Implementing Chores Many parents ask the question should allowance be attached to chores? The response is what are we training them for? The purpose of training up a child is to ready them for adulthood. There are many jobs that we as adults have to do around the house. I don’t remember ever receiving a paycheck for doing dishes, laundry or taking out the trash.  One of the purposes of chores is to teach children that there are things that we do simply to be a contributing member of a family. There may be extra jobs that are not considered regular chores, such as cleaning out the refrige ..read more

Chores Teach A Child To Choose We discussed yesterday that chores train a child to do what is responsible rather then what is pleasurable. The question is where is a parent to start? The concept of chores is something that can start as early as preschool with simple tasks.  In our house, we are working with our three-year-old son teaching him how to clean up after himself. He picks up one set of toys before bringing out another.  Of course it would be MUCH faster, and I probably wouldn’t have to sing the clean up song, if I just ran around after him straightening.  If I con ..read more

Why It’s So Important Why is it so important to fight the chores battle as parents? There are four main reasons. First there is nothing that teaches a child personal responsibility as well as chores.  It teaches a child to make the choice between what they want to do and what they need to do.  This learned responsibility translates into many adult situations from credit cards to sexuality. Chores can communicate that a child is needed.  Every part of the family pitches in to help out. It can also help to teach a child how to take initiative as well as learning the importanc ..read more

Why Don’t We Give Our Kids Chores Anymore? This week will be spent talking about the importance of children doing household chores. The interesting thing is that it seems overall families don’t prioritize their children doing chores.  Why is this? There are many reasons for this but it seems that the main reason is time.  We are all very busy from adults to children in the home, our schedules are jam-packed.  The priority of chores has fallen by the wayside. It also takes a lot of time put in by the parent.  It takes time to train your child how to do the chore.Â&nb ..read more

When Others Damage Your Child’s Self-Esteem Learning how to cope when other children are mean is something that unfortunately every child will have to face.  How we handle these situations as parents can affect their self-esteem. When a parent underestimates a child’s pain and downplays or ignores a peer problem it can cause damage.    A child can feel even worse if a parent brushes off the emotion that they are feeling.  The other reaction that a parent can have is to over react and try to fight the child’s battle first with out allowing the child to attempt to work it out on their o ..read more

How Competition and Performance Impacts a Child’s Self-Esteem We discussed earlier this week that our self-esteem is determined by answering the question of whose we are.    If that is the case we need to look at what He created us to be.  He made us human beings not human doings.  Our self worth cannot be established by what we do.  This is an important lesson to teach our children early on. We have also spent time discussing how to help their self-esteem by communicating that our love is not attached to our child’s performance.  How do we guard them from finding their self-esteem th ..read more

How Discipline Compliments Self-Esteem How does discipline affect self-esteem?  It seems that many today would think that disciplining a child would hurt their self-esteem, which is why we have so many homes with so little rules.  In fact the opposite is true.  When a child has no consistent boundaries placed around them they feel very insecure.  Just like a fish that has been taken out of the safe boundary of the water they thrive in. How we discipline our children is the key to this.  We must have a consistent plan in place for discipline because when we do not we become the consequence ..read more

Where does Self-Esteem Begin in a Child’s Development Process? When does our child’s self-esteem begin to be built? It actually begins at birth with the mother/child bonding.  Through the bonding experience of those early days and months we are communicating love and security.  A child cannot yet comprehend the concept of God as their Father so until that time we are communicating His love through our parenting. The thing that we need to remember is that, unlike God, we are not perfect and will make mistakes.   That is actually a relieving thought; there is no such thing as a perfect paren ..read more

What is self-esteem and how does it affect my child? The concept of self-esteem can be a very elusive and ethereal topic.  What is it, and how can I make sure that my kids have positive self-esteem?  We are going to spend the next week discussing this topic. Self-esteem starts with a question.  Society would have us find our worth through asking ourselves these questions. What am I worth financially? How happy am I? How well liked am I? How successful am I at my career?  But the fundamental question that is at the base of someone’s self-esteem is not any of these but simply, Whose a ..read more

Get Organized- Part 2 Here is a list of reminders for parents on how to consistently communicate positively to your child. It will also help you to maintain the balance of structure and relationship. 1. Listen to your child- make sure you are taking the time to listen to your child through the process of getting organized.  Make sure to include them in the process. It is easy for many of us to get over excited about being about to take charge of our family and forget to listen to our child’s voice. 2. Be careful how you react.  Stay calm.- Very important when your child is consistently hit ..read more