My new blog is called “Souls in the Sandbox” and can be found here. I hope you’ll come join in the conversation over there!

“(Writing) is life at its most free…, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself… The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world , that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever…

A shoe salesman – who is doing others’ tasks, who must answer to two or three bosses, who must do his job their way-is nevertheless working usefully. Further, if the shoe salesman fails to apear one morning, someone will notice and miss him. Your manuscript, on which you lavish such care, has no needs or wishes. Nor does anyone need your manuscript; everyone needs shoes more. There are many manuscripts already – worthy ones, edifying and moving ones, intelligent and powerful ones.”

Indeed. And if there are many manuscripts out there, how many more blogs are out there in the world today? Somewhere upwards of 133 million, evidently. It’s insane. The world is flooded to choking with blogs, and we all need shoes more.

And yet I blog. I’ve been blogging here now for well over two years, and on I go. Thousands of Christian moms blog on parenting, and oodles of them do it way better than me. But after wondering about it and praying through what the heck I’m doing here exactly, and if it’s worth it (1 woman among 133 million), I’m still here. God’s given me ideas and the words to express them, and I’m a better person and mom when I do that. Truth crystalizes at the keyboard. The blurry comes into focus. It’s how He made me and a huge part of how He shows up in my life, so on I go.

The surprising part is the New Beginning part. After blogging here for two plus years about the young lives that reside here – new beginnings in the form of our four sweet faces – the blog itself is getting ready for a new beginning. I wasn’t looking for that and didn’t expect it, most of all in a season of having just added a fourth child and a homeschooled kid to the mix. But our God is a surprising God at times, isn’t He? And He’s been pretty clear about this, so off I go. New name, new look, new level of web-engagement, searchability, and potential exposure… Though same topics, same tone, same me. It’s a bit exciting, to be honest.

So here’s to a different kind of new life being born within the next week or two. Kind of interested to see where God might go with this in His time. I sure hope you’ll come with me to find out.

And that’s the truth. I wish I were a more naturally gentle person. And I wish I were more gentle with my children in my mothering. Don’t get me wrong, I have my gentle moments, and there are lovely quiet, warming moments that my kids and I do share. Moments in which I am (as dictionary.com states) “kindly, amiable, not severe or rough.” They just aren’t as plentiful as I’d like, not by any stretch.

Two verses jump to mind when it comes to gentleness:

The first is Matthew 11:29:“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Note that Jesus is saying to adopt his ways here, taking his gentleness upon ourselves as our very own character trait. It’s not only that we get to benefit from his gentleness of spirit, but also that we’re supposed to become like him in it.

And the second is Paul’s question to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 4:21: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?” It’s a rhetorical questions, by the way (in case that wasn’t obvious). Who would prefer a rod of discipline if they could get someone coming in love and with a gentle spirit? That’s not to say that at times a demeanor of discipline isn’t necessary – that’s Paul’s point in the question. But if a gentle communication can work, then there’s no need for correction, or a correcting tone.

But do I have my gentle spirit ready, with proactive nurture and affection on the front burner? Am I poised to use my gentle spirit, keeping it with me in my pocket at all times so I can whip it out quickly when the need arises? Too often I don’t. And the default mode of intense, annoyed, or even abrasive comes out and spills all over my children. I hate that it does (as, I’m sure, do my children and God too), but it does. My kids deserve a gentle mom, but too often they don’t get her.

So I’m setting out this fall praying each morning for a spirit of gentleness, especially with those in my household. Yes, the days are scrappy, but my attitude doesn’t have to be. God’s in the business of changing our hearts and making us more like Him, after all, and prayer works. So I pray,”‘Let my gentleness be evident to all‘ in my household today Lord,” and “Make me ‘humble and gentle, patiently bearing in love‘ with my children, O God.”  I’m in search of the gentle mom, and I want her to be me.

The format was simple. Here’s what we did:

–Announce the pending Kindness Celebration, suggesting a trip to the store to pick out all the ingredients for custom-made ice cream sundaes. Rousing approval of that notion.

–Spend all of dinner talking about what kind of sundaes everyone was going to have. In between, read the first half of the items on the list, praising the kindness of the do-er in each case. Review our kindness Bible verse: “God our Father is kind; you be kind!” (Luke 6:35, The Message)

–Go to the store, bring the ingredients home, and make the sundaes

–Read the second half of the items on the Kindness Chart aloud, again praising the kindnesses shown.

–Allow each child to share which kindness documented on the list s/he most enjoyed doing. Then allow each child to share which kindness s/he most enjoyed receiving. Finish by having everyone at the table recite the Bible verse together.

It was almost startling to see how exuberant the children were about the party and every little part of it. They adored it. And when we read the recorded kindness that they’d done, they both beamed in turn. And beamed again. And again. Our son, almost 6, actually said at one point: “It made me feel so good when you read that, I think I grew four inches!” (Clearly he got that line from a book. But still, it was adorable, and telling.)

We all know that positive reinforcement is important, and most of us have heard that it takes seven spoken praises to balance out on spoken criticism. But this exercise was an amazing opportunity to remember and specifically call out right actions performed by our children and actually celebrate them. To encourage the good and selfless moments that take place in sibling interactions, seldom though they may be in a given day. It was a chance to reinforce the good my husband and I see in our children, and to make a big deal about it. It was a perfect example of the kind of “building others up” that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4:29. Our kids were very built up by our little party and its events. And it gave them a chance to actually experience how good it can feel to do kind things for other people – not just in the doing of the kindnesses, but in the remembering of them.

This project was such a success that I’m contemplating covering several of the fruits of the spirit in this manner. Up next will, I think, be self-control as that is one area that our kids could use a lot of work. Stay tuned for more.

This year my son is participating in a Christian homeschool academy called Artios that meets every Monday morning from 8:45 to 12. This morning was his first day of school, and he was excited and nervous, as every kid is on that auspicious occasion. As we were driving up in the car, we talked through the school’s rules again and reviewed the kind of student he needs to be. Attentive, polite, respectful, obedient, etc. “Is it ok to be mean to other kids or to tease people?” I asked him. “What if the teacher tells you to do something you don’t want to do?” And the like. Surprisingly, he was very interested in this and wanted to ensure that there were no other rules he needed to know that we hadn’t covered. We talked about the importance of timeliness, and I assured him that I’d see to it that we arrive on time – despite traffic – because yes, being on time matters. When I pick him up afterwards and we debrief the morning, I will ask him about these things as part of the conversation.

A reputation, I was thinking as he and I talked, is built on such things as these. You behave righteously because God calls us to do so, not because you want to impress other people, but the impression you give to other people also matters. Because how you behave reveals the kind of person you are: polite or rude, obedient or defiant, attentive or spacey, timely or late, rowdy or calm, dependable or flaky. Is my kid viewed as a positive influence on people or a negative? The fact is that course of a person’s life is, to a real degree, shaped by the character traits he displays to the world. When a person hears my son’s name, what impression of him will come to mind? 

On the flip side, I engaged a new babysitter to take care of my other three kids this morning so that I could take my son to school, which is 35 minutes away. Having returned from a three-week vacation only 36 hours ago, I didn’t want to have to drag the little ones up in the car, have the baby miss her nap, and throw everyone out of whack just when I’m trying to help them re-acclimate to home life and schedules. When the sitter stopped in to meet us yesterday afternoon and get the lay of the land at our house, I thought about why I was willing to allow her into my home and my kids’ lives. It’s because she has a good reputation, that she was recommended to me by people I know and trust. She’s highly commended, and I believe my children will be in good hands with her. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t hire her.

My interaction with this woman just reinforced to me my own thoughts about reputation. Helping my kids develop a good one will benefit them in life, and that’s a huge deal. Thus, helping them grow in character and thus develop a good name is a big part of what we need to do as parents.

Proverbs 22:1 makes this point clearly: “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” Our culture tends to spend a lot of time and energy on the “silver and gold” side of things; let’s take the cue from this proverb and be people who are more concerned with building a good name for ourselves and our kids – names that will bring praise to our God – than on wealth.

Two weeks ago I was watching my nearly four-year old daughter and the “recital” for her ballet show (quotation marks not gratuitous). As this tutu-clad group of pre-ballet girls wandered vaguely but adorably around the room vaguely following the directions of Teacher Pam, my daughter stood shyly in the back with her hands in her mouth. It took her nearly ten minutes to begin participating in the group, though once she did involve herself she gave herself to it and enjoyed it. When I spoke with Teacher Pam afterwards, she said that she spent a lot of time watching for the first few classes and eventually, though coaxing, warmed up to the group and the activities. My friend, after a week of teaching my daughter’s vacation bible school class earlier in the summer, indicated the same thing: “She tends to hang back a bit and watch everything, taking it all in.” And yet, she was content, behaved appropriately, and had nothing but enthusiastic reports about both experiences (ballet and VBS).

My initial and knee-jerk response to watching the ballet event and talking to Teacher Pam was, I admit it, slight concern. Was she going to be a painfully shy or an overly cautious kid? Would she make friends in life? Would she do OK? It was a silly response, because  I know I have a perfectly lovely, relational, and even highly spirited child in this girl; she’s a fabulous and very competent kid. But suddenly I was faced with how different she is from me; our reactions to situations are completely opposite. And this feels a little unsettling to me, because I don’t totally know how to relate to or encourage her. I’m a get-in-there-and-tackle-things kind of girl who, even to this day, needs to work hard to quell my instincts to be overly talkative and directive. [And I still sometimes fail at this.] She, on the other hand, will sit quietly and watch everything for a long time before she feels comfortable entering the fray and fully participating.

“I was just like that when I was a kid,” my husband told me. “I disliked having to do new things, and I just wanted to take my time and check everything out.” He could completely relate to her and identify with her instincts. The introverted components of my daughter’s personal resonated completely with his own. Who knows if her temperament is melancholic, like his, or some place between his or mine? Only time will tell. But it really got me thinking.

Isn’t God amazing? That He creates us with such multi-faceted personality traits, and then puts us together into families to help each other, learn from each other, grow in patience toward the differences in each other. It reminds me of Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor 12 about the body of Christ being comprised from so many different parts.”If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” (v.17) Our family is a small version of the body of Christ, and just as Paul commended the church that “there is no division, and its parts should have equal concern for each other,” so is that true among the members of our household. (v. 25) We are varied and unique, but all equally valuable and treasured. We are gifted differently to do the different works that God has equipped us each individually to do in this world. When you think about it, it’s actually both beautiful and exciting. And that’s the message of the temperament book too – that we all have different trends and tendencies but they’re part of the tapestry of God’s beloved and carefully created humanity.

So sit and observe, then, my sweet daughter, until you feel comfortable and ready to jump in. Go slowly and deliberately in friendships, if you wish, and form few (at least fewer than I perhaps might) but may they be close ones. Move at the perfect pace that God designed for you, and may your confidence ever be in Him and His love for you as you go. I can’t wait to see how your dance, beautiful as I know it will be, as it unfolds throughout your life.

This week she turns two. Seven hundred some-odd days of waking up with this small person in our house, sharing our moments and days with her. Her playful smile and extroverted personality, her inquisitive spirit. Her humor and show-offy antics win the affection of strangers as much as family members. “What a happy child!’ everyone comments. And she is. She is a joy.

I was struck this week with the extravagance of the privilege we mothers hold in being able to know our young ones so well, have such an inside track on their development and emerging personality. I know the silence upstairs that likely means my toddler has gotten into trouble. I know the noise she makes when she needs the potty. I can interpret her cries – frustrated, hurt, angry, tired. One morning as I was translating a few new phrase of her particular “dialect” to her father – “No, she’s saying, ‘Watch this, Daddy!’” or “That means, ‘More milk please,’” – I was struck by the wonder it is to hold this role in the life of another human being. We are witnessing the unfolding of a one-of-a-kind human that God created with His own hands in His image. And no one else gets a front-row seat like this, at least not as close as ours. Nowhere near. It’s amazing.

That we get to witness this process, and not only witness the development of a person but help train and direct this soul – this baby becoming child becoming adolescent becoming adult – is remarkable. Why should God give us such a privilege? He need not have. But He does.

“From the fullness of His grace we have all received one gift after another.” (John 1:16) And this child, as each of my children, are truly such gifts.

Happy birthday, my sweet and beloved two-year old girl. No one loves you more than your daddy and I do, except the Father above who made you. To Him be all the thanks, and all the glory.

It’s just so scrappy - such a scrappy life at this stage. So often there’s nothing smooth-sailing, orderly, or Potty Barn Kids about it. The chaos can (and should) be well-managed and directed, and appropriate structure and correction can provide reprieve and areas of calm and regrouping. And don’t get me wrong, lots of fun can be have in the midst of the scrappiness, so long as the mom has made up her mind that she’s going to plow through it with enthusiasm, a sense of humor, and a thankful spirit. But scrappy it will remain, as long as the children are present, numerous, and young. And all of us are going to have “panic room” moments sometimes in the midst of it.

Moms have different temperaments and dispositions, and different tolerance levels for scrappiness. Some downright enjoy it and thrive on the chaos. Some find it grating and exhausting and have to work hard to find coping mechanisms and adequate energy to face it. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m extroverted and activity-oriented, which is one reason having multiple young children at the same time appeals to me, but I’m also administrative and productive – and both those traits are enormously frustrated by the scrappiness of our daily lives. I notice when we gather as a group with several other moms and kids, especially if we’re trying to get something done (like at a field trip or in a co-op meeting), that some moms are absolutely fine for things to be falling apart in every corner, seeming to pay it no heed whatsoever. Other moms – and I’m in this category more than the first – are frustrated or irked, to say the least.

But the scrappy life is part of childishness. Life with kids is scrappy; it just is. We’re dealing with small people who are just learning to manage themselves and make their way through life; who have significant needs in terms of food, sleep, and clothing (anyone else perennially have a missing shoe in their house?); and have abundant but inconsistent energy. We were just as scrappy as they were when we were their age.

So let’s chalk it up to lessons in perseverance, shall we? “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4) The trials the scrappy life are small in the grand scheme of things, yes, but they’re never-ending and crazy-making nonetheless, so let’s suck the spiritual meat out of this bone and apply it to our lives…

Or how about the cultivation of gentleness? “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” A mom who can maintain a gentle and patient spirit in the face of scrappiness is a mom in whom the Spirit of Christ is hard at work – as we all aspire to become.

And most of all, a prayerful spirit leaning on Christ for strength. “God, give me strength and joy to not just face the scrappy day that will undoubtedly face me tomorrow, in some form or another, but to relish it and my children in the midst of it! Help me glorify you through the scrappiness.”

I’ve blogged before, especially in my post Practice makes perfect, about how several of the parenting authors I admire encourage this and clearly spell out the spiritual importance of doing this. In Don’t Make Me Count to Three, Ginger Plowman says:

“It’s important to rebuke our children when they do wrong, but it is equally important, if not more important, to walk them through what is right – to put off as well as to put on (referencing Eph 4:22 – 24)… First, work through what a biblical response would have been.  Second, have the child follow through with it…  When we correct our children for wrong behavior but fail to train them in righteous behavior, we will exasperate them because we are not providing them with a way of escape.  This sort of neglect will provoke them to anger…  Anytime you correct your child for wrong behavior, have him walk through the right behavior… Pull out what is in the heart of your child, work through how your child can replace what is wrong with what is right, and then have your child put what he has learned into practice.”

Fine. All review so far. Here’s the new part: I was recently startled to discover that I was completely overdoing this, especially when it came to sibling conflicts. Example: son takes away daughter’s toy, daughter cries, I correct the situation, ensure that son gives toy back and apologizes, and that daughter verbalizes forgiveness of the transgression and (if she was rude in turn, which often occurs) repents in kind. This type of thing might happen five times in a day; on a bad, bickery kind of day perhaps up to ten.

Then in Boundaries with Kids I read this passage:

“Every time I sat down to read the paper or talk to my wife, I’d have to drop it all and play judge. The boys relied more and more on (us). ‘Let’s change this deal,’ I told them. ‘From now on, nobody comes to me or Mom unless you’ve spent some time working it out between you. Try to fix the problem. Then, if it isn’t better, you can come to us. But if you do come to us, the person who was wrong will probably suffer a consequence.”

That one little example was a real eye-opener to me. Of course my kids have fallen into the habit of relying on me to arbitrate their tussles for them; I did it every time. They knew that I’d step in and correct the wrong-doer (or -doers), walk them through the repentance and correction exercise, and seek to restore order. They were becoming lazy about it. Often they played the victim, and they were generally unmotivated to be proactive in working through their own problems.

So I followed suit. Now when I hear a disagreement cropping up I say: “You two work it out together and figure out a way works OK for both of you. If you can’t figure it out, you come tell me but you might not like how it turns out.” And they have. It’s not perfect and I still have to step in (needless to say, I monitor how they work out their ‘solutions’) and correct. But more often than not a more constructive thing happens between them than would have if I had stepped in and directed the ‘solution’ in the old way.

Turns out that I was so focused on correction and rehearsal of the right way to behave that I lost sight of empowering my children to work out their own sins and problems. It wasn’t that they didn’t know the right thing to do (requiring me to instruct them in it), it was just that they weren’t doing it. In stepping in and overseeing their do it over the right way, I was actually robbing them of the opportunity to practice figuring things out on their own. By raising my expectations for their relational skills, I’m teaching them to become more proactive in solving their own problems and giving them room to grow in this area.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about anger, and how to respond when my kids are angry. I deeply appreciated Elizabeth Kroeger’s insights about children’s anger and blogged about it, in relation to toddler temper tantrums. Kroeger’s takes issue with the commonly held idea that there’s nothing a mother can do about a kid throwing a fit except ignore it, wait it out, or require him to do it elsewhere. In Raising Godly Tomatoes she writes:

“I see only evil in the uncurbed display of rage, selfishness, and wilfulness…. I am obligated to step in and curb temper tantrums and any other kind of wrong behavior… I do not allow temper tantrums in my home and so even if my children are frustrated, they do not have them (beyond the first few times they try, anyway). I teach them to ask me for help if they need it, and never to get angry and throw a fit just because they can’t do something. The bad habit of quickly losing their temper can be far more easily overcome (in a toddler) than in any proceeding year… The longer you pacify a child in this area (by comforting, ignoring, or distracting) the worse the situation will become. The longer you let it go on, the harder it will be to stop and the more tantrums you will have to deal with.”

Kroeger then goes on to describe her method for nipping tantrums in the bud, a strategy which has worked well for me on many occasions – including the one I described in my “What’s on the Other Side of that Temper Tantrum?” post.

Her assessment and conclusions on anger are compelling, and they convinced me that I should immediately and thoroughly quell any wrong-headed anger I saw in my children (and the wrong-headed kind, as most moms will likely tell you, constitutes the vast majority). I sought to train them that getting mad and throwing a fit because something didn’t go their way wasn’t acceptable – and to show them that they could harness self-control even when their instinct may be to tantrum. Fine.

Problem was, it didn’t work, at least not like Kroeger describes it. The methods she describes didn’t eradicate our children’s temper tantrums; my son in particular has lately begun throwing more fits (at age 5 - as described here) than perviously, despite my zero tolerance policy for this behavior. Still I continued in ambushing, outlasting, corner time, and the like. “Nothing good can come from his being allowed to hold onto that angry spirit,” I told myself. So I pressed on in the same way, and nothing improved.

But God’s been speaking to me about this lately, and some new thoughts have been occurring to me. Here are a few:

1. When my child is angry and unwilling to lay down his anger despite my telling him to, then a dynamic is created where I begin mirroring him. He wants to tantrum; I want him to stop. He won’t stop; I keep trying. I’m intent in prevailing over him with my way just like he’s intent on persisting with anger. We both want our way; we’re both intent on control. Even though my end goal is righteous and his is unrighteous, this loses importance if we’re both angry in our hearts  in the midst of the standoff. And it’s very difficult to eschew an angry heart in an extended power struggle with an unrepentant kid who’s intent on showing you how long he can hold out with his tantrum.

2. There are different ways through which children let go of their anger and come to a place of calm and repentance. The ambush-style efforts that Kroeger advises can actually exacerbate and inflame the anger of some children, making the situation more intense and increasing the negative emotions and behavior the mother’s seeking to quell in her child. Requiring the child to leave the room, removal of privileges, or offering a choice that may motivate the child to let go of his anger are not intrinsically “wrong” ways to address a child’s anger, so long as he is not simply being pacified or placated.

3. Processing through anger and coming out the other side actually can be a useful and beneficial exercise for children in some cases (particularly true, it seems to me, for children past the toddler stage). Kroeger’s methods seek to extinguish the spark of temper before it alights and becomes a full fire – a worthy goal. However, sometimes there’s no chance – the fire’s already alight. What’s more,  kids can actually learn from the process and emotions of anger, figure out how to manage it themselves (as opposed to their mom forcing them to), and come out the other side. Should they be allowed to rage and stew and hold a household hostage? Absolutely not. But neither should they always be told that they’re not permitted to have the feelings they are having.

In my recent reviewing of Boundaries with Kids, I came upon several passages that struck me (see bold).

“It takes trial and error and lots of effort to find what losses and consequences matter to the child. We change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing…

Problems come from the tendency to avoid the pain of the momentary struggle, the pain of self-discipline and delaying gratification. If we learn to lose what we want in the moment, to feel sad about not getting our way, and then to adapt to the reality demands of difficult situations, joy and success will follow…

Teach your children that pain can be good. Model facing problems. Model being sad but continuing onward. Empathize with them about how hard it is to do the right thing, and then still require it… When children learn to value the pain of life instead of avoid it, they are ready to solve their problems. But what you want is for the child to be proactive in the process.“

In my son’s case, I realized that I’d set up a paradigm where my prohibiting and trying to eradicate his anger was making tantrums seem all the more appealing to him. The methods I was using to address his anger weren’t especially “painful” to him, and he wasn’t learning to actually exert self-control to curb his anger. He was reactive against me and my wishes, not proactive in learning to manage his impulsive emotions. And the notion of learning to “be sad but continue onward” was not penetrating in his psyche in any way.

So my husband and I have begun experimenting with other methods of addressing our son’s anger, and we’re seeing fruit. I’ve abandoned the notion that “nothing good can come from his exercising anger” – because I think it can, and because God is the one ultimately responsible to confront his heart and convict him of his sin. I’ve also abandoned the notion that his becoming angry and tantrum-y is somehow a huge red flag, something that I  need to drop everything and address with my whole attention and focus, something scary and wildly concerning. I believe in him, that he can learn to address this tendency in himself – with our help and God’s leading – and come out the other side. It may take time – it likely will – but that’s ok.

This isn’t to say that I let his anger slide – that I overlook it or let him prevail in sin. I just address it in different ways, and I don’t strive to shrink or reverse his anger  the way I once did. Instead I work with my son to own it and to learn to overcome it, with God’s help. And most of all, I let it go and entrust it to God, praying that his tendencies to be”quickly provoked in his spirit” will be overcome while he’s still young.