Study 3 Recap, Chapters 4 & 5

Our study this week focused primarily on boundary principles one and two; The Law of Sowing and Reaping and The Law of Responsibility. 

The main points were as follows:

• Consider that true change comes only when someone's behavior causes him to encounter reality consequences such as pain, or losses of time, money, possessions, things he enjoys, or people he values.  
• Learn the formula for sowing and reaping:  Give children freedom, allow choices and then manage the consequences accordingly.  The recipe for a growing person is grace plus truth over time.
• See that the Law of Responsibility teaches children that they are responsible for themselves and their struggles as well as for their emotions, attitude and behavior.  
• Identify two key principles the child needs to understand:  first that being unable differs from being uncomfortable and second, that he responsible for himself and responsible to others (that is the difference between help and rescue.) 

Study 2 (Chapters 2 and 3) "Kids Need Parents With Boundaries"

We mostly focused on Chapter 2 for this study, "Kids Need Parents With Boundaries."  The main points covered were:

• Consider how your kids' behavior is a response to their environment, of which parents are a big part.
• Think about the face that boundaries are more caught than taught.
• Look at three ways that parents can influence their kids to develop boundaries by teaching, by modeling, and by helping kids internalize healthy boundaries.
• Acknowledge that part of the challenge of teaching kids boundaries is tolerating and enduring your child's hatred of your boundaires.
• Recognize five obstacles to teaching kids boundaries:  depending on the child, overidentifying with the child, thinking that love and seperateness are enemies, ignoring and zapping and being worn down.

Our questions and discussion focused on the five obstacles too boundary training: 

• Depending on the Child:  As your child's major source of love, you provide the closeness, intimacy and nurture that sustains her.  Yet this closeness can become confused with a parent's need for the child.  This is called dependency. (p46)  
• Overidentifying With the Child: Children need their parents to empathize with their pain, fear and loneliness.  But some parent's confuse their own painful feelings with the child's and project their problems onto the child. (p48)
• Thinking Love and Seperateness are Enemies:  Disagreeing, confronting, or simply being different from your children does not indicate a break in the connection.  Structuring and being seperate from the child are not the same as a loss of love. (p49)
• Ignoring and Zapping: Ignoring and zapping teaches a child that he can persist in doing whatever he wants.  By ignoring inappropriate behavior and not addressing things as they happen, he learns he can get away with murder nine times out of ten.  (p50)
• Being Worn Down: Kids work us and work us and work us.  It is scary how they sense when we are weak and ready to give in to them.  Take a moment to consider why your child may be wearing you down.   (p51) 

The thing we all seemed to relate to the most was "ignoring and zapping."  This is where you are patient and tolerate your child over and over until you reach your limit, snap and "zap" them!  What really stuck out to me about this is when it said the child knows that nine times out of ten they will get away with the behavior so the risk is worth it to them!  How many times do our kids outsmart us?  We just have to be stronger then them one time and they will eventually learn not to take the risk because they know the outcome will be consistent.

This was a brief recap of our last discussion.  Now that we are caught up, I'll provide more of the dicussion questions and activities during the week that we are off!

Study 1 (Chapter 1) "The Future is Now"

Our first study was on Chapter 1 "The Future is Now" (p13). 

The key points discussed in this chapter were:

• Consider that parenting is best done with an eye to the future.
• Look at three aspects of a parents role:  guardian, manager and source.
• Be introduced to the concept of boundaries.
• Begin to see the role boundaries can play in giving kids the motivations, the skills, and a plan for living a loving, responsible, righteous, and successful life until God and others.

One thing that seemed to be a common theme among us is that we go into "survival mode" and parent just to get through the current trying moment, instead of thinking about how it will affect their future.  How many times do we find ourselves thinking, we'll deal with it later or the next time?  Are we using the opportunity for correction of a single offense or for character training?

One of our jobs in parenting is to raise our children to be responsible adults.  We can't do that if we're just trying to survive.  Another great point was this:  "Is what you are doing being done on purpose?  Or are you doing it for reasons that you do not think about, such as your own personality, childhood, need of the moment or fears?"  (p14) Once I read this and became conscious of it, I realized that I am guilty of over indulging my children in certain areas that I felt my mother neglected me.  Here's what we need to remember:  we are not our mothers and our children are not us!

Children are Not Born With Boundaries
"A boundary is a 'property line'  that defines a person; it defines where one person ends and someone else begins." (p17)

The Three Roles of a Parent
1.  Guardian:  "A guardian is legally responsible for a child, and in that capacity, protects and preserves the child." (p19)
2.  Manager:  "A manager makes sure things get done-goals are reached, demands and expectations are met." (p20)
3.  Source:  "Children come into the world without resources.  They don't know where the food is, how to get shelter, or how to obtain the money they need for basic supplies.  Parents are the source of all good things for the child." (p20)

 This is just a short recap of Chapter 1.  After recapping the next two chapters, I will start to include the extra questions and exercises for those that want to dig even deeper! 

Spring Schedule

Little Lambs Goes Viral!

We are now linked on the Sanctuary website!  If you want to invite your friends and give them an idea of what we're about, send them to our wesbite for a tour.

Go to:  http://sanctuarychurch.com/index.html

Click on the Ministries Tab

Click on Little Lambs and it takes you to our blog!

I'm going to add our current schedule and all updates so that people who are looking for a church home with a moms group can find us.  Tell a friend!

Introduction to "Boundaries With Kids"

As I shared with you at our first study, my reason for choosing this book is deeply personal.  As an adult I've realized that many of my issues stem from my childhood.  Through counseling, prayer and reading the Bible I've come to understand how to deal with these issues as well as avoid them in the futre.  Reading the book "Boundaries" by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend literally changed my life and how I deal with people and my relationships. However, what I realized is that I was missing a key component:  how do I BREAK the cycle so that my kids aren't in counseling twenty years from now because of what I did wrong? 

As parents we often feel lost without a map.  The Bible should be our guide to everything in life but we don't always know how to apply the principles specifically to parenting today.  How many times do we wish someone would just TELL us what to do?  While "Boundaries With Kids" isn't a magical answer, it is a great resource to use WITH our Bible and is based on Biblical principles.  Someone just did the work for us!

Some key things mentioned in the introduction are great at summing up what this book is all about.

• This book is not "problem centered" but "principle centered." (p9)
• This book is geared much more toward how you, the parent will behave with your child than toward you educating your child. (p10)
• Learning boundaries has a lot to do with going through experiences such as receiving consequences for behavior, learning to take ownership, and dealing with the boundaries of others. (p10)
• "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces are harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."  Hebrews 12:11
• The boundary building process begins with you!

Bringin' Bloggin' Back!

I stopped doing the blog for a while because on my last post I did a "survey" to see if anyone read it and got zero responses - not one!  I thought maybe the information was too redundant since I'm emailing AND posting on FB AND doing the blog.  Now, however things are a little different!  First of all, there are lots of new moms!  Maybe some of them are bloggers and NOT on Facebook!  I want to use every avenue available to get information out to everyone.  I also figure this is a great way to expand on our study and give NEW information - not just what's already available to you elsewhere.

This book is amazing and has SO much to offer!  I am never able to cram everything in to one study session but realistically, lengthening the study with all our kids in the next room isn't feasible.  Like clockwork, the noise gets louder and the crying begins right around an hour in! 

SO I will use the blog to go more in depth with the study for those of you who want to!  There are a lot of exercises and thought provoking questions available in the guide that we don't even have time to touch on!  I love reading blogs and find so much encouragement from my fellow moms and from Pastor Rod and Ridge's blogs.  I want to offer the same encouragement and information to my fellow mommies!

I'll backtrack a bit and start with study 1.  This will also be a good way for people to get caught up who weren't able to join us from the beginning! 

Blog on!