Month: October 2017

When I was young and before I got married, I worked at Focus in the Family.  I worked there for five years and one of my responsibilities was to listen to the broadcast and write a summary for our phone staff.  I also read all of Dr. Dobson’s books and articles to make sure our phone staff had all the info they needed to be able to answer the phones. That’s a lot of Dr. Dobson.  Sometimes, I tease that I don’t know if I have an original thought regarding parenting or marriage or it’s just that Dr. Dobson is fully programmed in my head.  One of the things Dr. Dobson always said was, “Be a student of your spouse and your children.”. What he meant was that we are to study and know those loved ones.  Not just spend time with them or even spend time teaching them, but to spend time watching them, learning their nuances, their love languages, their personalities, their likes and dislikes.  In studying them we begin to know them at a deeper level, we are able to help them, support them and even do a better job teaching them.  

We have had a fall break and drove to Seattle, WA for a family wedding.  I personally think a road trip is one of the better times for this type of study. Musical tastes, topics of conversation, how they handle stress or exhaustion are all telling.  Even a morning at a beach reveals traits. Collin looks for the perfect skipping rock and analyzes and rejects stones until he finds one that is suitable.  After he throws the rock, he analyzes his throw, the trajectory and determines how to make the next throw better.  He is continually thinking strategically and is planning on how to makes things, schedules and situations better. Caileigh is infinitely curious. She looks for new and interesting things and then wants to show someone her findings.  She and her Dad zigzag slowly across the beach stopping frequently for something noteworthy or beautiful. She searches continually and then wants to know why or how it works.  She is the one who also has facts about almost anything biological at her fingertips.  

I usually fall back and watch my kids.  I note their interests, what grabs their attention, and I file the info to think about later.  I use this information to help tailor curriculum, to help direct them into activities and ultimately to help my kids as they chose colleges, majors and careers.  It’s funny how often I still help Connor in some of these.  He wants me to talk through some of the tracks and internship opportunities he has. Generally, I just repeat the things he has told me about his classes or how certain things he enjoyed and others he hasn’t.  We talk through his God given personality traits and where he needs to stretch a bit. None of what I say is earth shattering, it’s just that I have studied, noted and spent time analyzing my kids and then I can use that to help better support them.

Even with little ones this is effective.  It’s how we decided what to buy for Christmas.  Scott and I would take them to a toy store and let them play and watch what they gravitated to. We didn’t necessarily buy anything but we spent time watching. They may say they want that ‘cool’ new toy but if they spend only a minute or two looking at it and then they spent 20 minutes rebuilding the wooden train set, there was no way I was going to buy the ‘cool’ toy.  

This type of study is also useful is discipline and correction.  Personally, I think a negative consequence is far more useful if it’s meaningful to the child.  Losing technology was brutal for Connor, Caileigh hated isolation and Collin dislike losing the freedom to do what he wanted. I also used this strategy in developing positive consequences for each child.  If Caileigh stayed focused during school and worked hard, we would do an art project. Connor could have an equal amount of computer time each day as the amount of time he spent in piano practice and foreign language. Collin could watch Stars Wars or play video games with Daddy on Friday if he did all of his chores. One size does not fit all. Our expectations and rules were all the same but how we achieved them were not, they were tailored to meet each child’s needs. 

Dr. Dobson is completely right.  To be the parents ( and spouses) that God wants us to be we must be students of our loved ones. 

When my kids were in Elementary and Middle School we always started the day together.  We talked through prayer requests, prayed together, did Bible together, and started our day together.  When Connor hit high school, his curriculum was designed to be independent and I had only planned to meet with him once a week.  It took me three days into the new school year to decide that I really dissliked that and we changed the structure before the next week started.

Since that time, we have a corporate Morning meeting and then I touch base with each of my kids through out the morning.  Obviously, that was more difficult when Connor was in high school and the twins were not, but it was so much better. 

During the corporate Morning meeting we –

• Talk through prayer requests
• Pray together
• Read poetry – we read the Children’s Book of Poetry and/or the poetry books included in high school
• Talk about current events- my kids are supposed to read at least 3 news article a week and be able to summarize them. We then discuss. 
• Go through our daily schedule and events
• Read aloud. We have read everything from Lord of the Rings, Susan Wise Bauer’s, ” The Story of Western Science” to “A Christmas Carol”. 

Daily Individual Meetings-

I have tried to read at least one to two books in my high schoolers curriculum so that I can have a thorough discussion with them and maintain a connection with their learning.  I also do all the Bible questions out loud instead of  having them write them so that I can make sure they are thinking through the Bible and keeping the Bible verses in context. We go over all their daily lessons and look ahead in their week so that I can help them begin to help them to prioritize their time.  I ask my kids to take thorough notes in math and science and at least once a week  I ask to see these notes to make sure they are thorough.

Does this take more time? Absolutely.  Was it difficult when I had a kid in high school, two in middle school and a pre-school niece at my house? Yes, yes and yes. 

To be able to do all of this and still be able to work with the pre-schooler and then do the twins history and science together, I had to have daily independent lesson plans made for each child.  Each child also had to be trained to keep going on the next task, even when they got stuck, to stay on task and had to learn not to interrupt Mom while she was with someone else.  Generally, individual meetings took less than 20 minutes and I would take questions between meetings. This also meant I needed to train my niece in blanket time.  If my kids were in Elementary, each child had a folder with their daily independent work in it.  Similar to workboxes, but took way less room. Folders had copywork, handwriting, spelling, daily math facts, and math ( if I didn’t need to teach anything).  If my kids finished with their folder, they were directed to read out of the book basket, practice the piano, or read their literature book from the General Reading List which they picked weekly or bi-weekly. 

I found that High Schoolers need more connection and help than the weekly meeting.  They also miss the being together (even if they refuse to admit it), and I find a lot of value in praying together.  I found that the daily accountability was really useful to my freshmen as they couldn’t quite handle that level freedom and needed my help in priotizing and keeping a schedule which included all their extra curricular activities. Training in keeping and following a schedule, making to do lists and looking over an entire weeks schedule has been really vital for my busy college student and my twins who are crazy busy all the time.  They get all their school work done, do their chores, study for Bible Bowl, maintain their social lives, and spend massive amounts of time in leadership at Robotics and have time to sleep because spent time in those early high school years teaching them how-to manage and maintain a schedule and much of that training happened in morning meetings.