raising our little man

These and other thoughts have been rolling around like marbles in my head. I have been wanting to gather these marbles for weeks now, so I can sort them and ponder the philosophy/theology behind them. And then put them to use.

I feel that raising a Little Man may be a slightly different than raising a girl (to some extent). But with either we want and pray to raise a leader, strong, steady, secure and rooted, gospel-centered child of God.  We want him to desire to know more of His Creator Savior. We want to teach him to be a kind, compassionate, tender, loving person who is caring to all humanity; to show genuine interest in others. We want him to thrive as a good communicator. Our list of hopes and dreams for his little life could go on and on.

Little Mr. is so privileged to have a godly, steady, and loving Daddy in his life. And he has also been blessed with a rare treasure of very wise and godly Grandpa's. He has multiple men in his immediate family whose example is worthy of imitation. We are so grateful.  We will urge him to study these people (including Auntie's and Uncles) closely, and learn from them. God has richly blessed his heritage.

Like any other mommy of a little boy- I want to protect him, shield him from hurt and pain. I don't ever want him to climb too high and fall, or peddle too fast and skin a knee, or jump down and split his lip, but all of this comes along with the territory I hear. I'm sure we'll make it through; but I will be praying for extra protection over him quite often I'm sure. (Being raised in a house with four girls didn't exactly prepare me for these types of things)!  :-)

One area I would like to be careful in is reprimanding and, if needed, giving consequences. Punishing my Small Man with respect is very important to me.  I want to love and punish/reprimand him, even at his early age, with respect. I took note in this area from a friend. Her son knows she is in charge, and she is the mommy, but also that she cares enough about his emotions and manhood to carefully, privately and patiently punish him. She try's to take him to a different room (to not shame him openly), it's between just the two of them. They discuss with words what happened, what his heart was feeling/doing, what Jesus wants him to do, and as necessary gives a consequence to him. And I think doing it like this protects his manhood, and teaches him to deal with confrontations in privet, and deals openly with his heart before Jesus. (This will also serve him well if he marries one day). Because Jesus alone can change his heart. Sure it takes extra time and effort, but I think it's worth it. I want to use these techniques with our son.

This next area is a little bit more of a 'teetry' subject: ways we as parents misunderstand our children. (I linked the article I read). For the most part Charlie and I would agree with this list. Our main underlying difference from the article is that we worship God- not our child. We will teach them that they are being trained to worship God alone, and we are helping them develop a heart that will desire to be under God's authority alone. BUT, that said, we still want to tenderly care and love them, treat them as real human beings and as values members of our family, not just as our "underling child". Another difference is the self esteem issue- a child should be rewarded for their real accomplishment (however small it is, if it was their best), not be deluded by praising/rewarding them for bad or mediocre behavior.  But those things aside- these things are so important to remember as a parent. I think it's contradictory to what many christian parent practice. (I feel all too often parents fall too heavy on the authoritarian, "I'm the parent, do it because I say" side). Here's the list, but click the link to the article for further explanation:

1. We expect children to be able to do things before they are ready.

2. We become angry when a child fails to meet our needs.

3. We mistrust the child's motives.

4. We don't allow children to be children.

5. We get it backwards.

6. We blame and criticize when a child makes a mistake.

7. We forget how deeply blame and criticism can hurt a child.

8. We forget how healing loving actions can be.

9. We forget that our behavior provides the most potent lessons to the child.

10. We see only the outward behavior, not the love and good intentions inside the child.

I've also noticed that parents who also tend to lean towards "authoritarian" often unknowingly provoke the child to anger. I ran across a blog post about this subject, and it's worth reading in it's entirety.  And another helpful book for me in this area was Grace Based Parenting, I posted about Grace Based living if  ya wanna read more.

In the post she quotes a list of ways we provoke our children to anger. But what I found very helpful was her "take off-put on" (like Ephesians 4:22-24 encourages) list: (I'm just listing my favorites here)

- By encouraging them and letting them know how pleased and delighted we are with them. By pointing out the grace of God in their daily life.

- By setting an example in our daily walk with the Lord. Modeling humility. By expecting the same standard out of ourselves as we do out of our children.

- By being loving and brokenhearted when they sin. By sacrificing our own comfort and to-do list for the day to bring them back to fellowship with us and the family. By reacting to their sin with a concern for their soul.

- By honoring them privately and, on occasion, publicly.

- By listening to their side and hearing the heart underneath.

- By bearing with their weaknesses and childishness. By being consistent in discipline for sin.

- By asking for forgiveness when we sin against them.

- By remembering who we were and who we are: fellow sinners with our children and (hopefully) co-heirs of Jesus with them as well.

I hope that you find these things worth pondering and praying over today. And together, with you guys, Charlie and I are praying for wisdom and grace as we raise our child(ren).


hugs! And much grace.