Have you been following along with our marriage articles the past few months? I hope these have been helpful! Today is our final post about marriage for the year. There’s a bit of a twist because this article is intended to encourage you and your spouse as you parent together.
What has parenting looked like for you? Has it been what you expected? I’ve never met a parent who says they have it all figured out or that they feel 100% confident in all their parenting decisions. What I hear far more often, and identify with myself, is that we are desperate for God’s wisdom and guidance, strength and patience.
What are some struggles you are facing in parenting right now? Are you and your spouse on the same page in parenting? In what ways has parenthood impacted your marriage? What are times you have felt more confident and good about your parenting?
For Mark and me, we have felt more peace in parenting when we have a vision for the future. This often comes from a lesson we are gleaning from Scripture or when the Holy Spirit speaks to us through a mentor. The change and peace comes when we actually apply the knowledge we have learned.
I request wisdom from the Lord frequently. Even this morning my prayer was inspired from James 1:5 (NIV):
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
Lord, I lack wisdom in parenting. I am desperate for your guidance, leading, and clarity. I trust you and I humbly ask for you to lead me and empower me to follow You well! Please be near, dear, and clear. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen!
As a parent, I want to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. John 15 teaches me that I don’t become any of these things by focusing on a certain character trait. Instead, I remain in God and stay connected to Him as a branch is connected to the vine. He invites me to agree with Him and seek Him for help, but He also empowers me to desire and work on growth for His good pleasure!
For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 (AMP)
Keeping that verse in mind as our foundation, I want to share five takeaways I’ve learned from guests on The Savvy Sauce. I consider them to be people who mentor and disciple me through generously sharing their expertise. I pray these are helpful applications for you today, as long as we both agree that effective, beneficial application only comes from the overflow of the Holy Spirit’s work in us. It would be such a miss to leave out the power behind these applications! All it takes is turning to God and asking Him to help us. If that is already true of you, then I hope these serve as faithful reminders to stay the course, not grow weary, and recognize the incredible stewardship responsibility we have before us as we raise up the next generation.
First, Sue Heimer has been a repeat guest on The Savvy Sauce. She is funny, practical, and a mother to four grown sons. Early on her husband encouraged them both, “Let’s be real intentional to purpose to enjoy every stage and season of life to the fullest with our children and not wish them away.”
Focusing on this reminder helped Sue because parenting was so much harder than she initially thought! In the episode Practical Parenting Tools, She shares ways she purposed to enjoy her children, including:
- Tracking her triggers right after losing her temper and then noticing patterns to problem solve. She admits this was not the first thing she wanted to do in the moment, but writing it down on paper made the trigger objective and then peace returned to their home as she proactively problem-solved places in her life that were likely to become triggers.
- Sue also created a filter of multiple questions she had to answer before saying yes to anything. She ran every request through this filter and it always provided insight and clarity into her situation so she knew if she should respond with a “yes” or a “no.” One example of her questions is “Is this an absolutely necessary obligation at this season of life?” For instance, she does not believe we should “be taking pot roast, carrots, and potatoes to the neighbor down the street when our children are home eating Spaghetti-Oh’s!”
Second, Elizabeth Pehrson is a non-profit leader, devoted wife, and mother to eight children who she birthed within the first eleven years of marriage. She and her husband agree there is “No greater responsibility than the raising of the next generation and we are just simply imperfect parents raising imperfect kids and doing the best we can right alongside everybody else.” She has so much wisdom to share in Effective Parenting for Toddlers Through College Part One and Part Two.
Elizabeth and her husband have grown to be both proactively organized and reactively flexible. This includes practical steps, such as:
- Expecting daily chores to be completed, beginning at age three. Their family white board has a list of delegated chores listed out under the words “Because we feed and clothe you . . .”
- When her children turn eight “they are no longer consumers, they are contributors.” Their chores amp up on their eighth birthday. This includes being responsible for their own laundry, making their own bed and washing their own sheets. They are also expected to help with dinner. These additional chores didn’t go unopposed by her children, but later they thanked her for it!
- She has also learned the art and gift of being flexible when plans constantly change for her family of 10!
Third, Dr. Jennifer Konzen taught us to not lessen our discipline rather, “up your fun!” Dr. Jennifer Konzen is an author, speaker, and Christian sex therpist. She has been a repeat guest on The Savvy Sauce, and her parenting episode was titled Enjoying Parenting and Managing Conversations About Sex.
- She noticed parenting went much better when she intentionally delighted in her children. Discipline was frequent and necessary, so she had to intentionally spend time with each child doing something outside of disciplining them. For her and her husband, they made sure each child had one-on-one time with at least one parent every week. The memories have been precious to her as her children have grown up and launched out of her house.
- Her other practical tip for enhancing your enjoyment of the relationship with your children is to teach them to have great conflict resolution. She pointed her children to Matthew 18 for a biblical model of resolving conflict.
Fourth, Dr. Rob Rienow is a hilarious and inspiring teacher on the topic of families and parenting. He believes “Satan and the demons absolutely do not want you praying as a family or praying with your kids asking for God’s help in your family relationships because if you go and ask God for help, He’s going to help you!”
- In Visionary Parenting and Grand-Parenting, Rob shares four action packed times of day when God tells us our children are particularly tender and more open to our instruction. He also addresses the spiritual forces against us in parenting when he suggests, “One of the real priorities I think that Satan and the demons have is to keep you functioning with your good intentions and your will power.”
- His episode walks us through how we actually move from good intentions to God-empowered transformation.
Fifth, Daniel Huerta is Vice President for Parenting and Youth, at Focus on the Family. He is experienced in working with children and families of all ages.
- In Parenting 0-18, he lays out specific warnings against drifting into becoming a child-centric home. He admits this can be easy to do and we may assume it is in our child’s best interest, but as a counselor, these are the families who often end up in his office during the teen years, seeking ways to recover.
- He encourages us to counteract child-centered homes in this way: “The goal is to create empathy, humility, generosity in children early on. Helping children be able to see the feelings in other people and to respond to those feelings – not that they take ownership of that – it’s to understand and empathize in the feelings that other people have to see beyond themselves. A child as early as eight months can experience and begin to build empathy and that’s a building block towards empathy. If you develop that early on in life, you will see children that are relationally intelligent as they grow older.”
If you are looking for more parenting resources, here are some additional podcast episodes I recommend. I encourage you to read through these titles and choose one to listen to this next week:
Finding Your Purpose as a Mom with Courtney DeFeo
Self-Care in Motherhood with Karen Stubbs
Managing Family, Career, and Health with Leslie Neslage
Promoting a Family Culture of Reading with Megan Kaeb
Talking With Your Kids About Sex with Brian and Alison Sutter
Joys and Challenges of Motherhood with Podcaster and Author, April Hoss
Technology and Parenting with Arlene Pellicane
Guiding Our Children Through Their Emotions with Julie Roth
Making Family Memories with Jessica Smartt
Ways to Enjoy Summer with Your Family with Krista Gilbert
Building Love Together in Blended Families with Ron Deal
Parenting All Temperaments with Jenny Boyett
Intentional Questions to Ask Our Kids with Susan Seay
Connection and Correction in Parenting with Chad Hayenga
Temperaments and Power of Words in Parenting with Kathleen Edelman
If you enjoy reading, there are trusted books I recommend on our parenting resources page. Again, choose one to start with that sounds like it would apply to the current situation you are in. Make sure you also join our email list to receive all these articles in your inbox!
I am encouraged by your desire to parent more intentionally and to parent with full dependence on God. I pray you are strengthened, equipped, and energized in your endeavors in parenting today and always!
Love you,
Laura
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