Guiding and Conduction II

We also need to guide our children in how to deal with challenging and frustrating situations Instead of whining and complaining while standing in line at the grocery store (or asking for every piece of candy on the shelf), try counting the number of other people waiting, or make up a story about what the food does at night when the store’s closed, or review school work, or practice scripture. Instead of hitting someone when they make a child mad, teach them to hit a pillow, or do jumping jacks, or go spend a few minutes alone to calm down. Instead of throwing something when frustrated with a task, teach them to write about their frustration, or jump on a trampoline, or talk about it. There are countless ways to handle difficult situations and express feelings. The goal is to teach appropriate behaviors that will be healthy and effective in handling difficult situations.

He who walks with the wise grows wise. Proverbs 13:20a

I must add, as a personal caveat, it is important that our children experience difficult situations and disappointments. As moms we generally tend to protect our children. After all, that is a large part of our job. However, if we want what’s truly best for our children, we must, must, let them deal with tough situations and decisions. We can, and should, model appropriate behaviors, talk with them about the situations, and guide them through them. But we should also let them struggle and figure things out a little. The only way our children are going to be equipped to hand hard times and choices (which they will face on their own eventually) is if they have practice working through come under our guidance. As painful as it is for a mom to watch her child struggle, it is the only way they will become stronger. We, of course, need to rely on God’s guidance and the instinct He’s given us as moms in deciding when to let them struggle and how much. As with everything there should be balance. We don’t want to leave them to struggle on their own with something they are totally unprepared and mal-equipped to handle. Our goal is to empower our children in small things so that they will be competent to handle the larger things as they come along.

Guiding includes giving a child words to use as well as showing them how to do things and handle things. Just as we desire to communicate effectively with our children, we want to teach them to effectively communicate with us and others. We can guide them in the proper (and pleasant) ways to say things in the same way that we guide them in physical tasks. It’s not “Give me milk.” It’s “Mommy, may I please have some milk.” It’s not “No, I won’t do it.” It’s “I’d rather not.” It’s not “Eww, Yuck.” It’s “I’d prefer not to eat peas.” It’s not “Sammy’s mean.” It’s “Sammy hurt my feelings by snatching my toy.”

Children often get frustrated, angry, violent, and have difficulty with others because they don’t have the tools to handle difficult situations or communicate in beneficial ways. Many of these things our children need our guidance in seem small, and will most likely have to be repeated many times, but put together they enable a child to feel self-confident and have healthy relationships. Like teachable moments to model and talk about appropriate behaviors, opportunities to guide children in replacing negative behaviors and words with positive ones are in great abundance. Each time a child gets frustrated when something’s not working the way they want it to is an opportunity to talk them through the problem calmly and showing them how to try it a different way. Each time a child gets angry is an opportunity to talk them through using their words to express themselves and resolve conflicts. Each time a child gets violent is an opportunity to express that violence isn’t appropriate and to talk through other ways of handling themselves. Each time a child is learning a new task is an opportunity to work along side them.

“By empowering children to accomplish tasks, you can teach them to work and to love work. You can help them develop skills and qualities of character that will benefit them in whatever they do throughout their lives. You can build your relationship with them as you work side by side. You can reinforce their desire and ability to accomplish something meaningful. You can help them learn to contribute to the family and prepare them to better contribute to the world.” Merrill

Guiding, like modeling and verbalizing, is something that becomes natural with practice. And your children will give you lots of opportunities to practice. Although each child is different in how they learn and how fast they learn, none of them learn everything the first time. Repetition is the key to instilling the behaviors you wish to see. And those moments when your child does exactly what you’ve been working so hard to teach them will come – and oh how worth the hard work it will all be!

Guiding and Conduction I

The next step in teaching our children is acting as a conductor. Just as a conductor guides an orchestra who has been taught through modeling and verbally teaching, we too are to guide our children. Guiding is showing our children how to do something by working along side with them. Children learn a lot by seeing and hearing, but even more by doing. It’s kind of like teaching a child to ride a bike. They see other people doing it, we explain how to do it, and we put them on the bike and hang on while they work at getting it. We’re right there beside them the whole way.

We should also work and walk along side them as we teach them things like respect, responsibility, integrity, patience, and faith in addition to teaching them things like the value of hard work, taking care of material possessions, and everyday tasks.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my research for this chapter is the importance of working along side of my children. I’m a fairly independent person (yes, despite my knowing the importance of living interdependently) and work hard at raising my children to be self-sufficient. As I read Merrill, the following statement really caught my attention and has changed how I interact with my children when I’m having them complete their chores. Merrill states that children “are generally far more motivated when their parents work with them rather than expecting them to work alone.” And if our children’s motivation isn’t enough, he further adds that as we “labor side by side with a child, (we) have a nearly unparalleled opportunity to model, mentor, listen to, express love for, and relate to that child in meaningful ways.” I don’t know about you, but I most certainly want to take advantage of those opportunities. I’m learning by working hard my children may respect me, but by working along side them they learn that I respect them, and that motivates them to work with me, obey me, and maintain a relationship with me.

It’s easy as moms to get distracted by the responsibilities that we have and forget this step in the process of teaching our children things. However, if we make the decision to intentionally guide them through things, we can accomplish more ourselves in addition to more effectively instill values and teach our children specific tasks. We should guide our children in chores, learning, relationships, spiritual growth, and fun activities. Telling children not to argue lets them know that arguing is unacceptable, but it doesn’t tell them how to handle conflicts. Telling a child to be patient lets them know that patience is valued and expected, but it doesn’t tell them how to wait patiently. Telling a child to clean their room may feel overwhelming unless their shown how to do it and worked with to do it. Telling a child to do their prayers or read their Bible gives values to these spiritual disciplines, but doesn’t let them know how. For a negative behavior to be stopped effectively, it must be replaced with positive behaviors. For positive behaviors to increase and be valued, we need to walk them through the process of those behaviors.