Tips for the Mom:
1) Love them! It’s Obvious, but we need to choose to show our love sometimes… kids are fun and easy to enjoy most of the time, but when it is hard we need to show them grace and love by how we react to them.
2)Make the Most Important thing~ The Most Important
Get right with God! Go to Him for Healing, be real with Him! Our inner beauty needs to be our focus, it radiates from within us outward!
Imagine what this world would be like if Every Woman spent the same amount of time in the Word of God and Prayer as they did getting ready! Imagine!
3) Make an Intentional Effort to Open the Lines of Communication with your daughter on the topic of appearance… you never know how important this could be… I just read somewhere that 1 out of every 4 girls struggles with an eating disorder or appearance complex… I would venture to guess it’s really much worse than that… this is important moms…. our daughters need to know where their true value is found. How Do you make an intentional effort: I purposefully try to spend alone time with each of my kids and my husband does as well. Go to a Mother/Daughter Retreat (or have your own)… serve somewhere together… just make time and eye contact.
4) Know your child, Study them. God made us all unique. There are many Helpful books out there and “assessments” to help you understand your child. Sometimes as parents, we are unable to see our children for who they really are, who God made them to be, because we all have subconscious hopes and dreams for what We think is best for our children. Utilize tools, don’t idolize them, but utilize them, wisely.
The 5 Love Languages of Children by Dr. Gary Chapman is very helpful…. however, often times, little kids can’t verbalize what their love language is… you as a parent have to take proactive intention to study them and see what your children responds to best or really Needs from you.
~Does your Child Need: Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service??
I found that for me, though The Love Languages Books are extremely useful and educating, I had a hard time nailing down “one” love language that I identified with… I identified with more than one… as being equally important to me… therefore my conclusion was that my children are probably just as complex as I am on different levels… While some are stronger in them… we can not “label” our children.
Another Extremely and very in-depth study, and my personal favorite is the Core Values Index. There is a page that briefly explains why I prefer the CVI over other tests, you can find it here. From a CVI perspective, how can you build your child’s self-worth? Know them, try to figure out how they are valued most. What makes them feel loved, appreciated, cared for, and understood? Without going into great length about what the CVI is today, I will give you some thoughts to ponder, questions to ask yourself as you “study” your child.
Does Your child thrive with power… making decisions for himself, getting do DO activities that he can finish, Does he like Leading?
Does Your Child feel most valued when you ask their opinion on something, let them come up with the solution, and then you IMPLEMENT it?
Does you child feel most valued just cuddling, talking, spending time hanging out?
Does your child really like knowing the plan of the day, having structure, do they have a more passionate draw towards learning, researching?
These are very surface questions to ask yourself in regards to your children… but based upon your conclusions you can start purposefully trying to purposefully engage your child in activities together that are most important to them, not because that is what is popular or trendy (like a specific sport) but because that is truly what they are drawn too and made to enjoy. Obviously I could go into great detail on this topic, and I am excited to start a series on this in a few months… hope you join me! 🙂
Let’s Engage our Children, the Blessings God has given us! Enjoy them!
Angie
