Seeing the World Through God’s Eyes
by Beverly Mueffelmann
A critical component in raising children who will follow the Lord all the days of their lives is a biblical worldview. “Worldview” basically means the lens through which we interpret the information that comes to us on a daily basis. A biblical worldview, then, would be interpreting the information and circumstances that come to us through the lens of the Word of God. A biblical worldview needs to be at the foundation of our childrens’ thinking if we expect them to stay faithful to the truth and not be led astray into other streams of thought.
It is important to note that a biblical worldview differs from a western Christian worldview. While a western Christian worldview is culturally-bound and rooted in religious tradition, a biblical worldview is rooted in the truths of the Word of God that apply across culture and time. For example, a western Christian worldview of the church’s role is to save souls, live a blessed life, and enjoy heaven’s rewards. The Bible paints a much more active role for the church, that of reclaiming the territory stolen by the devil and of actively engaging the forces of evil in this world for God’s glory. In the words of a seasoned saint, the first worldview paints the picture of the church as a cruise ship and the other as that of a battleship. It’s also the difference between living with a peace-time mentality or with a war-time mentality. The choices we make reflect what we really believe about God and our role in His world.
In addition, our children’s worldview also needs to be a true “world – view”. While the United States is a wonderful place to live, there’s a much larger world beyond our borders that the Bible calls us to engage in prayer and other mission effort. Our children need to understand this larger calling on their lives in order not to become bored with a cruise ship existence and seek excitement elsewhere. Living for God’s purposes can be incredibly exciting if we seek to live out God’s call to defeat our spiritual enemy and plunder his spoils!
So, how do we teach this biblical worldview to our children? We must first understand it ourselves. What is our own view of the world around us, our concept of God, and our role in His story? Our own worldview needs to be aligned with that of scripture before we can teach it to our children. Secondly, we can make our children more aware of the world around us – its people and its needs. Window on the World, the children’s version of Operation World, is a great place to start. You can also request Kids of Courage or visit their website to inspire your children to live for something larger than themselves. Finally, pray that your children would see the world through God’s eyes and that He would use your children for His purposes in their generation. It’s a prayer that God desires to hear and that He will answer!
Best Friends at Home
by Beverly Mueffelmann
When our children were very young, my husband’s aunt, uncle, and cousins came to visit our home outside Washington, DC. My husband’s cousins, an older sister and a younger brother, are significantly younger than he, so these children were in their teens at the time when we were in our late twenties. As we visited, we were very impressed with the fact that there seemed to be none of the standard sibling issues between them. In fact, they seemed to be very good friends despite being teenaged siblings of opposite gender and having just made a cross-country trip from Colorado in an unairconditioned car in the summer!
After marveling at their behavior toward one another, my husband asked his aunt how they had managed to raise their children to love and appreciate each other in this way. Her response, though unusual and somewhat morbid, was that they had told their children that they had better learn to be best friends, because when their parents died, they would be all each other had! We were a little taken aback at first, but when we saw the fruit of their words, we were sold!
Obviously, making this statement doesn’t automatically make siblings the best of friends, but following the statement with practical applications of “what it looks like” can make a difference. In reality, I believe that sibling rivalry exists only if parents allow it. If siblings feel the need to compete with one another or to treat one another unkindly, it is because there is a felt need to be met by it, either the need for parental attention or the need for raising self-esteem at the expense of another. Identifying the need and taking the appropriate steps to meet the need will usually correct the misbehavior.
So, what does it “look like”? If your children are saying unkind things to one another, instead of letting it slide by, say “In our house, we choose to encourage one another with our words. That doesn’t sound like you are encouraging your sister. Are you being encouraging or discouraging? How could you say it differently?” (The catch in this approach is that you better be careful that your own words to your husband and children are encouraging as well, or you might hear these same phrases directed back at you!) Instilling a sense of cooperation between your children is also helpful. Give your children tasks they must do together in order to succeed and praise them at each step with, “Wow! Look at how cooperation gets the job done so much faster. I’m really proud of both of you!” I bet your children will be asking you for jobs that they can do together if these are the words that they hear from you.
Basically, children look to belong, to learn, and to contribute in their families and when any of these qualities are missing in their experience, you can expect poor behavior and communication as a result. If you value each of your children for who they are as individuals, if you encourage them each in their giftings without comparing them to one another, and if you give them equal opportunities to learn and to contribute to your family, then I believe that you will have the ingredients for creating best friends at home.
Staying the Course – The Pre-teen Years
by Bev Mueffelmann
Over the last few months, we have explored how our beliefs as parents form the basis of our actions toward our children. We have also explored how to tame negativity both in our toddlers and in ourselves as we have sought to set positive expectations as the basis of our parenting relationships. As we have discovered that the principles for parenting in early childhood years are an extension of the toddler and preschool years, so the principles for the pre-teen years are a continuation of the same with bigger price tags of consequence and responsibility.
Increasing responsibility in the area of chores around the house continues to be a great training tool for older children. Tasks such as dusting, cleaning bathrooms, helping with the laundry, lawn-mowing, and doing the dinner dishes are opportunities for our children to contribute to the family’s general well-being. The completion of these tasks is basic to a well-functioning household and should be viewed as a child’s responsibility as part of the family. These tasks need not be compensated with an “allowance”. The concept of an allowance can be introduced, but as a benefit of sharing in the family’s financial blessings from the Lord just as we share in the responsibility to keep the household functioning well. As the child matures, other opportunities for earning money around the house can be created through special projects or needs that arise that require special effort.
As children mature, they also need to be given more freedom and opportunity to think through and make more of their own choices under parental guidance. To train wise decision-making, we can ask “What do you think you should do in this situation?” As our children grow into older teenagers, the question becomes “What will you do in this situation?” These types of questions provide the opportunity to hear the child’s reasoning process and to gently direct it toward a wise decision if one is not presented by the child. Too often we underestimate our children’s ability to reason and make a good decision if given enough time and space to reflect. This approach also communicates that we value our child’s thoughts and respect his ability to make good choices.
Additionally, while chores and choices change with growth in age, so should our forms of correction. While a young child will experience time-outs or corporal punishment, an older child will benefit much more from experiencing the natural or logical consequences of their behavior — another skill that will be essential to good decision making later on. Natural consequences are the expected results of choices like burning your hand if you touch a hot object or getting a traffic ticket if you speed. Logical consequences are those that must be created in relation to the misbehavior or offense, but have some basis in the action. For example, when our daughters were preteens and were having trouble getting themselves off to bed one night, my husband told them that he would be setting their alarm clocks to go off in the morning fifteen minutes earlier than normal since they didn’t seem to need their sleep. Their mouths hung open and they replied, “Wow, that was a good one, Dad!” and proceeded to bed.
Another important habit to establish in the preteen years is family time. Life provides enough opportunities for our families to be separated and disjointed. As parents, we need to establish regular times for our families to share together — Friday night game and movie nights, ice cream nights, etc. Spending “be” time together, as well as chore or project time, solidifies relationships and will increase our children’s desire to be together as a family instead of choosing negative peer relationships later in their teen years. These times together also help build positive sibling relationships. Next time we’ll explore how to encourage good sibling relationships and to maintain a peaceful household.
Raising Children
by Tina Bruno
Raising children? Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt!! How did I survive? It wasn’t easy, but I had some help. God gave me a wonderful vision while my sons were still very young,
and the power of this vision has never left me.
We are like constructions workers, as parents. We are building a future with our children, and it is our responsibility, through prayer and discipline, to raise men and women of God. We must lay a good foundation. Think about laying concrete, perhaps a sidewalk. When the cement is first poured, it is very impressionable. It takes time for it to harden and solidify, and it must be protected during the curing time. If it is walked on before it is completely set, it will retain marks that we don’t want it to have. Our children are like wet cement. They are very impressionable, and we must protect them. It is not the up to the schools or “a village” to raise our children, unless we want them to look like the world.
I want my children to bear the image of Christ, and our time to protect the wet cement of their hearts is short. Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Be blessed as you build and protect.
Setting Early Childhood Expectations
by Bev Mueffelmann
In order to raise children who will become responsible adults and who will fulfill God’s purposes for them in their generation, we need to set positive expectations for their teenage years, both in our minds and theirs, before we ever reach those years. Early childhood offers many opportunities to build healthy and positive patterns into your family life and your relationships with your children that will produce enjoyable teen years later on.
In early childhood, setting positive expectations takes some extra effort and creativity. A universal challenge for parents is having well-behaved and cooperative children while in public places. A helpful strategy is to speak with young children before entering a store about your positive expectations of their behavior while in the store. You could say something like, “Mommy needs to go into the store and it will go more quickly if we work together. So I expect that you will have a cooperative attitude in the store and, if you cooperate with me for the whole shopping trip, I will clap for you when we get back into the car.” You will be amazed at how your children will rise to the occasion to hear you say, “Well done…I’m proud of you…thank you for helping me.” (You can even have them help you cross items off of your shopping list or find things to take off of the shelves to place in the cart.)
Enlisting your child’s “help” in this way also communicates “we’re in this family-thing together.” Asking your child to help you builds their confidence and gives them a sense of value in the family. Another way to increase your children’s sense of value in the family is to entrust them with more chores as they grow. Young children of three or four years old are capable of unloading the silverware from the dishwasher or setting the table for a meal. If children have a sense of belonging firmly established at home, they will be less likely to go looking for it in other places – like the “in” crowd – when they are older.
Additionally, young children often feel powerless over themselves or their environment which leads to frustration and misbehavior. One way to prevent some of this frustration is to give them choices in some of the decisions in their life. One easy example is to lay out two outfits for them to wear and allow them to choose one. Another is to give them two choices of what to eat for breakfast or for lunch. While these may seem like simplistic scenarios, over time the skill of making wise choices is gradually built by expanding the options in number or weightiness as our children grow and mature. If we never teach our children to make responsible choices throughout childhood, why would we expect them to all of a sudden make responsible choices as teens?
Finally, chose to begin speaking with your children at a young age about how much you are looking forward to their teen years. For example, saying, “We know that we’re going to have a great time together as a family as you grow and become teenagers” is a great place to start. Setting positive expectations early in life will make all the difference in how your family functions when hormones rage and attitudes strike. Next time we’ll look at principles for the pre-teen years that will build on this foundation of great expectations
Training Your Toddler – Taming Negativity
by Bev Mueffelmann
So, how do we walk out great expectations for our toddlers so that they can become terrific teens? First of all, we need to expect more of them than we think we can. Every child needs to have a sense of belonging to the family and the best way to engender that sense of belonging is to engage them in helping around the house whenever possible. It takes longer to get things done for a season, but ultimately, we will be helping ourselves in the long-run. A sense of accomplishment in a job well done goes a long way toward building a positive foundation in a child’s life.
For example, our children all began walking by the time they were nine months old. So by the time they were one year old, we helped them learn to pick up their own toys and put them away at the end of each day before bed. They saw it as a game and before they were old enough to tell us “no”, it was a well-established bedtime routine. (There are a lot of tasks that fall into this category. If you can establish a healthy habit or routine before your child is old enough to object – do it!) We always clapped for them when they were done and they loved it! Their expectation became that when they finished a task well, we would clap for them. This expression of our approval became our children’s favorite form of positive reinforcement throughout their early childhood years.
Another way to decrease negativity before it strikes is to strike the word “no” from our own vocabulary as much as possible. Is it any wonder that a toddler spouts “no” so often after hearing it incessantly from our own lips? Obviously, there are many situations in a toddler’s life in which a firm or urgent “no” is absolutely necessary, e.g. when they are in physical danger. But I believe that we parents are too careless about our word choices with our children. I’ve heard it called the “idiot no.”
An idiot “no” is one that slips out of our mouth as a matter of habit before we even think about whether we really mean “no” or not. For example, if my toddler asks me for a cookie before lunch, I could choose to automatically say “no.” Or, if I thought about it for two seconds longer, I would realize that I really don’t mean “no”, I just mean “not now.” My alternative, positive statement could be “Yes, you may have a cookie after you eat all of your lunch.” With these words I have communicated my true meaning and have given my child a reason to be hopeful instead of discouraging her.
I believe that most “terrible two” misbehaviors are simply expressions of a child’s frustration and discouragement. During toddlerhood, it’s helpful to be in tune with our children’s feelings and to help them learn to identify their emotions. When we see our child becoming frustrated, we can say, “I see that you’re feeling frustrated because you can’t do this yourself. Can Mommy help you?” As a result, our child is encouraged because we are being sensitive to his feelings and we are training him to identify his own emotions at the same time. Our child will also sense that we are with him and for him instead of feeling as though we are against him.
Overall, whenever we can choose to be positive instead of negative with our children, we will be building a strong foundation that will help us all weather the storms of parenthood and childhood. Next month we’ll explore how to apply these principles to early childhood in order to continue the process of building toward terrific teen years.
Dee Dah Day
by Susan Lucas
I thought I’d share a few thoughts on spiritual disciplines for practical living based on John Ortberg’s book entitled “The Life You’ve Always Wanted.” So here goes…Ortberg describes the practice of celebration from a child’s point of view. He recites bathing all three of his children together and being in a great hurry to finish. One child (Mallory) instead of following his lead, and also being in a rush, began dancing and running around in circles singing “dee dah day” over and over again. Mallory when unable to control her euphoria had made this a habit in their house. Of course, Ortberg being a task driven person asked Mallory to stop. Then in response, Mallory asked a profound question- “Why”? Ortberg had no answer. He had no meeting to attend, no sermon to write, and here was joy: an invitation to dance right in from of him and he was missing it!
So he got up and danced and father and child had a “Dee Dah Day”. I don’t know about you, but I have two “Dee Dah Day” children and I have learned to be thankful for them. To have an eighteen year old son who still wraps his arms around his mother and dances is such a gift. I have learned to stop and celebrate. How happy our father in heaven must be when we take the time to have a “Dee Dah Day” and dance with him. C. S. Lewis once said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
So today, I am looking forward to the never-ending “Dee Dah Day” when joy will reign without end and God will dance with his people:
“You shall go out with joy and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall burst
into song. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Isa. 55:12
So Ladies, my challenge to you is to set aside one day a week to be silly with your children, eat foods you love to eat, listen to music that moves your soul, wear clothes that make you happy and direct your life to God so that you may KNOW He is the “giver of every good and perfect gift.” Nothing is insignificant if it enables us to turn to God with gratitude and delight. So let’s dance….
Great Expectations
From the time infants are born, their temperaments and personalities are established. It is our job as parents to identify these traits and to train our children to establish healthy habits of belief, thought, feeling, and action throughout their childhood and teenage years. Before this type of effective training can begin, we need to understand that what we believe about our children will influence our own thoughts, emotions, and actions toward them.
All too often, our beliefs and expectations regarding our children are essentially negative. Scripture states that, “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). In other words, our words give away our true feelings and attitudes. Our words about our children to others reveal our heart attitudes and expectations of their behavior. For example, do we expect the “terrible twos” to be terrible? Do we roll our eyes when we say the word “teenagers”? Unintentionally, we buy into our culture’s negative beliefs regarding children and set up an unnecessary cycle of negative expectations and behavior.
Ultimately, beliefs generate thoughts and feelings that translate into actions. Therefore, what we believe about or expect of children as they grow is essential to a family’s long-term health and well-being. One of my firm beliefs is that training toddlers with positive, encouraging words and expectations sets a family on a good course for pleasant and enjoyable teenage years. Sound too good to be true? If so, stayed tuned for next month’s “how-to” on the subject of training your toddler to be a terrific teen.
Greatest Treasure
by Bev Muefflemann