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Parenting with love and patience

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From a young age I looked forward to the day I could become a mom.  I couldn't wait to cuddle and snuggle these sweet little angels.  I anticipated what joy would fill my life watching them grow and accomplish wonderful things.  I was going to be the perfect mom.    Then I had my first child.  Reality hit me like a ton of bricks.  Being a parent was not going how I had imagined it.  I was tired, irritable, my babies were not always happy, sometimes they were down right rotten.  But one by one we added to our family until we reached 5 children. At that point I think it was all I could handle. Don't get me wrong I LOVED being a mom!  I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be and I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.  I want to share some things I've learned 24 years later that I wish I had known back when our first child was born.   First, you are going to feel the emotion of anger despite your grand intentio
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Have the cents to teach your kids about money.

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      Money!   I have heard it said that money isn't everything but that everything needs money.  I would argue that not everything needs money but most things do.  If our world revolves around money then we all including our children need to have an understanding about money.  How do we get it?  What do we do with it?  How will it help us?  HOW DO WE GET IT?      The old adage "money doesn't grow on trees" is unfortunately true! Because it doesn't grow on trees we need to teach our children how to get it.       First, i t is important to teach our children the value of hard work.  You want your children to be contributing citizens in the world so they need to understand how to work and why they need to work.  Explain to them the work that you do whether it is in the home or outside the home has value and blesses your family.  Share your experiences of chores you did when you were young and jobs you may have held as you grew up. Encourage your children to be creat
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Developing grit

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     Kids just like adults have down days.  Days when it seems like everything and everyone is against them,  just like Alexander in Judith Voists book "Alexander, and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".  Poor Alexander has one thing after another happen to put a damper on his day.  At the end of the story Alexander announces that he is just going to move to Australia thinking it would be better there than where he was at.  His mom lovingly informs him that "Some days are like that even in Australia."  (Voist 1972)          How do we teach our kids to push through those bad days and look forward to the good days?  How do we teach our kids to persevere or have what Angela Duckworth calls "grit"?  Check out this YouTube video clip of some Disney's finest examples of grit.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko_Dym09Hws       The overall theme to grit seems to be getting back up and trying again.  Moving onward and upward towards your goal, and n
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