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Ecco Puer
Three Years
Ecco Secundo
Three months
some good words
I was trying to explain this to myself earlier today, why we do what we do with respect to some of our parenting choices. I feel like this post by Sally Clarkson really nailed a lot of what I was trying to hash out in my own brain:
Not too long ago, I was meeting with a sweet mom in a coffee shop and she brought her two children along. They were sweet children, but they were all over her and ran her ragged. I was talking with my older children later about it and asked them what we did differently. It was humorous to hear how opinionated they were, but it also reminded me how intentionally we taught them to be patient and to wait their turnbecause they all remembered it the same way. It is the concept that I call self-governmentprobably a Victorian character quality that I read about along the way and in a book about the principle approach to life.
The definition of self-government is the idea that a person learns to command himself, his impulses, his work habits, his emotions, His intellect and talents and rule over his will in a productive way. Children can begin this at a very early age, but it is also of utmost importance to adultsas one cannot be a mature believer unless one has mastered self-government and self-control and patience.
...
Sometimes when people find out that Clay and I are grace-based in our approach to parenting, people assume that that means lenient and undisciplined. However, we were very idealistic and had high expectations for our children, but we instructed them through consistent training, not primarily through force and multiple spankings but through relational discipleship based training. Our philosophy also looked at each child differentlyas an individualso that we could best figure out what appealed to and reached teh heart of each child. Introverts responded differently and behaved differently than our extroverts. Boys were differently wired than our girls. Learning issues and maturity levels greatly influenced a childs ability to be mature. All factors which cause us to understand that we needed to appeal to each childs heart based on knowing the heart of each child.
Comments
Keri:
This is awesome! I get frustrated when people don't understand that discipline is not a one-size-fits-all issue. Because of my upbringing experience, I don't want Lochlan's personality to be suppressed like mine was. I was a pretty headstrong kid but instead of working with my personality, my parents fought for control. That was not effective and now that I have a headstrong kid of my own, I am finding different ways to approach him without resorting to control. He has a right to have his own opinions/feelings and by working with his personality, I feel that the bond between us continues to be very strong.
Jo:
That's a really thoughtful post.
I especially like her discussion of tuning in their discipline to the individual child's personality.
Already at five months, our two seem like two such completely different people that it makes so much sense to tailor the way we treat them to their individual needs.
mom1:
This is exactly what we learned the words for at Dayspring. It is the opposite, or the lesson learned from the proverb, "Do not be like the mule who has to be led around with bit and bridle..." I find it so easy in me to feel cornered, and when people have given me space to grow, (i.e. Mrs. Belz, Mr. Myers) I have blossomed. But there are two sides. We don't naturally want to be good. The Bible is unequivocal about telling us how bad we are in our hearts. So while you are training you have to remember there will be things to 'go to the wall' for and be discerning about them. Michael Rogers would say that they learned to hit flies with flyswatters, not hammers! :>)
My students would have their rounds of complaining about treating them differently, and I would always defend it with the fact that they were different.
I'm glad you had a good visit with the midwife today.
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