Parenting

In the family proclamation, church leaders stated that "Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live."

Over the past few months, I have gained a greater understanding of the divine role that parents play in their children's lives and how essential it is for parents to actively raise their children.

What are the benefits to parenting children? We learn to problem solve, expand our mind, experience a deeper joy, offer the gospel of Jesus Christ to some of Heavenly Father's children, learn from them, another opportunity to rely on the Spirit, we learn more literally our relationship to Heavenly Father, and we get to do God's will. Another benefit I learned recently is that the learning curve when a child is born is very steep. That curve levels off around age 18, UNLESS they have children and start to active parent. How neat is that?? Parents have another opportunity for growth and development!

So where can we turn to find good examples of parenting?

You guessed it! The Book of Mormon. :)

Think back to the times that you have heard the Book of Mormon stories and read them from the scriptures. Can you think of any examples of parenting? There are a surprising amount as the Book of Mormon is basically a family history. After I finish reading the Book of Mormon for President Nelson's challenge, I want to read it and look for examples of parenting.

Here are 3 ways you can learn from the Book of Mormon about parenting:

1. God directly says this is what you do
2. Examples of parenting (Alma 36-37, teaches about sin and repentance from his experience, teaches about prayer and revelation) (Alma 38, commends his son, encouragement, reins in his son, each child is different, be bold but not overbearing) (Alma 39-42, repent, consequences, justice, mercy, focuses on the consequences of his actions and not the actual action, teaches his son of the things that are worrying him, SUICIDE, not shaming his son but teaching him)
3. Example of God's parenting

I would encourage all parents to read the Book of Mormon to see if they can find good examples of parenting in it that will help them with any issue they might be experiencing. 

The second resource I would suggest is looking up the work of.Michael Popkin, the author of Active Parenting of Teens. He is a psychologist who has done a lot of research on parenting teenagers. I want to highlight a couple of his teachings. 

Popkin states that there are 3 basic styles of parenting:

The first is authoritative parenting, which is associated with the mantra: "You will not do this in my house". Authoritative parents set strict limits with little to no freedom for the teenager to make their own decisions.

The second is the opposite, permissive parenting, which allows the children too much freedom and no limits.

The third, and most desirable, is active parenting which is allowing children freedom within limits. The limits on children grow and decrease based on their capacity to make wise choices.

Popkin states that instead of punishing children, we should allow natural consequences teach children. When natural consequences are not available due to the consequence harming another, the consequences being too far in the future, or too dangerous, Popkin counsels parents to give their children a polite request. If that doesn't work, parent can try using an "I" statement telling the teenager how you feel when they did a certain thing followed by a request to the teen. The next step would be to give a firmer statement (with no threat implied), and if that does not spur action, the parent can issue a logical consequence.

A logical consequence is discussed with the child, and is very clear. It is structured by the parents to help the child understand the natural consequences, and is logically connected to the "crime" they have committed.

What do children learn when we actively parent? It's actually very similar to the list of things that parents learn. Children learn to experience joy, they have an opportunity to receive the gospel, they get to do God's will, they learn how to interact with others, they learn who Heavenly Father is, and they develop problem solving skills.

Parenting is so essential! I hope all parents know how important and needed they are :)

Importance of Fathers and Non-Working Mothers

The past few years I have been seeking to know what I should major in that would be most beneficial to me. I have looked into all of my favorite topics and potential career fields with no impression or real desire to continue down that road.

I have been so confused as to what I should do, because I have assumed that I need to study something that would help me to make money if I was in a place where I needed to do so.

A re-occurring theme that I have observed is how my major choice really won't matter. And why won't it matter? I believe it is because my primary duty is to raise children to the Lord. Now, I do not believe that this is the answer Heavenly Father will give all women, but I do think it is the answer he gives to many women.

Why would Heavenly Father not always encourage women to leave the home and enter the workforce? I know this is controversial, but I believe it is because jobs are not as important or necessary to our salvation as raising children led by righteous parents is. There are only a few things we take with us into the next life. One is memories, the other is our relationships, and the third is our testimony of and conversion to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", it states, "Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets." I know this might be a little extreme, but I feel that mother's and father's not placing an emphasis on being in the home do a disservice to their children and damage their family's well-being.

We generally look at mothers working as a positive and noble thing. I recently pondered the opposite side: What are the potential costs of having two incomes on a family?

The Cost of Dual Incomes

• Parents become more competitive
• Parents are less available to their children
• Dad gets sense of "failure" for not being able to provide enough for his family
• Couples put off having children, which may lead to having less children and stunting their family's growth in that way
• The couple's standard of living increases, and they do not need to communicate as much about finances
• Many times, after costs of sending a mother to work, couples discover that they are not making very much money, and sometimes they are even making less money than they did before

Father's are so essential, and it is important for a father to perform his duties in a family. What DOES a father do in his parenting? According to the proclamation, a father's duties are to provide for, preside over, and protect his family. He is charged to provide the essentials for living. I have also noticed that fathers introduce boundaries to his children and naturally receive respect from children. This is a God-given attribute that I admire in my husband. 

I'll leave y'all with a question I have been pondering:
When mother's sacrifice time and money away from their family to get an education for the sake of preparing for disaster, are they preparing and enabling that disaster rather than nurturing their family? Take divorce, for example. Would that extra time and money be preparing for divorce, or be preparing for a lifetime with their family? Prophets have counseled us that we need to be prepared, but how much time and effort needs to go into that preparation? How do we know? 

Teaching Children about Sexual Intimacy

Today I am going to direct my post to those who have questions about teaching children about sex. I will be pulling most of my information from "A Parent's Guide" published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because it does a great job of breaking down the duties a parent has and why they should do those things.

Since I have began a formal study of marriages and families, I have been impressed with how important and essential a healthy marriage relationship between mother and father is for the healthy development of their children. Being a parent is all-consuming and essential. Parenting includes meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of your child to help them make good decisions and mature into a well-adjusted adult. 

I say this because I don't imagine that it's easy to talk about sex with children for a number of reasons: We may not want to give our children a wrong impression of sexual relations, we may worry that they will become more curious and experiment, we may assume that they will learn enough about it at school, we may worry that we will be giving them too much information, or simply not want to talk about something that is so personal to our relationship with our spouse. 

Even though a parent may have these worries, I think it is important for us to teach our children about intimacy (sex and emotional closeness) throughout their childhood. 

"A Parent's Guide" has 10 great guidelines for teaching children that I want to highlight and comment on why I think it's important in teaching children:

1. Share the responsibility to teach with your spouse.
     It's good if one parent is willing to talk about harder topics, but it's best when they know that it's okay to talk to either parent about hard topics.

2. Teach your children by example.
     I've never been a parent, but I imagine that this will be difficult for me. I remember that sometimes my parents would say "do as I say, not as I do". It was a funny little motto for when they would contradict themselves, and I don't think it's harmful, but when we are consistently doing things differently from what we teach, it gets confusing for our children.

3. Be consistent in your behavior.
     This goes along with number two, and we can teach/model self-discipline as we do so.

4. Counsel with your children.
     Oh, I remember the notable days when my parents asked me my opinion about decisions made, and when they explained why they wanted to do something specific. Children love to share opinions and be heard.

5. Pass righteous judgement on your children.
     I believe what is meant here (I could be wrong!) is that we need to be able to judge where our children are at, and what principles they need to learn.

6. Provide a positive emotional climate in your home.
     I do not think that a positive emotional climate is easy to produce, but I know the hard work and self-discipline will pay off! A positive emotional climate helps anyone (not just children) to feel comfortable to explore their thoughts and feelings.

7. Hold family home evenings regularly.
     Now that we are changing to two-hour church, I would add that we can hold a family devotional regularly with the Come, Follow Me manual. These formal teaching times give opportunities for us to teach true principles to our children.

8. Share your thoughts and feelings with your children.
     Vulnerability is never easy, but I believe the more open we are with our children, the more willing they will be to share their thoughts and feelings. This can be done in a formal setting, or in a non-formal setting.

9. Break the routine.
     Honestly, I'm not sure why this would be helpful for children other than giving yourself more spontaneous teaching opportunities. Have fun with them and enjoy their company.
   
10. Express your love to your children regularly and frequently.
     Who doesn't want to hear how much their loved? It is so assuring for me as an adult, that I can only imagine how assuring it would be for my children.

When approaching children with these difficult topics, these principles can help to cultivate a good teaching environment. I suggest you to read "A Parent's Guide" and pray for help in knowing what you can do to teach your wonderful children. :)