Parenting Advice

Pray often, and remind yourself that God loves your children more than you do. Ask Him to show you how to show His love to your children.

Give up on things like, oh, seeking the one perfect schedule that will never, ever have to be altered if only you can find it.

Don't give up on things that would work if only you were more persistent and consistent (good manners, drawing lessons, regular math lessons, music lessons, habit training).

Don't neglect discipline, but don't neglect singing, laughing, and playing together either. Reproof and correction are withdrawals from the bank. They need doing sometimes (often times), but you are making a withdrawal. You need to be sure there's a healthy balance and a regular habit of deposits, too. You make deposits in your children's banks by respecting their privacy, their dignity, by laughing with them, playing with them, loving them, singing with them, doing fun things together as a family, sharing joyful times together.

Have high expectations. Children do live up to them.

I wish I'd met my friend at the Blue Castle sooner, because she taught me that you can't expect what you don't inspect- and it would have saved us all years of frustration if I'd realized that sooner.

I wish I had written more things down, cute, sweet, funny things, and also ideas I had about parenting and about homeschooling, things we tried that worked, things we tried that failed. For instance:
~ I once had this great idea for a game to teach my children all about borrowing and paying interest and how burdensome it was to get into debt. We played it, and my oldest two children vividly remember the lesson the learned from it. It really made an impression- unfortunately, none of us remember exactly what I did.
~ We've just been excessively busy of late. The kids seem to be involved in so many activities and it's been very frustrating trying to keep up with everything. Today my eldest daughter reminded me that when she was still in high school and the same thing started to happen, I made a rule that there could be no outside activities during school hours. I had forgotten that. I just sat there stunned, thinking, "Who was that smart woman, and what has she done with my brain?"

Whenever a family member finishes reading one of our books (or has it read to them), we write down the name and date inside the front cover. I wish we'd done this from the beginning.

There are things I wish I never did- but they are the sort of things every mother does and wishes she didn't do.

Things I'm pretty happy about:
We've always included Bible.
We've always read good books.
We've always included hymns, folk songs, and classical music in our days.
We've always included poetry.
We've always included art.
We've always read together.
We've always played games together.
I chose a wonderful man to be their daddy (well, this was a case of fools rushing in where angels fear, and 'there, but for the grace of God..... But he is a wonderful daddy).

All things that worked for me....