I recently went to a Moms meeting, which was traditionally designed for young mothers. But they decided to open the group up to grandmothers and ladies of more experience so they could learn from them. I am currently smack in the middle of these two age groups. After all of my years with Joshua’s care and now my two wild boys, I am still loving the encouragement and fellowship, and feel I have some things to share as well.
One week we had a grandmother who spoke and shared some concerns she was having with the current generation. I had a special interest in her topic because I have a husband and two boys that have always exhibited traits considered ADD, Attention deficit disorder. My youngest has ben Dx with SPD, Sensory processing disorder. We were really seeking answers on what might help us have more peace in our home.
We know diet affects it, gluten free has dramatically improved it. We know that environment affects it, esp. video games. Even more than an hour or two of TV can make him emotional and growling the rest of the day.
I had spent all these years reading doctor’s studies on the effects of video games and the frames-per-minute on the TV shows. I studied diet and nutrition and what different things may be the causing factors for ADD and even symptoms within the autistic spectrum.
What amazed me is that this woman was not sharing from studies or surveys, but from her personal experience of coming from a slower paced generation. It was so obvious to her. She did not need a study on the multitudes of commercials we see in a lifetime, or the damaging effects of hours of violent video games or the long-term effects of electromagnetic fields from computers. She just had lived and enjoyed a better way.

I think in many cases we do not slow down enough to even reflect on these things until we find ourselves in our grand-parenting years. I noticed my dad, upon becoming a grand-parent, was very specific about his goal of slowing down his pace and enjoying his grandchildren. He was determined not to be easily angered or short tempered, which I thought was very introspective of him. I remembered him as a busy father who loved us but had too much stress on his shoulders. The kids all loved to be around PoppaBob now because he is the most fun.
I want to share some of her tips, which are beneficial in parenting, as well as finding peace and longevity on into our grand-parenting years and beyond. We all thought we knew them, as they seem so obvious, but somehow the chaos of life can drown it all out. So here is an encouraging reminder:

The acronym is S.A.F.E.
strong>S – Slow Down:
Our home should be a SAFE HAVEN from stress
The most common Stress for a child comes from hurriedness and an over-stimulated world.  Hurried children = highly stressed teenagers = emotionally troubled adults.
We set the pace and foster balance in our home. Turn off the TV, get rid of the Buzz In the background. Do not wait for the power to go out to enjoy some silence.
Our home should be a slower pace, a haven from all of the rush.

A -Kids need our ATTENTION:

in their lives, talking, playing, and listening. Not while we are on our cell phones or the computer or watching tv, but full involvement. For anyone, attention says I love you. You are important to me. If they have something to say and it is important to them – then it is important. Many times we feel as if we do not have a choice with our time, but we all have 24 hours in a day. We do choose our priorities.

 I wondered if one factor for having attention deficit kids may be because we live in an “attention-deficient” world. I know we exhaust our life on our kids, but ask yourself how often you just sit in the quiet and have eye-to-eye conversation with them. Do you ever set side a day with them to do nothing? Can you go for a few days without checking the emails or answering your cell phone? They are such a habit to us that we feel addicted. But we do set the priorities in our life.
In a blink of an eye our children will be gone. They are our gift from God that we are totally responsible for.
This time together says, “you are significant” and will dramatically foster their purpose and identity as adults.

When we had our first son, he had a genetic difference and a lifetime of challenges, so we had to learn complete flexibility. But our third son needed absolute structure, and we had to develop it quickly.
Consistency is important in discipline. We must discipline in love, but be willing to do the best thing for them regardless of whether it is comfortable at the moment. If we discipline without showing love, we breed hopelessness and despair.
Discipline with love and we are encouraging them to be responsible for their own actions. That is huge in our culture where most adults will not even take responsibility for themselves. Character does count.We are enjoying this month of no TV with the kids and it has made such a tremendous blessing in our home. It began as “grounding” them for bad behavior, but has resulted in a blessing for all of us. Dad and Bear were playing chess last night. Jacob has finished the screens and woodwork on his clubhouse.
We just may never go back.

F- Follow through:

Consistency, and a healthy routine spells SECURITY for a child. We all need margins and boundaries in life. They should always see us as consistent parents who follow through and deliver on what we promise. Our actions must match our words. They will remember far more of what we DO that what we SAY, so both must match up at all costs. They need to see that we will implement rules and boundaries, and their behavior has significant consequences, either good or bad.

E-Example:

Speaking of what we do, what example are we setting in our daily walk? How do we handle stress? How much unconditional LOVE are we showing? We realized during our grief era, that we were not seeing “honor” being shown. But as we studied our boys and how they spoke to us, we realized they were just mimicking the honor they saw us show each other. If we want honor in our home, we must practice LOVE and HONOR it in our marriage and in our parenting as well. They are verbs. Once we began to recognize honor, and make a concerted effort to demonstrate it ourselves, our boys understood more and changed their responses to us and each other.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 11:10 pm and is filed under boys, christianity, parenting, relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.