Parenting | Page 19 of 23

Gingerbread: A Conversation Starter

December 6th, 2020
Mollie T. Cox

I snatch the best ideas of others. One with unexpected results was giving gingerbread kits for Christmas. (For best results, wait until your youngest is at least ten unless your children work in pairs. Building requires skill and patience.)

Gathered around the kitchen table with busy hands, the boys cracked jokes, teased good-naturedly, and supplied us with joy we had not experienced recently. Our busyness and their reticence to share had increased as they aged.

We learned much about our sons. As their tongues loosened, unknown adventures were revealed. Two studied British Literature at a local private school. Ninety minutes of building and decorating gave us a semesters’ worth of funny stories. The two who shared an art history class entertained us by deliberately attributing erroneous architecture vocabulary to their houses.

What did our sons learn along the way? Aim for the most candy per inch of gingerbread so you have the greatest reward on Demolition Day. Demolition Day was an event itself with special china and hot tea to accompany our gingerbread gluttony.

We continued building and demolishing during the college years until family time was too scarce.

Has a Christmas tradition enhanced your family’s closeness?

Money, Parenting

You Only Spend Money Once

November 1st, 2020
Mollie T. Cox

Saying “Better or best use of our dollars” instead of “We can’t afford it” helped our children understand spending choices. See Best Use of Our Dollars Here.

We also had another saying when the boys were very young.

When my sons were two, four, and five, my grandmother sent each a couple of dollars in the mail. At Toys R Us, the boys surveyed their choices.

One son chose two matchbox cars, each less than a dollar in 1992. However, his older brother chided, “You can’t buy two. You spend money one time.”

I was glad that my kindergartner understood that principle. I explained that his brother could spend his money once and have two cars.

Later we would occasionally say, “You only spend money one time.”

From the boys’ large collection circa 1988-1993

Have you coined any money sayings?

Decisions, Parenting

Decisions? Be Random

October 25th, 2020
Mollie T. Cox

The lot puts an end to quarrels and decides between powerful contenders.
Proverbs 18:18 (ESV)

Uneven voting (Here) and taking surveys (Here) improved some parenting decisions. However, I found that versions of drawing straws or casting lots sometimes brought the best decision. Why would randomness do this?

Along the way, I learned that my sons didn’t care about the particular outcome of decisions as much as their bickering indicated. They simply wanted fairness. Did my choices show equal love or respect or whatever they wanted at that moment? Or did I show favoritism?

At Christmastime, we exchanged inexpensive stocking stuffers with extended family. However, in our case it was a decorated, brown grocery bag that was stuffed. As hosts, we were the bag decorators. My boys had favorite relatives, and every year, arguments ensued as to who would decorate certain bags.

One afternoon after I had recently re-read Proverbs 18:18, I tested the statement. I put the names of aunts, uncles and cousins in a jar and the boys drew their “lot.” Complaints ceased and peace reigned. I wish I had chosen that strategy years earlier.

How do you discern which sibling arguments are about favoritism?

Homeschooling, Parenting

No one Is to Blame

October 11th, 2020
Mollie T. Cox

We are sinners and live in a fallen world. However, I found it easy to forget that and blame myself or my children or even my husband for learning problems or lack of progress in my children.

The children were lazy. I bought the wrong curriculum. The homeschooling co-op was not a good match. My husband wasn’t helping. We needed to spend more time and money.

However, the only sin was assigning blame. Some, if not many, parenting or homeschooling struggles are because of living in a broken world.

I once listened to a powerful sermon on John 9.

Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
John 9:2 (ESV)

The premise of that culture was blindness was because of sin. We get what we deserve.

We parents also buy into that un-biblical notion. We may do our best and our children may do their best, and we don’t get the results that we think we deserve. Our abilities and theirs are limited.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
John 9:3 (ESV)

What problems are you wrongly attributing?

Parenting

Children Change

October 7th, 2020
Mollie T. Cox

I worried and prayed and strove and sought advice and everything else with regard to traits in my children that concerned me. Nothing I did worked. But, one day, some problems disappeared. If I had known it would be so, I would have avoided the heartache for everyone by my striving.

I told this to a father of young children along with my other observation that some traits never change. See Children Don’t Change Here

How do you know which foibles children will outgrow if you leave them alone?” he asked.

“You don’t,” I said. “Just take comfort that sometimes—actually many times—it happens as they mature.”

Is there something that you need to let go and give some time?

When I approach a child, he inspires me in two sentiments—tenderness for what he is and respect for what he may become.
Louis Pasteur