First of all, lest anyone should think that I am assuming a "better than thou" attitude here, I hope that you will understand that we still have plenty of flaws and meltdowns! Just about the time when you think you are really something special, Heavenly Father has a way of gently reminding you that you're still not perfect!
Fortunately for us, most of our challenges have happened within the walls of our own home where we can deal with them, hopefully, properly. We have found over the years that if we are willing to put up with the molding and shaping in the private moments of our own home, then when they go out into the world, they tend to actually perform in the way we have been trying to teach them.
While I was sitting and pondering the subject of how do you parent kids who will become "A Light On A Hill", it occurred to me that the biggest thing that most of us need is an entirely new paradigm or picture of what parenting really is. Almost none of us ever receive any significant training on how to be a good and successful parent.
Often, we don't give it any real thought until they hand us that first little bundle of joy at the hospital and send us out the door. Then we start trying to create a masterpiece with no real skill set at all. We don't even know what the background is supposed to look like, let alone any of the details.
Usually the broad canvas of our picture of what parenting actually is, has to undergo some fundamental color and background adjustments that will change the entire look of the picture. Only then will we start to think and act in ways that will bring about the the environment that allows a family to function the way that it was actually designed to work.
Yes, it was designed!
Families are not just some random cultural phenomenon. They were designed by the Master Parent who actually knows exactly how we as human beings really function. He also knows exactly how this universe functions and how everything within it inter-relates to every other part of it. He actually understands what the true principles are that form the underlying background and color scheme that allows us to produce the kind of beautiful picture that we are really looking for.
For most of us it is only by getting those deep, underlying background changes made that will bring about the fundamental adjustments which will result in us finding the answers to the problems we are facing in our families.
At least that's how it was for us.
Most of us come to the parenting information arena looking for a fix or a solution to a particular problem, when what we really need to find is a significant paradigm change.
That's why strategies, tactics and techniques are almost never even a good short term solution, let alone a long term resolution to a parenting problem. Almost always, the problem exists because we, as the parents, have an incorrect picture of what is actually supposed to be happening within a family. We as the parents or leaders of this little organization are violating some of the principles of good family relationships and are expecting to produce a result which just can't happen by functioning the way that it currently is.
PARENTING BY PRINCIPLE
When we learn to search out and apply the correct principles that govern our family relationships, our parenting paradigm can change and mold itself to a more correct version of the plan that the Master Parent has designed to get great results in a home environment.
By applying the correct principles to our own thinking and behavior, we can better shape and mold our children to become who God intends for them to be. They will truly grow to become those "Light On The Hill" types of people that we can be proud of.
After 35+ years of trial and error, observing our own parents, observing other successful families around us, much study, reading, listening, pondering and praying, here are some of the most critical principles that we have discovered that have made a very significant difference in how we have raised our kids.
I realize that not everyone will agree with everything that we have written here. However, if you don't agree, ask yourself if your current thinking process is getting you the results that you want? If you're not totally happy with your current results, then at least pause to ponder if there might possibly be some truth to what we have written. Ponder, mull it over, consider if it's possible and pray before you just blow it off.
These principles are not necessarily presented in any particular order, except maybe the first one. I hope that by the time you finish reading this article, that you will begin to feel your basic paradigm about parenting undergoing some degree of transformation. If you do, then my time spent here will be well worth it. I will feel like I have been able to give back some of the wonderful gift of knowledge that we have been blessed to accumulate through our years of searching.
Here's hoping that something here will help you to be able to elevate your family to become more of "A Light On A Hill" than it already is. I hope you find this valuable.
PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE YOUR PARENTING
Principle:
Parenting is not supposed to be easy or convenient.
David P. Homer said, " Convenience rarely leads to things that matter "
By it's very nature, being a parent requires our best efforts. It requires sacrifice, dedication, commitment, humility, and a willingness to learn, grow and change.
Principle:
Being a parent and being a child in your home should be a Win-Win situation when viewed from either direction.
We chose to call our parenting course, "Creating The Win-Win Family" because after 15 years of pondering and discussing all of the things we have learned, we feel that getting this principle wrong is at the very core of most parenting challenges that almost everyone faces.
Almost all traditional and natural default mode parenting decisions and actions are not based on making sure that our children are feeling like they are ending up in a positive position in the relationship.
Rather they are based upon our need to feel in control and the thought that the child needs to learn to conform to our way of seeing the world whether they feel a benefit or not.
Look back at your own childhood and ask yourself whether you felt like your thoughts, desires, opinions and choices were valued and honored? Or did you feel like you always had to be the one sacrificing what you wanted in order to conform to what your parents wanted?
The true principle is that through mentorship and true leadership we can gain the power to influence our children in a way that they feel honored and respected so that they feel like they won too.
Principle:
Every single person on this earth operates from a mental paradigm or blueprint that is very uniquely their own and that in their own mind is 100% correct....whether it actually is or not.
The real power and potential for growth and change lies in realizing and openly acknowledging that, if we are not getting the results that we desire in some area, then something in our thinking or our understanding of how the world works is probably not correct.
Only when we can openly acknowledge that fact and be willing to learn and adopt new knowledge and thinking processes that will change our paradigm or blueprint at a fundamental level, can we begin to get better results in our daily lives.
Most often what we need to work on in our parenting challenges is to correct our own thinking, which will change our own actions, which will bring about better results with our kids. The answer is almost never in some strategy that will fix the kids. It's us that we need to work on.
FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES - THESE ARE SPIRITUAL THINGS.
IF YOU DON'T GET THESE RIGHT, THE OTHERS REALLY WON'T MATTER.
Principle:
They are not really your children in the eternal scheme of things. They are God's children.
They are really your brothers and sisters whom you have been given a stewardship to teach, train, mentor and lead to become what God wants them to become, "His partners in the family business" to quote Dale Renlund.
Principle:
To quote Stephen R. Covey, We need to "begin with the end in mind".....The correct end I might add.
The correct end, is to help our Heavenly Father to raise up our younger brothers and sisters, (our children), to become his heirs, to become like Him, to follow in His footsteps, to realize their ultimate potential in this universe. It's our job as parents to lead them to become what He has uniquely designed for each one of them.
Principle:
Faith in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
God and His two assistants are not just some nice fairy tale. They are more real than anything else on this earth. You can have actual experiences with them if you purposely choose to approach them the way they have taught us to.
God went to all of the trouble to create this earth because He has a very specific plan for the growth and development of us, His literal children.
The more we can learn the truths of that actual plan and apply them in our lives, the better results we will get. We need to learn that and teach it clearly to our children if we want to keep them on the right path.
We are not just trying to live to that we please some great, all powerful being, so that we can get rewarded for it after we die.
Our real true Father has a very specific plan that we can follow to achieve some absolutely amazing results with the help of Jesus Christ and The Holy Ghost.
Principle:
God's church teaches us some very critical parenting principles that are fundamental to everything we have discussed here. If they are not followed, probably a lot of these other principles will not be fully effective.
Here are some critical ones:
Make God the top priority in your life.
Pray daily (at least), both by yourself and with your family.
Read from the scriptures and talk about it together daily as a family.
Attend church together every week and put church activities as a priority over others.
Have a weekly Family Night where you do something enjoyable together.
Take some time on Sunday to have a family discussion about some gospel topic.
Attend a temple regularly and make covenants and receive the blessings that are only available there.
Listen to God's prophets.
Principle:
Seek personal revelation for your family. Because we are literally God's children, not just figuratively, He wants to help us in everything we are doing in our lives as long as we are trying to move in the right direction.
He has put into place a process called personal revelation to help us receive the guidance from a more experienced source that many of us would like to have. Learn how that process works and how to use it to find answers to your parenting challenges.
Principle:
Does your parenting style look more like God's style or Satan's style? (Teaching, mentoring, agency vs force, punishment, coercion, etc)
This will only make sense if you have a correct picture of how God actually deals with His children versus how Satan tries to get us to follow him.
For instance, there is a certain person who I am close to whose favorite illustration of how to train children goes something like this;
In our home, when my dad said jump, the immediate answer was "Yes sir, how high"?
Now, does that sound like something that God, who puts a high priority on our agency, would say, or does it sound more like something that Satan, who promotes force and coercion would say?
Who says, for instance, that our timing is more important than another person's (our child's) timing? Now it may be, but do we actually give it consideration every time. Or do we tend to take the authoritative standpoint that, since I am the parent, everything needs to revolve around what's most important to me?
THIS IS CRITICAL TO UNDERSTAND
Principle:
What is a principle? How do you recognize one? Where do you find them?
A true principle is a cause and effect concept where, if you do X, then Y is always the result.
Think of the law of gravity. If you drop a pebble, under normal circumstances without another principle coming into play, it will ALWAYS fall to the ground. You can count on it.
That's the way any true principle works. You can count on it. You can plan on it. You can build a behavior pattern around it.
Learn that everything that happens in our lives is governed by real principles that determine every outcome. Therefore the more true principles that you can learn to apply correctly in every area of your life, the better the results that you will get everywhere.
To find more true principles to apply in your life, listen to people who have great results in the areas that are important to you and keep your ears open for things that you didn't understand before. When you hear someone use the word "principle", your antennas should pop out and home in on what they are saying. Learn to listen to what your heart is telling you when you hear these things.
Here is the ultimate test of the truthfulness of a new piece of information:
"And when he shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
"And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."
Moroni 10: 4-5
GET THE CORRECT PERSPECTIVE
Principle:
Here are some words that apply to a correct parenting style: lead, influence, mentor, honor, love, stewardship, guide, show, uplift, build, explain, show, understand, inspire, encourage
These are some words that are often abused or misused in improper parenting styles: (not that they are wrong or don't apply to parenting, but they are frequently misunderstood and misused). Authority, obedience, (train), (teach), discipline, consequences, (responsibility), control, force, reproof, correct,
Even though most of these words on the second list have a proper role in parenting correctly, most often they are misused because they are understood in an improper context to the way things are really designed to operate. In fact the words in parentheses really should be on the other list, but all too often, they get applied incorrectly and out of context and therefore end up squarely on this list.
Principle:
Real love comes from serving someone and giving them of your time.
Most of the time our cultural paradigm teaches us that we only love someone because we have this special feeling about them in our heart somewhere. That feeling, if it exists at all, is a very fleeting and temporary thing.
Real love, true love, whether for a spouse, a child, a friend or a neighbor, comes only by giving them of our time, serving them and genuinely getting to know them on a level far below the surface.
LEARNING, LEADING AND TRADITIONS
Principle:
In order to be a truly effective parent, you need to become a perpetual learner and student yourself. Set a visible example of someone who is hungry to learn and grow.
Many of us seem to be so obsessed with making sure our children are diligent with doing their homework and getting good grades, yet we ourselves haven't cracked open a book with the intent to learn something since we got out of school.
Hmmm.....can we not see something wrong with this picture?
If learning is that important, and it is, then why don't we set the example by being hungry to learn ourselves? If our kids see us hungry to learn, they may start to believe that it is something enjoyable to do rather than something disagreeable that you just want to force them to do because they are supposed to.
Principle:
Learn from others who have real fruit on their tree and actually know the true principles that got them the results that they have, not just someone who has a strong opinion.
Simply having all of your kids avoid going to prison does not qualify you to teach parenting. If 3/4 of your kids turned out "okay" but the other 1/4 chose a path that you feel is not the correct one, then maybe you really shouldn't be the one passing out parenting advice. You probably were missing some critical principles somewhere.
Principle:
"Spare the rod and spoil the child", even though it is a direct quote from the Bible, is not a true principle but a cultural tradition. Neither are some other traditional ideas like, "Children should be seen but not heard", "bedtime", "spanking", "teaching consequences by punishment", and many others.
I won't go into detail here on why we have come to believe this, but maybe I'll put a link to a video here with more explanation.
Suffice it to say that if you want good results in your family, you must look for TRUE principles that never change not just cultural traditions that we think work because they have been around for so long.
Examine your traditions and your paradigms about life and raising kids with a critical eye.
Know WHY you do and believe WHAT you do and believe.
Be willing to change when you find more truth.
Principle:
By very definition, every parent is a leader. It's that simple.
Don't shirk or run away from that reality and responsibility.
Being a leader at home is vastly more important than being a leader anywhere else in the world. Study everything you can on how to be an effective leader. It works just as well in your home as it does out in the rest of the world if it is a true principle. Leadership books and training are everywhere. Use them.
We've included a list elsewhere of several of our favorite ones.
Principle:
Learn how to earn the power of influence in your children's lives. It is the ultimate key.
The cultural norm in much of the world is that, because I am the parent, that automatically puts me in a position of authority and I should therefore automatically have influence in their lives.
Here's a big secret; Leadership is really gaining the power and privilege to influence another person's life.
And here is secret number two; People only consciously allow those who they love, respect and trust to influence their lives.
Is your parenting style inspiring love, respect and trust in your children? If it is, you win.
But if it is instilling fear, anger, distrust, begrudging obedience, rebellion, or other negative emotions in them, then surprise! You have almost no positive influence in their lives!
PRIORITIES
Principle:
Get your priorities in the right order:
God first, SPOUSE next, Kids third!
Not kids before spouse except in very RARE instances where the spouse is dangerous to the kids. In that case, find a new spouse!
Be on the same team as your spouse. Work together, counsel together, make decisions together, support each other, study and learn how to have a great marriage so that your kids can have that as an example and a standard for their lives.
Parents with a strong happy marriage who build and uplift each other are the strongest foundation that a kid can have to build on.
LEARN TO UNDERSTAND THEM
Principle:
You need to learn to think like a child again.
Only when you understand what they are truly thinking can you be an effective mentor, teacher and leader to them. We have to learn to really get down on their level and learn or try to remember how they are able to think at that age.
It is critical. They don't and can't think like adults.
Principle:
Children are constantly learning. Learning is not just the accumulation of knowledge, it is actually developing the ability to skillfully apply new knowledge. Part of learning is to make mistakes while trying to develop real skill at doing something new. Instead of trying to correct mistakes or bad behavior with punishment, correct it with mentoring to help them learn, grow and develop new skills. Mistakes are a critical part of the growth process.
Principle:
The human brain does not fully physically mature until at least 25 years of age.
Think about the ramifications of that fact for awhile. They are broad and far reaching in every aspect of parenting.
If it doesn't PHYSICALLY mature until then, then it probably also doesn't mature cognitively, emotionally, or in decision making ability, or in many other ways until at least then!
Principle:
Stop expecting your child to think and reason the same way that you do as an adult. They don't and can't.
For instance, if you ask them, after they have made a mistake or "misbehaved", "Why did you do that?" They really don't know because they don't think like you do. In fact, they can't.
SEE THINGS THROUGH THEIR EYES
Principle:
When you punish or discipline a child for a mistake or a bad behavior, what do you think you are actually telling their immature mind?
(Mistakes are bad, stop trying new things, you have bad thinking abilities, don't try to think for yourself,....)
We usually have the misguided concept in our brain that we are teaching them that there are consequences to their actions. The problem is that this is not the way that their little, still-developing brains perceive it.
Punishment almost never leads to a positive environment that can lead to a positive outcome.
It is a strangely mixed up thinking process to believe that a negative and painful reaction to a situation is going to bring about a positive result. It might bring about a surface level and very temporary change in behavior out of fear. But it will not produce a deep, character level, change because it will not be based on a desire to follow a true principle whose value they understand in their lives.
Principle:
You can't teach obedience and self discipline by teaching obedience and strictly disciplining them.
What?
It doesn't actually work that way.
The only way to truly teach them these things is by inspiring, teaching, mentoring, encouraging, praising and leading by example.
They won't WANT to be obedient until they really understand the "WHY" behind the benefits of wanting to be obedient. Fearing punishment never produces true willing obedience. It only produces begrudging obedience until the threat of punishment is gone. Then it will probably disappear.
Obedience needs to be tied to a principle not to a person. Only then do they feel that obedience brings them freedom. The true freedom that comes from making right choices and learning to control the world around them for good.
Even the concept of being obedient to God is not really about doing something just because He "says so", it's about Him being the ultimate source of all true principles. So when he tells us that we should do something, He is really trying to tell us that some true principle actually works and that we should implement it in our lives to get better results.
They will obey you when they love and respect you and feel valued, not when they are taught or forced to be obedient.
This is critical to understand.....Obedience is a gift that is given to someone who has won your heart and your trust, and that breeds loyalty!
Forced or begrudging obedience is very temporary and breeds rebellion.
GROWING WITH THEM
Principle:
The stages of parenting
Most of us never realize that there are at least five distinct stages of development in a child and therefore should be at least five different stages of how we are parenting each child through the years. There are not distinct cut-off lines at definite dates in their lives, but rather they gradually transition through these phases. They are roughly as follows.
Their Age.....Our Role
0-3..................Servant/Care Giver
3-8..................Teacher/Trainer
8-12................Leader
12-18.............Mentor
18+.................Trusted Friend
Think about how many of us are still trying to be the Teacher/Trainer to our adult kids or the Servant/Caregiver to our teenagers as examples of where we mess this process up.
This chart follows closely alongside of the principle that their brains don't fully mature until they are 25 years old. It's not just that they don't mature, it's that maturing is a long steady process that starts at almost nothing and gradually grows and develops a little bit at a time until at 25 it finally reaches it's full physical capability.
Even then, it still has a vast capacity to assimilate and process new information into greater, broader and deeper thought processes.
This principle was taught to us through a talk by John Rosemond.
Principle:
Send the right message to their little child thinking processes.
Example:
Locking your child in a dark room alone to teach them about "bed time" probably isn't sending them the message you think it is. What is it really teaching them?
There are a lot of "traditional" parenting techniques that we have been using for maybe generations, that may not actually be based on true principles. These techniques may be based much more on the parents need for convenience than upon the true principles that should build a child who grows up to reach their full potential.
Think about it from their perspective. Remember that we are dealing with a tiny infant, toddler or young school child. If we put ourselves in their shoes and try to think and reason with their very limited skills, what conclusions do you think you would come to?
Would your brain just naturally conclude that, "Oh, I should just automatically lock myself in a dark room all by myself and go to sleep even though I'm not sleepy and the darkness is really scary and I really want to be with my mommy, daddy and my siblings."
I don't think so!
It is much more likely to produce thoughts of abandonment, fear, feeling unloved, unwanted, anxiety, and the list can go on and on.
Is this really the message we want to convey to our children?
So this is why we need to ask ourselves with an open mind if our culturally time honored traditions are really true principles or if they may actually be at the root of some of the problems we are facing with young people in our society today?
LOVING AND LIFTING
Principle:
You can't express or show real love too much.
Well, I guess that's not totally true, (I have seen a few parents who do go overboard, but not very often).
The reality is though, that most kids do not hear the words, "I love you", often enough, if ever.
They need to be told it at least daily. They need to be hugged, touched, have your arm put around them, and praised for the things that are important to them, way more often than we naturally tend to do.
They need to be told and shown that they are important to you.
Principle:
Expect the best out of them, not the worst. They will rise to the level of your expectations. (Or fall)
Since the time the first of our eight teenagers turned 16, we have told them, "Look, we understand that we are losing the power to control your life now, what with driver's licenses, school activities and many other things.
So here's the deal, if you will show us that we can trust you to make good decisions, we will allow you a tremendous amount of freedom to run your life. If not, we will have to start reeling it back in pretty quickly. "
That has worked extremely well for us. They are anxious to step up to the plate and prove that they can do it. Do they make an occasional mistake? Sure they do, but not very big ones.
When they do, we don't need to pound on them with discipline and consequences. Instead they are usually much more receptive to some mentoring at these times rather than correction.
Try calmly sitting down with them and asking them how they feel about the outcome that they got. If they're not happy about it then try honestly asking them, "Help walk me through your thinking process on that one and let's see if we can find the tripping point."
Use the 3 A's in your communication to them, (Accept, Approve, Appreciate) versus the 3 C's, (Criticize, Condemn, Complain). Be an uplifter vs a punisher.
Uplift, Encourage, Inspire.
Be the sunshine in their lives not the rain cloud.
EACH CHILD IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS
Principle:
Your children are each very different from one another and from you. Those differences were given to them by God and they are good.
As a parent/mentor you need to discover and honor their unique differences, talents, and gifts that are righteous. Teach them to magnify them rather than trying to make them fit your predetermined mold.
Principle:
Personality styles: There are 4 of them and every person has at least one, but more often a combination. These are very real and very different and we need to honor them as a God given gift to each person on this earth. They need to be honored and built upon, not changed to fit our personal mold of how people "should be".
I will promise you that the degree to which you are willing to study and become familiar with this concept will be directly related to the degree that you gain influence in their lives! It's that simple.
There are several books that we recommend on this topic. Personality Plus by Florence Littauer and The Child Whisperer by Carol Tuttle are the best starting points.
Principle:
Love and Respect
Learning that men and boys are fundamentally different from women and girls, not just physically, but emotionally and in many other ways is critical. In order to get the best results, we need to learn about this concept and understand how it should impact the way we parent our boys and our girls.
To put it into an over simplified nutshell, our women and girls need to feel LOVED and respected, but our men and boys need to feel RESPECTED and loved. Each has a very different primary need.
The Love and Respect concept is also a critical element in the husband and wife relationship. It is best taught by a book of that name. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.
Principle:
Love Languages
All people, including your children, feel or perceive being loved in at least five very different ways. If we do not understand this concept and work to apply it, we may never fully connect with some of our children or even our spouse.
The Five "Love Languages" are;
Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Acts of Service.
To best reach your child, you need to figure out which ones most resonate with them and learn to use them.
Take time to study the book on this subject. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.
READ TO THEM
Principle:
The power of reading good books.
Reading to your children 30-60 minutes every day will have profound positive consequences in your children's lives in many different areas.
Besides the more obvious outcomes of both teaching them how to read and teaching them to love to read by your example, there are several other, not so obvious consequences.
For instance, if you want your kids to behave better in public situations, like sitting quietly through an hour long church service with you, take time to sit on the couch and read to them for at least 30-60 minutes each day. Then, sitting quietly will become a normal activity for them that they do every day, instead of this annoying thing that their parents try to force them to do at this strange building once a week.
If you read the right books, something that teaches true principles in an enjoyable way, mixed in with the entertainment only type, you will subtly teach them that books are a great source of information that will help them direct their lives along a good path.
Also reading from the scriptures every day as a family by taking turns with the reading, even if you have to just have them repeat after you reading one word at a time for them, has a benefit outside of the obvious spiritual one. It is probably the best way to teach them how to read. They learn how to sound out hard words. They learn to not be afraid of big words that they may not understand. Their vocabulary is expanded far beyond anything they will learn at school. Their ability to read swiftly and smoothly is vastly enhanced, etc.
Reading with your kids is one of the most powerful gifts that you can give them. Plus it is one of the very best opportunities to spend both quantity and quality time with them.
CHANGE YOUR THINKING
Principle:
Get rid of all of your "victim mentality" thinking and teach them to do the same thing.
Take total responsibility for all outcomes in your life. No matter who might do something "bad" to you, the only positive solution is for you to own the problem and take responsibility for fixing it.
No one else will ever fix it for you! That means especially not the one who may have perpetrated it on you. So move on, take the bull by the horns, find an appropriate solution and begin to implement it.
Principle:
You can't have quality time without quantity time!
Quality time is an outgrowth of quantity time, not a replacement for it!
Love is actually spelled T-I-M-E to your children.
It can't be replaced by Money, Gifts, Opportunities, Toys or many of the other things that we try to use to show our love to them when we think we are too busy to spend time with them.
If you feel like you are too busy, then you need to cut back on something else, like work, not on time spent gaining influence with your children.
Principle:
Inspire curiosity in the world around them! Teach them to ask why, what, how, and where types of questions about their surroundings. Then show them where to find the correct answers.
Best case scenario.....do it with them.
PUBLIC BEHAVIOR
Principle:
Because many parents struggle with their children having behavior problems during church services, (Yes including us) here are some principles that will foster good behavior at church.
Get there early. Yes it can be done. When you are not disciplined about getting to church on time, if not early, it sends a subconscious message to your kids that this whole church thing really isn't as important as we say it is. It says that, if something else gets in the way, it's okay for church to take a back seat.
It's humorous to watch that when we change the time of our church services from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon, that the same families who couldn't get there on time before are still the stragglers when they had 3 more hours to get ready.
This is not a criticism my friends, simply an observation that should give us cause to think through how we prepare for this time that we say is important to us.
Think about this, if we plan to get there 15 minutes early each week instead of just being on time, and the usual little things come up that make us 5 minutes late, then we will actually still be early!
How can we help the process to go more smoothly?
Prepare on Saturday. Use Saturday evenings to bathe the kids and get their church clothes located and laid out. Prepare the purses and diaper bags, etc the night before. Have your own clothes chosen, gathered and laid out Saturday night.
Husbands help! Or better yet, lead out!
Don't treat Sunday as a day to sleep in. It sends the wrong message to your kids. Get up early if you have to. If you are consistently late for church, make it a point to get up and start the entire routine 30 minutes earlier. Take a nap after you get home.
Just making it a priority to get there on time because you want to instill in your children how important the gospel of Jesus Christ really is, makes it worth whatever effort you have to make.
Husbands help! Or better yet, lead!
Remember the principle that we taught earlier that making a habit out of sitting down and reading daily with your kids mentally prepares them to be able to sit quietly for extended periods of time.
If a child is acting inappropriately during the meeting and you feel the need to take them out, here's a hint that works well. Make sure that going out to the foyer or hallway is less enjoyable than staying in the meeting.
Now I don't mean to take them out and punish or scold them, but don't make it more fun to go out in the hallway because they get to run around and play. Instead simply hold them quietly on your lap or walk around with them and look at pictures or talk to them quietly about the Savior. After all that's why we are there in the first place.
If they get to go out in the hall and play and have fun because they behaved poorly in the meeting, shouldn't it be obvious that they will quickly learn that pattern and use it to their advantage anytime their little mind remembers it? If I misbehave, I get to go play in the hall. Hmm.....see how the little mind might work here?
Be thoughtful and deliberate about what you bring to the meeting for them to play with. The entire purpose of our being there is to quietly worship the Savior. Therefore the things that we bring to entertain and engage our small children should be pointed in that direction. If we bring superhero or military action figures or fashion dolls in skimpy costumes or dolls with angry rebellious faces, what sort of play thinking are we stimulating in our child's mind?
Worse yet, please don't just give them your phone or tablet to play games on just because it keeps them quiet. If they are being quiet but running around shooting bad guys and hitting them over the head, is that enhancing their gospel experience or otherwise?
Why not bring books, pictures, toys etc, that focus their minds on something spiritual and quiet instead?
For us, sitting at the front of the chapel instead of the back cut way down on the distractions that were visible to them. It also kept the speakers and other parts of the meeting that are important as the main thing that they could see and hear.
If you have a particular pair of siblings who love to poke and prod each other, separate them before the meeting starts. One gets to sit by Mom and the other by Dad who, I recommend, are sitting together instead of separated by the brood.
Keep snacks to a minimum, they will survive for an hour! They want a snack during church because we teach them to. Also choose something that's not crumbly, smelly or messy and be courteous enough to clean up before you move on.
These are just a few things that really helped us and most of them are based on some true principle, that when we put it into play, solved a very significant problem.
CONCLUSION
Nobody will ever be able to create a complete list of all of the true principles involved in good parenting. It's just not possible. What we hope to do with this list is to identify some of the most important ones, especially the ones that are most frequently missed or violated.
We also realize that we can't reach all of the parents in the world. What we can do however is to reach those who will listen and to start the process of change in their own families. Hopefully we will do so in a way that will produce much better results throughout the next several generations of their families. That way we can potentially make the lives of thousands more people better and more fulfilling.
We will continue to update this list as we remember something that we have forgotten or as we discover a new principle that is significant and important.
We hope that this will prove to be a valuable resource for your family for many years to come.
