SPIRIT TRAINING: Stop everything!

The most important thing you are doing is training your children. The hardest thing you do is to stop what you are usually doing and take the time to train your children.

Let me give you an example. You are getting ready for church, and you like to be on time. You have already dressed the kids, and you are putting the finishing touches on your own gorgeous self. You had asked little Tammy to clear the table and Matt to take out the garbage. When you walk out of your room, they are watching TV in the living room. The garbage is not out and the table is not clear.

#1 You lose it. Glancing at the clock, you know that time has caught you again. “GET IN THE CAR. . . NOW!” you shout. You shut off the TV, they run out the door, you follow them like the grisly troll from Billy Goats Gruff. You jump in the car. You start the engine and your motor mouth at the same time. The ride to church is a lecture on obedience, punctuality, and consequences when you get back home. You arrive at church two minutes late and imagine that Jesus is standing at the door, looking at his watch and tapping his foot.

#2 You don’t say a word. You take out the garbage, you clear the table, you grab your Bible and gather everyone in the car. You wonder what you are doing wrong, you resent the kids in that moment, you silently lecture yourself, you think thoughts that you don’t dare say out loud. Meanwhile, the kids are wondering what you are thinking while they exchange smirks. You arrive late . . . again.

#3 #4 and #5 are not good options either; we have tried them all.

What we did discover is that training our children comes first. We learned to stop everything and get our lives straight and our relationships straight as first priority. This is a training moment. Why not put God’s truth into practice instead of rushing to church to learn God’s truth so that we can supposedly put it into practice. See the difference?

Dealing with the character issues in your children as they occur cannot be overrated. What would we have done? We would have taken the children to our room, helped them see their disobedience, one spank, ask forgiveness, prayer, back to the jobs to see them completed, hugs and restoration, then out the door to church. (If you are the Sunday school teacher, call someone to handle the opening for you. If you are the pastor, simply explain that you had to put your family first. You train your children and your congregation). If you make training your children this important, your kids will get the message.

I am not talking about stopping everything so that your kids can get what they want; I am talking about stopping everything to train them.

If you will be late for a situation that your child wants to go to, it becomes easier. Here you can use the logical consequence of just waiting him out until he does his job. No fuss, no harsh words, just wait. Example: it’s his ballgame. He says, “It’s time to go; let’s go.” You wait; you might ask, “Is the trash out?” You just don’t move until the responsibility is done. Then you go. Dr. Kevin Leman explains it this way: “B does not happen until A is completed.” That puts the authority back with the parent, where it belongs. And it puts the obedience burden on the children. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right; you will live a long life and things will go well with you.”

Train your children. It is the most important thing you can do on earth.

The Magic of the Family Meal

This week we’re going to share highlights of an article with you. This article, The Magic of the Family Meal, was originally in TIME Magazine, June 4, 2006. The full text can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/parwis1

What an important time of day….sharing a meal together as a family. A time of connecting, of touching one another’s lives. Some of our most treasured times are around the table. Like Randy Strom says…”If you really want to get to know us, eat a meal with us.”

What has your experience been? How do you feel about this? How have you seen it work? Share your thoughts. Share your experiences. Share your story.

The Magic of the Family Meal TIME Magazine

Close your eyes and picture Family Dinner. June Cleaver is in an apron and pearls, Ward in a sweater and tie. The napkins are linen, the children are scrubbed, steam rises from the green-bean casserole, and even the dog listens intently to what is being said. This is where the tribe comes to transmit wisdom, embed expectations, confess, conspire, forgive, repair. The idealized version is as close to a regular worship service, with its litanies and lessons and blessings, as a family gets outside a sanctuary.

......Just because we are sitting together doesn't mean we have anything to say: children bicker and fidget and daydream; parents stew over the remains of the day. Often the richest conversations, the moments of genuine intimacy, take place somewhere else, in the car, say, on the way back from soccer at dusk, when the low light and lack of eye contact allow secrets to surface.

Yet for all that, there is something about a shared meal--not some holiday blowout, not once in a while but regularly, reliably--that anchors a family even on nights when the food is fast and the talk cheap and everyone has someplace else they'd rather be. And on those evenings when the mood is right and the family lingers, caught up in an idea or an argument explored in a shared safe place where no one is stupid or shy or ashamed, you get a glimpse of the power of this habit and why social scientists say such communion acts as a kind of vaccine, protecting kids from all manner of harm.

In fact, it's the experts in adolescent development who wax most emphatic about the value of family meals, for it's in the teenage years that this daily investment pays some of its biggest dividends. Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use. "If it were just about food, we would squirt it into their mouths with a tube," says Robin Fox, an anthropologist who teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey, about the mysterious way that family dinner engraves our souls. "A meal is about civilizing children. It's about teaching them to be a member of their culture."

The most probing study of family eating patterns was published last year by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University and reflects nearly a decade's worth of data gathering. The researchers found essentially that family dinner gets better with practice; the less often a family eats together, the worse the experience is likely to be, the less healthy the food and the more meager the talk.

….The older that kids are, the more they may need this protected time together, but the less likely they are to get it. …

…..The food-court mentality--Johnny eats a burrito, Dad has a burger, and Mom picks pasta--comes at a cost. Little humans often resist new tastes; they need some nudging away from the salt and fat and toward the fruits and fiber. A study in the Archives of Family Medicine found that more family meals tends to mean less soda and fried food and far more fruits and vegetables.

Beyond promoting balance and variety in kids' diets, meals together send the message that citizenship in a family entails certain standards beyond individual whims. This is where a family builds its identity and culture. Legends are passed down, jokes rendered, eventually the wider world examined through the lens of a family's values. In addition, younger kids pick up vocabulary and a sense of how conversation is structured. They hear how a problem is solved, learn to listen to other people's concerns and respect their tastes. "A meal is about sharing," says Doherty. "I see this trend where parents are preparing different meals for each kid, and it takes away from that. The sharing is the compromise. Not everyone gets their ideal menu every night."

….Research on family meals does not explore whether it makes a difference if dinner is with two parents or one or even whether the meal needs to be dinner. For families whose schedules make evenings together a challenge, breakfast or lunch may have the same value. So pull up some chairs. Lose the TV. Let the phone go unanswered. And see where the moment takes you.

There it is…some thoughts, some research, some ideas. Looking forward to hearing from you!