Make it personal « Orange Parents

PARENTING TOPIC: Make it personal

Want to Increase Your Child’s Self-Esteem?

Friday, January 6th, 2012

What parent doesn’t? I’ve not yet met a parent who’s said, “I hope to instill such a low sense of self-esteem in my kids that they struggle with self worth for the rest of their lives.”

Despite our best intentions, self-esteem issues arise in almost all of us. Why?

It’s not for lack of trying. Many of us offer endless streams of encouraging words to our kids. We pretty much hand out awards for everything from potty training to putting away their crayons to not skipping class in high school. We enroll them in non-competitive sports where every one’s a winner no matter how many goals get scored. (I tried to coach that kind of team once when my youngest son was six. Let’s just say my purpose on earth likely has little to do with coaching non-competitive sports.) In some circles, everything we tell our kids is designed to encourage them, even when maybe they shouldn’t be encouraged.

But self-esteem continues to be evasive, with a generation or two of kids who vacillate between unrealistically high view of themselves and a crushingly low self-esteem. Sometimes in the same child. Sometimes in the same child on the same day.

I want to make a strange connection: What if self-control and self-esteem are linked? What if the child who develops self-control also ends up developing self-respect?

Think about it. When do you feel best about yourself? I personally feel much better about myself when I:

Keep my word.

Eat healthy.

Work out.

Prioritize devotional time with God.

Treat people with kindness, even when I feel like doing otherwise.

Show up prepared and on time.

Exceed expectations.

Take responsibility rather than blame others.

What links every single one of these things is a very difficult-to-master virtue: self-control. When I practice self-control in all areas of my life (resisting impulses, making myself do things I don’t want to do, prioritizing my time and energy), my self-respect grows. By contrast, when I fail in areas like this, my self-respect and self-esteem suffers; I can get into an endless stream of self-defeating talk that’s hard to get out of. Until I practice more self-control.

See the link? Self-control and self-respect are perhaps a little more tied together than we might initially think.

As a result, if you want to grow a healthy self-esteem in your child, you might want to help them develop a healthy sense of self-control. Which is one of the reasons why what we’re talking about this month is so important. And why things like doing homework, helping out around the house, not acting on every impulse, or indulging every whim is an important part of every child and teen’s development.

Ironically, one of the best ways to develop self-esteem might not be to try to directly instill self-esteem at all, but instead to work on self-control. Better self-esteem, surprisingly, may follow.

Making Christmas Better

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

by Mike Jeffries

I’m writing this post from the Latin American nation of Nicaragua where, over the past few days, we’ve had an interesting international experiment in global generosity from the perspective of five young children.

Three families decided one of the best Christmas gifts would be to take their kids to work among other children in the this second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. (The average income in Nicaragua is less than $200 a month.)

One of the dads is a cardiologist who brought his seven-year-old son. He met his wife here on a mission trip when he was in college, so he wanted to show young James where Mom and Dad met. Another one of the dads brought his seven-year-old daughter, Isabel. He’s a news photographer so he and his daughter stood side-by-side, each with their cameras capturing unbelievable images. The third dad has been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan as a pilot in the Air National Guard, but got a week off to spend with his wife and three kids — 10-year-old Jacob, nine-year-old Gabrianna and seven-year-old Zach — and they decided to spend their vacation here in Nicaragua.

Each one of these families had the same objective: make their own Christmas better by making Christmas better for someone else.

Five kids, and three of them only seven years old.

They walked from dirt-floor shack to dirt-floor shack, mostly giving the gift of friendship and just being there. Sometimes they gave away candy….it’s difficult to measure how much of a sacrifice it is for a seven-year-old to give away his last Snickers bar. At home in the U.S., they collected school supplies: simple calculators, rulers, notebooks. They had lots of toys to give away…..mostly Barbies from Isabel and Gabrianna, sports equipment and toy cars from Jake, James and Zach. But the kids got the greater gift: a new view of the world that will change everything they ever experience in their lives, every single day from this day forward.

I’ve been part of dozens of mission teams, with team members as diverse as highly specialized surgeons and high-placed politicians to hundreds of bouncing-off-the-grasshut-wall high school students. But I’ve never quite seen what I’ve seen this week: elementary-age children seeing first-hand what it means to give up something they want so that someone else can have something they need.

Parents who’ve been on an experience like this know how powerful it can be for their kids, whether that experience is in a local church’s soup kitchen or in another country’s barrios. It’s been especially easy to see the virtue of generosity here on these dusty roads. The five kids are truly living out our definition of generosity: Making someone’s day by giving something away. They’re giving away the most important gift of all: themselves.

Mike Jeffries works with Reggie Joiner and Orange publishing initiatives and creative strategies. He’s also serves as an associate pastor at a fast-growing multicultural church in South Florida, specializing in global missions and communications.

The Lesson of the Ringing Bell

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

I’ll admit it. I battled a cynical attitude for the ringing bell. I would purposefully walk to a door on the far end of a store’s entrance just to avoid the clanking kettle and eager face petitioning my contribution. Internally, I wrestled both annoyance and guilt on seemingly every shopping trip through the holiday season. About three years ago it dawned on me that I would have some explaining to do if I kept the same attitude and avoidance. Nearing age four, my son’s social awareness and inquiries seemed endless.

Anticipating his potential questions on our weekly visit to the super store, I made the conscious decision to approach every bell ringer all season long with a smile and a donation. Almost immediately my son was excitedly asking for money when we pulled into a parking lot where he saw a bell-ringer ahead. Invariably the short exchange between the charity volunteer and my young son brought a smile to all three of us and spurred a follow-up teachable moment as my son pondered how his small offering may help someone in need. I found myself more joyous during the holiday season and throughout the otherwise inconvenient and laborious shopping excursions. It seemed ironic that these once annoying bell-ringers were now opportunities for happy moments for my son and me.

There is something contagious and counterintuitive during Christmas time. It is the fiscal period we require the most financially to cover costs associated with gifts, expensive meals, and a rising heat bill. Yet it is also the season we naturally turn to remember those less fortunate. What compels us to provide the food and presents for the family who otherwise would have little? What draws us to the toy we purchase and place in the fire station’s collection box? For me the answer is clear after seeing my son’s reaction to the bell-ringers. Infused in our DNA is the desire for both grace and giving. Any mother of a misbehaving child can attest to the innate and natural desire for grace. And the same is true for giving.

It took little explanation for my young son to develop an enthusiastic spirit to contribute when passing a bell-ringer. Similarly, he took great pride and delight in selecting a toy not for himself, but for a child whose name was posted on the church angel tree. Teaching my child to give wasn’t like teaching him to like asparagus! Indeed we are hard-wired to offer acts of goodwill and kindness. Our spirits often respond to our virtuous deeds with natural feelings of warmth and pleasure. This holiday season, may we all experience the joy in doing good.

Along with her husband and young son, Amy Fenton Lee lives in Cumming, GA. For more on Amy and her writing see www.amyfentonlee.comand www.theinclusivechurch.com.

Truly Grateful

Friday, November 11th, 2011

When my kids were little and someone would give them a cookie or a toy, I would always say, “What do you say Jack?” And his sweet little voice would say, “Thank you for the cookie.” Now that they are older, I listen for their “thank yous” and try my best not to prompt them. Something about reminding your 18-year-old to say thank you doesn’t go over very well.

But I want my kids to be more than well-trained and polite.

I want to nurture in them a truly grateful heart.

This is difficult. In our world, my kids have more than they will ever need. The number of gifts they receive for Christmas and birthdays is almost embarrassing. They are never in want and they have never experienced great loss.

How DO you nurture a grateful heart in the lives of children who believe that they SHOULD have everything they need?

Here are a couple of things to consider:

1. Don’t excessively give “stuff” to your kids.

You would think that the more you have, the more grateful you become. Because you have MORE to be grateful for. But somehow the opposite is true. Somehow the more we have, the more we take for granted. Strangely, when we have less, we are so much more grateful for each gift we are given.

2. Express sincere gratitude for the things YOU have been given.

As a parent, you need to go beyond the polite “thank you.” Talk to your kids about the things you are grateful for. Help them see what a difference that gift or that home cooked meal made for you and your family. Express gratitude for your health, your job and your family. Go beyond the stuff and express your personal gratitude for the bigger aspects of your life.

3. Teach your kids to take care of what they have.

When you are truly grateful for something, you tend to value and take care of it. Taking care of the things that you’ve been given communicates that you understand the value of the gift. It matters to you. You are grateful.

4. Instill in your kids the understanding that everything belongs to God.

This is the thought that we don’t own anything. It’s all a gift. Every breath? A gift. Our children? A gift. A warm home? A gift. Clean water? A gift.We don’t deserve these things. We certainly aren’t in control of these things. God has given them to us. They are a gift. Everything we have belongs to God. It is all in His control. It’s all a gift.

When your children are young, you are in the training phase. You are teaching them the “thank yous.” But when you go beyond “thank you” to really helping their heart understand that they don’t deserve what they have, you have the opportunity to raise children who understand that everything is a gift. And a day will come when they realize the true value of those gifts.

On that day? You will have a child whose heart is truly grateful.

What are some other practical ways to teach your children to be truly grateful?

Grace and Discipline

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

No one would pretend that raising kids is easy. It’s a constant tension between grace:

I love you.

I see value in you.

I will never quit on you.

And discipline:

You can’t write on the walls in crayon;

hit your brother on the head with a mixing bowl;

be out with the car til 5 a.m.

I know I feel the tension very deeply within me. Often I feel that if I express too much grace, I will lose the battle in trying to correct my kids’ behavior. It’s easy to withhold grace and love and communicate harshly thinking it’s the only way to teach them.

But that style communicates that love is conditional, that it’s dependent, that it’s only there if they measure up. And conditional love is not grace. Grace is undeserved kindness.

If we think about it, it’s also tension we feel within the nature of Christianity itself. And maybe working through our faith tension provides insight into how we might parent.

Christians believe we are saved by grace through faith—and not by our “works.” In other words, we can’t earn our salvation. You can’t be “good enough” to get into heaven, and the standard in eternity is not whether our good deeds outnumber our bad deeds. Christ died in our place for our sins, and our response is to trust Him with our lives.

This is so clear on the one hand, but confusing on the other. What about our deeds? Where do they fit in? Do you just ignore them? If they can’t save you, why would you change? Exactly how does that work?

Here’s the clarification on the faith front:

We don’t change in order to be loved. We change because we’ve been loved.

Liberating, isn’t it? You don’t change long-standing habits and patterns so that Christ will love you; you change them because He loves you.

As a husband and an adult, when I mess up, Toni can greet me one of two ways. She can start with grace or start with discipline. When she starts with discipline, I tense up, get defensive, and, if I don’t stop myself, will start to blame someone or something or dig for excuses. (Not proud of that, I’m just being honest here.)

But when she starts with grace and tells me she loves me, that she’s disappointed, that there might be a perfectly logical explanation, and she begins with empathy, I melt. I come clean. It’s so much easier for me to be genuinely sorry and resolve to change.

Are our kids any different?

What if we just adopted a stance of grace first, discipline second, as the default at home? What if we decided that change is a response to love, not a condition for it?

The best way I know how to do this is to consistently communicate in a way that gives the relationship value. Try this:

Don’t discipline when you are angry in the heat of the moment. Wait until you have calmed down. Even if you need to stop something in the moment, have the conversation when you are rational again.

Start with how you feel about them (that’s the grace part).

Then let them know how you feel about what they did and what the implications are (now the discipline).

And, in the same way we change most deeply because we’ve been loved, our kids can change because they’ve been loved.

What are you learning about this? What’s helping you parent and discipline with grace?

How to Make the Most of Your Summer Vacation

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Photo by Carey Nieuwhof

Chances are you’ve either got a summer vacation (or staycation) planned right now. For many of us it’s one of the highlights of summer.

The two words we most often use to describe this annual break are ‘vacation’ and ‘holiday’. Usually, we use the two terms interchangeably. But today, I want to explore how those two words used to mean something quite different. I think it can help us in our parenting.

The word ‘vacation’ is a middle English word, and about 600 years ago it literally meant ‘freedom from.’ It’s also related to ‘vacate,’ which means to leave empty or to go away.

And often that’s what our vacation is: an attempt to vacate or escape life for a week or two. Sometimes, we’ll even say a vacation was great because we didn’t think about anything significant or meaningful…we just got away and had fun.

Contrast that with holiday. In middle English, ‘holiday’ originally meant “Holy day.’ It was a day set apart to remember and celebrate a significant religious milestone. Throughout the Old Testament, the life of God’s people was peppered with holidays throughout the year designed to suspend every day activities so that people would remember the great things God had done for them.

So what’s the point of all this?

Well, as a parent, there are times you need a vacation. But increasingly, I find myself in need of holidays.

I need to do more than vacate. I need to reflect, pray, remember, restore, connect and build my relationship with God. I use time away to think through my life, my marriage, my character, my parenting, my relationships, my future. On the times I’ve done that, I feel like I bring more meaning back to my life and sometimes even a better self back to my life.

The fun part is that you can take a holiday while on a vacation. It’s more about your state of mind and the time you’ve set aside for yourself. To carve some holiday time out of a vacation:

Sit by the beach before the kids get up and watch the sun rise.

Set aside some quiet time in a day and bring your Bible and a pen.

Go for a hike.

Date your spouse…go out for dinner and talk about life, faith and relationships (not soccer practice).

Take a night for yourself.

Taking a holiday is as much about your state of mind as it is about anything else. What’s the best ‘holiday’ you’ve ever taken?

Duck Pond

Monday, June 20th, 2011

A single dad I know, let’s call him Rob, is trying to raise three teenage sons on his own. He works a full time job and then goes home to another one–raising his kids. He doesn’t get much of a break.

He’s got a great disposition (he’s one of those guys you just like being around.)And so do his kids. When you talk to Rob, you just don’t think he would have that many challenges or struggles. Everyone seems so easy going.

When we were chatting a few weeks ago, he told me about his duck pond.

“Some days are just so stressful,” he said. “Life and work can get complicated, and there are days where I just can’t go home and unload on the kids. But they have their own challenges and sometimes it’s just tense.

“What’s really hard for me as a single dad is that I don’t have a buffer. I don’t have anyone at home to talk to my day about, because the kids are not really an appropriate audience to hear every struggle their dad has.”

“So on rough days, I leave work and before I show up at home, I go to my duck pond. I’ll get out of the car and sit by the water’s edge and watch the ducks, sometimes even for half an hour. I’ll reflect on the day, process my issues, and draw a deep breath before I get back in the car to go back to the building where we live. It helps so much. Then I can face my boys and their issues. I need to be there for them.”

I have so much respect for Rob’s approach. It shows a maturity and a selflessness as a dad that I so admire.

Then he turned to me and said, “What’s your duck pond?”

That’s when I realized I wasn’t sure I had one. Sometimes, as a married dad, I can use my wife as that buffer. And sometimes my kids feel it too. Not that I talk to them about every issue, they just feel the shorter fuse.

But I’m not sure it’s fair to let your spouse or kids bear the full weight of your frustrations. They need me to give, not just take.

So, what’s my duck pond?

Well, I love biking. I bike regularly, but I think sometimes when I have a bad day, I’m just going to slip into the garage before I show up in the kitchen, head out on my bike and pedal my heart out and pray and reflect before saying a word.

What’s yours? Do you have a duck pond? How might your family be stronger if you had one?

Who Am I?

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

Photo by Mark Wilson

There is an age-old debate
that affects how I see myself.

Some say I am
broken
damaged
faulty

So I am stuck.

While others say I am
unique
special
gifted

So I can do anything.

And the controversy sometimes gets heated
While parents get confused.
No one is sure how to move ahead.

Some leaders say those who work at building children’s self-esteem are raising kids who will exhibit a lifestyle of entitlement and egotism.

Other specialists say those who talk about children being innately bad are raising a generation that feels inferior and insignificant.

Every expert has an opinion. Many promote their agenda by pushing the opposing opinion to the extreme.

It happens in
education
politics
economics
and even
religion.

Cults and heresies start by teaching what’s true, then push a truth to an extreme while separating it from other balancing truths.

We love to analyze, scrutinize, and dissect truths until they are twisted and some cases, lifeless.

By the time Jesus showed up in culture,
the Pharisees had systematically distorted what was timeless into a code of behavior for their generation.

So Jesus very carefully picked up the pieces of broken truth
and neatly re-arranged them with love in the center.

Then everything made sense.

Those who teach have a critical responsibility to present God’s truth in a way that
captures the imagination
engages the mind
appeals to the heart

It’s less about information and
more about transformation.

Christianity is a journey where you move in and out of recurring insights that collectively form a higher view of the world.

What are those insights?
They begin with understanding the
Design
Identity
Connection
of who you are.

You can add
Faith
Transformation
Truth
as you continue to discover how to live.

You will soon realize that the
Christian faith is paradoxical.

God is love.
But God is just.

We live by faith, not works.
But faith without works is dead.

I am broken.
But I am redeemable.
Both are true at the same time.

It is important to discover my untapped uniqueness in the light of my evident imperfection.
Understanding them both is essential for my future.

Who I believe I am
will affect who I become.

God designed you with an intrinsic sense of worth and significance.

According to what God has said about you
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
You are His workmanship created to do good works.
You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth.

So it’s your move.

To discover your
physical talents
spiritual gifts
personality traits

It’s ok to believe that you have been made in a remarkable way.

It’s healthy to figure out how to tap into your strengths
so you can live a better story.

It’s wise to discover
and to encourage others to discover.

Discovery is a shared experience,
and a personal process at the same time.

If your job as a parent is to
“help your child move in a positive or forward direction,”
then remember that means you often lead them one step at a time.

So here’s the question for today: In what ways do you help your children discover who they really are and who they are becoming? How can you help them discover a healthy sense of identity?

Turning the Wonder Dial

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Photograph by Reggie Joiner

I want to keep the wonder discussion going for a few days. It just feels like it is too important. Monday, I asked some of our staff at Orange the question, “How do you turn the Wonder dial either down or up in the heart of child?” I think they had some interesting insights.

• Injecting fear and ridicule can turn the wonder dial down.

Whenever you create a climate where kids are afraid of being wrong or rejected, it potentially affects how they develop a sense of wonder. Wonder is cultivated in an environment that feels non-threatening and safe.

• Adults who are too egotistical or proud can quench wonder.

It’s the cycle of life. Kids who grow up being too afraid of what others think become adults who hide behind a false sense of pride. This can result in adults who feel the need to always have the answer to every question and who will tend not to model wonder in front of others. Every kid should occasionally hear a parent say, “I’m not sure.” (That’s also something I would love to hear in a political campaign debate.)

• Asking strategic questions instead of just giving information can stir wonder.

How we frame questions are so important. “What do you think?” “How does that work?” “Can you help me figure this out?”

• Giving kids a hands-on experience can affect their wonder instincts.

One leader described the process of watching her dad mix ink as a printer. He would never just show her what to do. Instead he would stop and ask the question, “What do you think we should do here?” Over time, she was drawn into the process and learned because she had a hands-on opportunity.

• Rearranging schedules can affect wonder.

There seems to be a correlation between busy, rushed lives and the decline of wonder. Wonder requires space, margin and a slower pace. Creating the right rhythm to your day, week, and month can allow time to actually do things that inspire wonder. Reading, hiking, telling stories, music, art, photography, exploring nature, and yes, going to church can affect your wonder instinct. But they all take time.

So keep the ideas coming. What are some specific ways you think leaders and parents turn the wonder dial up or down?

Storm Children

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Lost Community in Pleasant Grove - Photo by Reggie Joiner

It’s hard for us to imagine the physical and emotional devastation one storm can cause. But just for a minute, consider a boy named Kenontai. He is only fourteen years old. Last Wednesday, he was just one of hundreds that arrived at Rosedale, a community in Tuscaloosa, minutes after a category 5 tornado ripped through the area.

Almost every home was reduced to rubble in seconds. Vehicles were tossed around like toys and riddled with shrapnel. When Kenontai entered the disaster zone looking for his grandmother, he had no choice but to respond like an adult and move debris looking for survivors. That’s when he discovered an infant who had somehow been caught in the wrath of the storm. As he picked up the small body, it soon became obvious that the child had not survived.

During the hours that followed, things were so chaotic that emergency personnel in hospitals had to mark a check on the arms of kids whose parents had survived and an X on the arms of kids whose parents were still missing.

We had driven to Alabama to see how some friends in various parts of the state were coping with the destruction. During our first morning in Tuscaloosa, I heard the story of Kenontai. I think it was the first time the tragic events of April 27th became real to me. That’s when it occurred to me there were thousands of children who had been traumatized by the effects of this violent storm.

Later that afternoon, as we were looking across a destroyed neighborhood in Pleasant Grove, a pickup truck carrying a family who had lived there drove past us. There was an elementary age girl staring out of the window with a glazed-over look of disbelief. Everything was gone. Every tree had been uprooted, stripped of branches, or snapped in two. Only the remnants of a few houses remained. Everything else was rubble. I am sure she was trying to remember her neighborhood the way it had been, instead of the strange wasteland it had become.

If you stopped long enough to focus your eyes on the debris, you could pick up the reminders that there had been a lot of families with young children living in these homes. Plastic toys, stuffed animals, highchairs, coloring books, car seats, and broken baby food jars surfaced everywhere.

Most of us never imagine that our children would face the kind of heartbreak or tragedy that an unexpected storm can bring. But it is just another reminder that so much in life is out of our control. We can’t prevent storms. We can only prepare and respond to the best of our ability to whatever blows through our lives. But it in that moment, we have the opportunity to make a renewed discovery about what is really important. Sometimes it’s easier to see what really matters, when life reduces everything to rubble.

Everywhere we looked in Alabama this week, there were the signs of enduring faith in God, intense love for each other, and a determination to help people rebuild their lives. So I’d like to remind you to pray for Kenontai and the children of Alabama this week. While you pray, hold your kids a little closer, and remember what really matters.