Good parenting begins in your heart, and then continues on a moment-to-moment basis by engaging your children when feelings run high, when they are sad, angry, or scared.
Gottman, John; Goleman, Daniel (2011-09-20). Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child . Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
You’re teaching your kids through your actions, not your words. When you tell them you did whatever poor behavior because you loved them so much, you’re being dishonest to both yourself and them.
It often reminds me of the story of the pharisee (a religious man, to be sure) who stood up and loudly proclaimed, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men, cheaters, sinners, adulterers….” Of course, the difference today is we would be more likely to hear a prayer about how we thank God that we are not like those poor fools who dress up in suits and miss the whole point of the gospel.
…What would bring his salvation to question? Well, the American Eagle on his shoulder, of course. We’re not all that far from there today, are we? How many people have their love of God questioned because they prefer to wear a suit and tie on Sunday morning?
Most of us are not so wise. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping that they will go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that…
Yesterday was my son’s birthday. He turned 13. We celebrated the day before because his birthday was on a Monday. It was a fun day. It was good and hard. Good because he had his friends come over. His best friend came over and they played for most of the day. We went shopping and…
I bought this book on a lark. I am glad that I did. Rom Brafman points out that for as nearly as long as can be remembered in mental health services that what happened to you dictated what you did. By and large, he states, “The prevailing notion in the field used to be that…
Then we try to soothe our pain. We try to soothe it by working out or making millions of dollars or getting involved in church. We try to outdo our shame, falsely believing that we can outrun it through activity. The net result becomes a heaping of shame on top of shame. Our activity does not do away with our shame; instead, it numbs our response to it. A numb soul tends to be numb to everything. This causes us to pick activities that keep us from connecting with someone else, which causes us to experience more shame.
