Category: Parenting

Family, Friendship, Parenting

As Much As You Are Loved

August 22nd, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

“You are not behaving like someone who is loved as much as you are loved.”

After my boys were in college, I heard this response to a child’s behavior. I forgot the source, but not the sentence.

Along the way, I decided that while the sentence is a powerful response to behavior, it is not helpful for change, unless followed by a second question. “Why?”

Why do people, especially our children, not behave like someone who is loved as much as they are loved? I have pondered that even more as grown children express their frustrations. I have two answers

We are either not showing love or they are not feeling the love we are showing. I suspect the latter most often.

Are you feeling loved?

Decisions, Homeschooling, Parenting

Allowing Space to Grow

August 15th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

I dislike gaps in my flower beds. Therefore, I never planted my marigold seedlings the recommended distance apart—eight to ten inches for French marigolds and a full twelve inches for African marigolds.  I learned the error of my ways when I passed marigolds beside a city sidewalk. One seedling had grown into a small bush. I checked. One stalk.

Room to thrive. September 2019

Disliking gaps—especially while raising children—my husband and I crowded activities into our lives the same way I jammed marigolds into the small, soil patch at the top of our driveway.

Some academic years, I added too many subjects. I assured my husband I would find a way to make everything fit. I never did.

I wish I had known how much space was realistically needed for my flowers and my family and myself.

I enjoyed a variety of little blooms, but when I desired deep roots and tall flowers, I should have given more space—more than I imagined.

How many inches do you need this academic year?

Family, Parenting

Daily Faithfulness

August 2nd, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

Her children rise up and call her blessed: … Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.

Proverbs 31:28-29
Mollie 1983

My step-grandmother—the Mollie who inspired my pseudonym—was born this day 120 years ago. This photograph shows her essence.

Mollie only went through fifth grade because she was needed at home to cook, clean, and watch siblings. She became a stepmother to three rowdy boys before she had her own daughter. One uncle repeatedly said she saved his life with her counsel and love.

My father and his brothers with Mollie (top left) c. 1936

My father took his last Navy paycheck to buy his mother an electric stove to replace her wood-burning one. She wept.

My father with Mollie

Mollie did not play with grandchildren, and she was too poor to buy presents. However, she gave us much more with her godly example and love and stories and laughter.

When my grandmother passed, there were so many orders for flowers that one local florist called a distant city for help. My favorite tribute?

Mollie never did anything big according to worldly standards. However, she did the small things daily, and daily faithfulness is harder.”

Book Recommendations, Parenting

Protect the Colts

June 27th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

While playing with peers, my sons were exposed to inappropriate, harmful behavior. My husband and I made the hard—yet easy—decision that there must be adult supervision when our boys were with a certain child.

The day after we explained our unpopular stance, we providentially read aloud Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Young Almanzo wanted to train the two-year-old colts, but his father said,

A boy who didn’t know any better might scare a young horse, or tease it, or even strike it … It would learn to bite and kick and hate people.

When Almanzo persisted chapters later, he was told,

In five minutes you can teach them tricks it will take me months to gentle out of them.

Eventually, Almanzo went too near the colts. His father repeated his warnings.

That’s too good a colt to be spoiled. I won’t have you teaching tricks that I’ll have to train out of it.

We were accused of being overprotective, of taking mischief too seriously. We knew it was deeper.  Unexpectedly reading Wilder’s words—written over fifty years earlier—was encouraging. How much more valuable were boys than colts.

Have you received parenting encouragement from an unexpected source?

Parenting

Do You need a Mediator?

May 30th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

As our children age, their sharing with us shrinks, and our need to understand them grows. Misunderstandings mount from lack of communication. They want freedoms we aren’t ready to give, and resulting arguments weary us.

How do we break barriers and listen to each other? One son initiated a method that I later learned was common. He brought in his teddy bear as a mediator.

One evening, Teddy* came and said, “Grandperson, Bob* is upset with you?”

“Why?” I asked.

“He thinks you are unfair.”

“How am I unfair?”

The conversation continued as we patiently listened to each other.

Teddy, our mediator, had a disarming voice and a sweet way of saying Grandperson.

A friend tried this with her son and reported, “It works because you can’t fuss at a teddy bear, and it doesn’t fuss back.”

I shared my experience with another friend. “It is not a new trick,” she said, “but I am always amazed that it works.”

Was this a gimmick? I don’t think so. I think it was a way of breaking bad communication patterns. Variety helped us listen carefully because talking through a teddy bear was unpredictable. And fun.

*Pseudonyms.

What listening techniques have you explored?