not doing very well!
Involving our kids in small acts of kindness, whether planned or spontaneous, shows our children how to think outside of themselves and their desires. Perhaps it’s delivering brownies to an elderly neighbor or making a “get well” card, or taking time to call a friend… we all need opportunities to put someone else first! What about you? What do you do to draw your little one closer to our God?
I found this article and thought it was a great reminder!
Own your Nos. There are times when I say no without even thinking and then one no leads to another no and soon we’re in a vicious cycle. I’ve learned that by really thinking before I respond I feel authentic power when I do say no — or yes. Try hard to not rush to saying no to your child just because of inconvenience.
Be open to Yes. There’s a ton of power in the word YES. Y-E-S. Conscious Yeses are beautiful. Conscious Yeses transform families. Conscious Yeses are cause for celebration.
Read. Read everything you can that makes you feel good and that reminds you to remain calm. For me, it started with Momma Zen by Karen Maezen Miller but it’s hardly ended there. I have a whole nightstand filled with books that I pull out when I need a pick-me-up or as a reminder to remain calm and relaxed as a parent. Some are parenting books. Some are inspirational books. Others are just beautiful and get me thinking creatively, which is the best way to parent, in my experience.
Solitude. I suspect that many of us who struggle with staying calm in the chaos also struggle with noise. Some people — extroverts — are happy with a ton of noise. I am not. Silence is often the medicine we need to replenish and rejuvenate ourselves and yet it may be the hardest to make happen. There are many other ways to stay at peace.
Take a deep breath. Never ever punish when angry. Just don’t. Heed this advice and you’ll always be a calm parent. Separate the kids and then walk away. Step outside. Or, go to your room and close the door and lay on your bed until you are calm. Run down to the basement. Put on some music in your ear buds. Something. Anything. Just breathe and calm down before you even attempt to react.
Get up early. Having time to yourself is absolutely essential. Period.
Go to bed early. Being fully rested is key. You can’t be a good parent if you are too tired to think, too tired to come up with creative responses and solutions or too tired to ignore the small things.
Get a hobby. I write therefore I am. For others, it’s cooking or sewing or quilting or crocheting. Even more are finding a love in photography, baking, blogging, or gardening. We all have that one thing that just fills us up, that gives us a different purpose in life. Devote yourself to yours.
Energize yourself. This is my all-time favorite thing to do in my day. Choose the things that you love and that make you happy and do them every day. In my e-course, I’ll share my own list.
Ignore the small stuff. What’s that book say, it’s all small stuff? I don’t know about that. But I do know that some parents — myself included — can get wrapped up in micromanaging their children and their every move. Delegate some of that worry and stress to the Universe. this includes NOT arguing back with a child.
Think of the Big Picture. A few mentioned this on the Facebook page as important and I agree. Will this tiny infraction of behavior like drinking the bathtub water and spitting it out matter in the long run? No. Will it delay bedtime, yes. So what. Move on. Nothing to see here.
Clean. When your children are frustrating the bejeezus out of you, clean. Do those things that you need to do and work off the frustrations by cleaning. This is the only time that I stress the importance of cleaning. It gives you something productive to do instead of micromanaging the children. While your at it, think of the chores they will have to do as a result of their bad behavior. Some call it an uh-oh chore. I just call it a chore to help fill my bucket back up.
Speak your mantra. Each of us has phrases that give us comfort, sayings that we can say over and over again in our heads until the difficult moment passes. Some of you suggested mantras like “I am the adult” or “Mommy is the greatest!” I have a whole list of mantras that I use.
Exercise. Walk. Do yoga. Run. Whatever you can do to feel good on the inside will make parenting from the heart a lot better.
Slow down. Don’t plan a ton of things because the minute you want to get a long list of things done is the very minute that you will find things blow up. Stress is what causes us to lose our cool so the less we have to stress about, the less crazy we’ll become.
Get silly. I’ve said this before but doing something entirely out of the ordinary is a great way to turn things around quickly. Tell jokes. Just act nutty. You’ll laugh. SING. DANCE. Laugh. Deal with the consequences later, when everyone’s thinking more clearly.
Talk it out. Establish a talk-it-out rule. In this house, we talk out our problems with soft words, not our hands and not by yelling. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Role model. If you want your children to grow up calm, cool and collected than keep that in your head at all times. What you say to your children becomes what they hear in their heads. That’s powerful stuff to consider.
Eat. There have been many times when I’ve been starving and not taking care of myself. Stop and make sure you’re not feeling the result of low blood sugar.
Set your rules. This is a really big deal and something I didn’t really do early on. The sooner your establish your household rules the better off you will be as a parent. Our rules are on our refrigerator so that when a rule is broken we can immediately point to it and say look here, you’ve broken Rule No. 2, keep your hands and feet to yourself. When you are confident about the rules in your house, you are confident in enforcing those rules.
Don’t set too many rules. Seriously. Children are still learning and experimenting. We can’t expect them to never make mistakes. To stay calm, stick to no more than five rules at a time and make those the important ones. Let little infractions go by with teachable moments rather than discipline.
Change your routine. If you find yourself in a stressed out rut, perhaps it’s time to change things around and do something exciting and different. A change in fresh air or environment is enough to keep me feeling calm and peaceful a lot longer than going through the motions of the same-old, same-old.
Be Grateful. Many of you mentioned that reminding yourself of how special it is to have a child is the best way to calm yourself down. Savoring the little moments. Being grateful for the time we have with our children. These are all big, heart-filled reminders of what it really means to be a parent, even when times are challenging.
Replenish your spirit. For some this means prayer or meditation. For others it might be sinking into a hot bath at night. Taking care of your spirit is as important as taking care of your body. Whatever you use to de-stress and center yourself, do it often.
When all else fails, hug it out. I love this one that came up on the Facebook page. Too often what our children need — and what we need in return — is that close connection and touch of the ones we love. My very spirited daughter responds positively to touch and so we snuggle often. So, instead of yelling or hurting, hug it out. If only we could pass this tip along to the rest of the world, right?
There are certainly many other ways to stay calm, cool and collected as a parent and I expect anyone who reads this post to add their own positive ideasthat are meant to help inspire parents. These are ideas I wish I had on that second and third month home with twin infants, and again when those infants moved into their terrible twos. But, no matter where you are on your parenting journey, I suspect this list will at least be worth keeping, for one of thosedays. You can now download and print this list for yourself to keep close at hand.
I can praise for obedience in performing the action to the best of his/her ability. 
