Tag Archives: parenting

Dad Notes: You Are Having An Impact on Your Kids. Make It Count!

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nuclear family 1967

Dad, me (center,) the sibs, and a stylish lamp – 1967

As a young man I never really dreamed of having kids, or even of getting married for that matter. I had been paying attention, and I rarely saw a marriage that looked like an enviable situation to me. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, it’s just that I had a lot of other things that I wanted to do. Things that probably wouldn’t provide a reliable means to support a family. Things like being an artist.

Wow, how things changed. Mollie and I will celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary this fall, and our youngest of 5 children graduated high school 2 years ago. I now consider my relationship with my wife and kids to be far and away the best investment of my time, energy, and life that I could have made. I’m so glad we had 5 kids. I really could not have guessed how deeply fulfilling being a dad would be.

When my first son was born, literally when I first laid eyes on him, it was as though a switch got flipped. I embraced fatherhood with a passion. Building a solid marriage and family is hard work, but looking back on my own upbringing I could see that it was as important as any work there is.

Did I do things perfectly? Of course we all know the answer to that…

A bad dad story
Not that I need to prove I’m not perfect, but there was this one day when I took our (then) four kids with me to the grocery store to give mom a break.

We got out of the mini-van, and there was a stray shopping cart right next to the van. I strapped the baby in to the built in car seat, and told my kids I would give them a ride to the store entrance! I told my daughter to stand on the end of the cart and told her to hold on tight. I positioned a boy on either side of the cart and told them to hold on tight.

I told them to hold on tight, not because anything bad was going to happen, but because I was such an awesome and responsible dad.

I started pushing the shopping cart, now loaded down with small children. I remember being a little surprised at how heavy the cart was, and thinking that we were possibly going slightly too fast. But all of my kids were laughing and holding on tightly, and I could tell they were all thinking, “YAY! We have a FUN dad!!!” Plus I couldn’t really slow the cart down anyway. I noticed several people in the parking lot looking at me like I was an idiot, but I didn’t care because I was being awesome and they weren’t.

To my relief, we actually approached the store entrance without hitting any old people or getting backed into by a car. Unfortunately, just as we were slowing down and nearly out of danger, one of the boys decided to hop off the cart. This upset the delicate balance I had created and the cart began to tip. I was not strong enough to hold back the weight of the remaining 3 kids, and the shopping cart tipped completely over, right in front of the supermarket entrance.

There I was, red-faced on the ground with 3 screaming kids, including a baby who was (fortunately) strapped in, upside down in the shopping cart.

I remember being really glad my wife wasn’t there.

Embracing the fatherhood role
My dad was apparently smarter than me. I had a great dad and a very secure, I would even say uneventful, upbringing. No abuse, no feelings of non-acceptance, not even any big hurtful words or moments that I can remember. I took this for granted at the time. It simply fit with the way I thought a dad who claimed to follow Jesus should raise his kids. The love of my parents made the world make sense to me. I have now come to see how unusual my upbringing was.

It almost seems unfair just how much fathers impact the lives of their children. My adult children now lament that, even among their Christian friends, great dads seem to be rare. Many kids grow up warped by dads who were physically and/or emotionally absent, or abusive, or habitually angry, or control freaks, or unaccepting, or too proud to admit when they were wrong.

But there is an upside to how much impact a dad will inevitably have on his kids. The upside is that we can consciously choose to influence our kids for good. We can ask God the Father to give us the heart of a father – the kind of heart that He had in mind when He created the fatherhood role.

As a young parent, my dad’s example was always in the back of my mind, like a north star that I could navigate by when I was unsure of what to do. I think it gave me an added measure of confidence and peace in my parenting as well. But even if your upbringing was troubled, you can still learn from your parents’ mistakes, as our own kids will certainly learn from ours.

May this day inspire you to renew your mind and renew your commitment to be a great father to your children. No one else can do this as well as you.

“…For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:8-10.)

A Fun Craft Idea That You & Your Kids Can Make For Your Spouse

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arts crafts gift ideas for children

Tiny items on these frames include small erasers, buttons, fake pearls, sea shells, Barbie shoes, beads,  hair barrettes, various game pieces, and a couple of pictures cut out of cereal boxes…

I’m sending this out early enough so that you and your kids can get this done before Mothers’ Day. Or Fathers’ Day. It’s a simple idea, easy to do, and yet the final result is something that will bring a smile to your spouse’s face for years to come.

The end result is a functional picture frame that reflects your child’s unique personality.

When my kids and I made the frames pictured here, my grand scheme was to make a frame with a different kid each year. Their frames still hang in our bedroom. The idea was inspired by looking at a lot of “found object” artwork while I was working as an artist at Hallmark Cards Inc. years ago.

The idea is to completely encrust a bare frame with small found objects of your child’s choosing. I did not disallow created objects, but the overall effect was to end up with a found object piece. One of my kids created a tiny drawing to put on her frame. Some combined objects. One cut up tiny pieces of felt to fill in so that no white spaces showed through on his frame

Your child’s personality will come through in the objects they choose. My oldest son was big into nature, so his frame reflects this, including turquoise-colored aquarium rocks, acorns, and a rubber insect. (Fittingly, his photo features him with his butterfly net.) His younger brother was more into playing with the process and finding things on the street, (which we washed.) My oldest daughter was a girly-girl and wanted lots of pink items and cute things. Even with the differences though, the frames still all look great on the wall together because they all share a similar aesthetic.

There is not much to say about the process. We used Elmer’s glue to attach the items to the frames. I cut my frames out of Foam Core board, but you could use a simple purchased frame. With my last 2 kids I switched from white Foam Core to black Foam Core (below,) since the black isn’t as distracting if the board shows through. My plan was to clear coat the finished encrusted frame to protect the items and to help keep them from falling off over time, (which I will still probably do, perhaps when I retire.) I mounted black and white photos in our frames because the frames themselves were so colorful, I thought black and white photos would stand out better, but that’s just me.

Craft and gift ideas for kids to create

Tiny items on these frames include small toys, pieces from a broken Mouse Trap game, a reflector from a bicycle pedal, costume jewelry, old computer key pad buttons, and Grandpa Walker’s campaign button (which would have otherwise disappeared into oblivion) These two siblings obviously influenced each other…

Below are the dimensions I used for my frames. Of course, you can make yours larger, but if you make a two foot long frame it may take the rest of your kid’s childhood to cover it with small objects!

Found object frame schematic

If you and your spouse share this email and you decide you want to do this, you might want to ask him or her not to read this so as not to spoil the surprise. If you decide to make frames with your kids, I’d love to see the result! Send me a photo of your finished product and I’ll post it on my Big Picture Publishing Facebook page.

Have fun, and happy crafting!

Raising Kids Who Have Strong Values but Aren’t Bossy

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parenting bossiness strong values

Does this ring a bell? This was a frequent issue for Mollie and me. We are both artists and, I would say, intentionally on the non-legalistic end of the spectrum of conservative evangelical culture. But somehow we produced a couple of children with an overdeveloped sense of how everyone else should behave.

One child in particular seemed to feel he should be the Jiminy Cricket of the whole family. (And, perhaps the neighborhood, church, and world.) The issue came up with the other four as well, just not on a daily basis.

Of course, I was pleased to see that this child had a strong sense of right and wrong. He was also very bright, articulate, and overconfident. To compound his situation further, he was the second oldest, and his older brother had a disability. You can imagine how sorely tempted he was to constantly “help” those around him. Especially given that he had a younger brother who was apparently born without a conscience, (but that’s probably a story for another time.)

I’m guessing you’ve seen this in your own kids, or in other “church kids” as well. They’re good kids, but they’re kids, so of course they’re still finding balance. This tension is understandable because we’ve been teaching them that there is such a thing as right and wrong. We don’t want them to believe that “everything is relative.” We don’t buy into the idea that “you have your truth and I have mine.” We want our kids to grasp the idea of an objective Creator who has created a world where objective right and wrong, and truth exist.

So how do we raise them to not come off as judgmental little twerps, yet without undermining their developing worldview?

Here are four ideas that we consciously employed. We don’t have all the answers, so please feel free to contribute your helpful thoughts in the combox below.

1) Unsolicited help and advice is usually unwelcome
“If a person doesn’t want your help, your help will not be accepted as help.”
We had to emphasize this about a million times with our kids. A couple of them seemed genuinely amazed that their interventions were not always welcome. After all, if one person is right and another person is wrong, the wrong person will surely want to know about it. Right?! This turned out to be at the root of a large percentage of sibling squabbles in our home.

This also happens to be one of those principles that continues to serve us all well in adulthood.

2) Authority roles
I think it’s worth explaining things to kids that we as adults have come to take for granted. Authority roles is a big one. The Bible teaches that God has instituted 3 spheres of life with clear authority roles: the state, the church, and the family. Gently but clearly, I would often explicitly spell out to a child, usually in the presence of the others, something like this:
“(Child’s name,) did you notice that your mom and I are sitting right here, and we did not correct your sister/brother? I don’t want you to correct her/him either. You are not the dad/mom. You have no authority over your sister/brother.”

Sometimes we had to remind them that they were not police officers either.

3) Family identity
Your family has an identity and a collective “self-image” that each family member shares. When our children are small, they accept this identity to the extent that they understand it. We sometimes felt it necessary to differentiate our family from many of those around us. Not for the sake of creating division or ill will, but because there was a lot of bad stuff going on around us, and we parents weren’t necessarily doing anything about it.

I should explain that we lived in an inner city neighborhood where there was a lot to criticize, even from a child’s perspective: lots of family dysfunction, lying, stealing, swearing, smoking, meanness, fighting, substance abuse, cruelty, vandalism, litter, and so on.

Our stated explanation of our identity would go something like this:
“Our family loves and follows Jesus. Many other families don’t. This is sad for them, but we can’t make them follow Jesus. The best way for us to help them is to be kind to them, and let them see how great Jesus is, not to always be telling them what they are doing wrong.”

Within the church it can be a bit trickier, since we are all professing Jesus:
“Their family is also trying to follow Jesus, but they understand that a little differently than we do. We’re all trying to follow Jesus, so we trust each other. We trust that we’re all trying our best. As a kid, God wants you to obey your mom and dad. That’s your job right now. When you have your own family someday you can do things differently.”

4) Parental example
I believe this may be the most important for the long term. I think a contradictory parental example can undo a lot of good instruction. So Mollie and I tried not to “boss around” each other or our adult friends. Even with our kids, when it was appropriate we would ask them if they would like help when we could see that they needed help. If the answer was no, and the situation wasn’t life threatening to anyone, we would wait until they were ready to receive help. We didn’t want to leave them with the impression that being in authority means you get to boss people around. (Not that there isn’t a place for this in parenting, of course.)

As an older, wiser friend of mine used to say, “More is caught than is taught.”

Part of our privilege as parents is to help our kids navigate life more effectively than they would without our wisdom. May God give you grace as you help your kids reach a place of balance!

 

Guaranteeing Family-Time in the Midst of Busyness

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Sabbath-keepingI admit that I might be a work-a-holic, just a wee bit.

Perhaps this is partly because my work tends to be enjoyable and meaningful, and partly because I’ve rarely made enough income for our large family. Or maybe it’s just the way I am wired. I don’t really know.

At any rate, my wife once had a come-to-Jesus talk with me about this that proved to be a turning point for our marriage and family. Had she not called me out, I think I would’ve been too oblivious to make needed changes. After all, my time-sucking pursuits were good, and so were my intentions. I wouldn’t have guessed how important an intentional “work-free” day would turn out to be for all of us.

What started out as an experiment turned out to be a practice on which we have never looked back. In fact all five of our kids came to think of our practice of Sabbath-keeping as an expectation. My wife and I now consider it to be a weekly blessing that we wouldn’t want to do without.

Since it’s the beginning of a busy new school year for many of us, I thought it might be helpful for me to share my story, and hear from others on what works for them.

Before our experiment, here is how my life went: I worked full-time at as a Hallmark artist, and also did free-lance illustration work on the side. I also created a monthly comic strip for an alternative, conservative, free newspaper. Nights and weekends were a chance for me to work on my on-the-side stuff. So, on weekends, I would look around the house, and if everyone seemed to be occupied, and no kids were crying or poopy, I would tend to sneak off to my drawing board and get some work done.

Eventually my exasperated wife would come looking for me, usually holding a kid or two. She felt abandoned. We searched for a solution. We had already been toying with the idea of observing a formal Sabbath, but I had pretty much balked at the idea because I was too busy. (What a waste of time. A whole day – shot!) But I remember Mollie telling me, “If I knew I would get you for a full day on Sunday, I think I could live with you working the other six days.”

We decided to try it for one month. Sundays would be solely dedicated to church and family, and I wouldn’t do any paid work at all. Even if no one was poopy, I would be fully present and focused on Mollie and the kids. That was something like 20 years ago. Looking back, I shudder to think of what I almost missed.

Our Sabbath has taken various forms over the years. Mollie and I are interested in the Hebrew Roots of our faith, so for a time we observed a traditional Jewish Sabbath as best we could, complete with the lighting of candles at sunset, challah bread, and citing a blessing over each child over dinner, (which my kids thought was weird.) At other times we tried formal family devotions on our Sabbath. But mostly, our Sabbaths have been very unstructured, with the focus being on taking a rest from work, eating together, and, at some point, doing something together as a whole family, usually playing games.

We have tried to not be religious and legalistic about this. As our kids grew older, sometimes they would have homework that had to be done, or there would be a birthday party or a meeting that had to be attended. But for the most part, our kids’ friends knew not to ask our kids to get together on Sunday because that was our family day. Eventually, our kids didn’t even mind that their friends thought our family was weird because they were having too much fun with us.

At times we had fight to keep our Sabbath set apart. We’d make an occasional exception, but we had to say “no” even to some good things. Once, our church’s youth group leadership was considering moving youth group meeting day to Sunday. We felt we had no choice but to decline participation should that change be made. Our Sabbath had become a non-negotiable priority. One parent argued that Sunday youth group could count as our family time, but I knew the dynamic would be different. Fortunately the change was never made made.

Today all but one of our five children have left home, but they are closer now to each other, and to Mollie and I, than ever. We attribute this partly to regular, face-to-face time every week. Now that two of our kids are married, some of them decided that we should all get together every other Sunday; whoever can make it. On the off Sundays Mollie and I still observe a Sabbath, and we sometimes use this time to get together with people that we want to “get together with sometime.”

We believe that life is about relationships, and our Sabbath observance has become a practical application of this. (Though honestly, sometimes we’re too exhausted to entertain people.)

For those who may be wondering about my loss in productivity, I believe that observing a Sabbath has actually made me more productive, because I’m not burnt out, and I hit the ground running on Mondays. But even if it hasn’t made me more productive, if I could have all the money I lost because of keeping a Sabbath, I wouldn’t trade it for the wealth of relationship I have today with my family.

If you find yourself frazzled and frustrated by an overfull schedule, why not try keeping a weekly Sabbath for one month, just to see what good might come of it? I’d also love to hear your stories of how you ensure regular family time.

 

My latest book, Bear Island, reinforces family-time and our need for loving relationship. CLICK HERE for easy ordering!

Biblical Worldview for Kids

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Christian worldview books for kidsIn doing an online search for biblical worldview, I get the impression that most people think of worldview as a topic for adults. Yet as parents, consciously or not, we are shaping our children’s view of reality in our world every day. I say this is a good thing, and that we should be intentional about it!

Wouldn’t it be ideal if we could impart a true and sustainable view of reality to our children that would serve them well for the rest of their lives? A worldview that won’t need to be traded in later for something truer, better, and more compatible with the real world?

I think that’s precisely what a biblical worldview is: a view of reality that is true; that works in the real world; that is based on our Creator’s revelation to us about His world. How could such a view be improved upon by finite minds attempting to figure out the shape of reality based on their own incomplete understandings?

A worldview is a lens through which we view the world. No matter who we are, we all bring beliefs, assumptions, and preconceptions to our understanding of the world. Some of these beliefs are legit. Some are not. As followers of Jesus, we can expect that the Bible will give us true presuppositions that will far surpass those derived from a strictly materialist viewpoint. Despite expectations to the contrary from my Bible skeptic friends, the case for the reliability of the Judeo-Christian scriptures is stronger than ever in the 21st century.

But how does a biblical worldview affect our day-to-day living? Following are just a few examples of truths from the Bible that must shape the way we live as disciples of Jesus. These concepts can easily be imparted to children.

First, a brief reminder about how the Bible is written.

Biblical revelation is both linear and progressive
It is important to recognize that God’s revelation in the scriptures is linear and progressive. That is, certain truths were not known or understood under the Torah of the Mosaic covenant that were understood later under the new covenant of Jesus. This is not to say that the earlier writings contain falsehoods, but that the new covenant of Jesus was new in substance, not merely in time.

One clear example is that the terms of the Mosaic covenant made no promise of a resurrection and an afterlife. The promises to Israel under the Mosaic covenant were physical in nature. So the writer of Ecclesiastes could correctly ask, “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” (Ecc 3:21.) The idea of an eternal soul had not yet been clearly articulated in the scriptures. Even at the time of Jesus this was not a settled question. The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection, because they held to the written Torah only. It was Jesus who first spoke plainly about resurrection and eternal life.

It is important to remember that revelation in the Bible is both linear and progressive because Bible critics often attempt to discredit a biblical worldview by offering spurious arguments. For example, critics charge that a biblical worldview would require believers to execute adulterers and homosexuals. But the Torah was given uniquely to ancient Israel until the time was fulfilled for something better to appear. Paul explicitly states that the Torah was a “custodian” until Jesus came bringing salvation and new life in the Spirit (Gal 3:23-29; Ro 7:4-6; 2 Cor 3:5,6.) Read as a whole, the scriptures simply do not allow the random taking of Old Covenant commands, out of context, and applying them to a New Covenant situation.

Having said that, there is much of value in the Torah that we should impart to our kids. Here are a few worldview-shaping ideas:

Creation
The first few chapters of the Bible say much about the shape of reality in our world today.
1) Human beings were created, male and female, in the image of God. We are not an accidental result of mindless evolutionary processes. Therefore, all human beings have transcendent, innate value by virtue of bearing God’s image. This concept alone is worth the price of embracing a biblical worldview.
2) We see that being in the image of a triune God also means that we are relational beings. Even though man existed in paradise and in companionship with his Creator, God still declared it “not good” for him to be alone (Gen 2:18.)
3) We see that God designed the binary, heterosexual reproductive system in humanity, and called it very good (Gen 1:27-31.)
4) We see marriage described as the creation of a new family unit, with “oneness” as the ideal (2:24.) This unity in diversity is yet another reflection of God’s image.
5) We see that there was both work and rest before the fall, therefore both are good and have their place.

Fall
The Fall of humanity into a state of separation from God is central to understanding the human condition and the world we live in. Because of human sin, with the Fall, disunity, death, disease, violence, and corruption entered the world. In the Bible, everything that follows the Fall is part of the story of God making a way to restore humanity to relational unity with Himself.

Flood
The Noahic flood demonstrates that our Creator has the right and the will to judge evil in His creation. The flood described in the Torah would’ve been the most unforgettable and horrific catastrophe in human history, permanently altering the surface of the earth. There are some 500 legends from around the world that speak of a great flood, many of which bear similarities to the biblical account. There are millions of land and sea creatures buried in layers of sediment all over the world – an observable testament to this event.

Israel
With Abraham, and then Moses, the establishment of Israel shows that our relational Creator has taken initiative to establish covenants with humanity. Israel was created to be a blessing to the nations and to point to the one true God (Gen 12:2,3; Lev 26:45.) God has not left humanity to fend for itself, but has prepared the world for salvation through Israel. Through foreshadowings in the Torah and through Israel’s prophets, God promised that a Messiah would come from Israel who would bring salvation to the world and set up an eternal kingdom.

Savior
Jesus fulfilled these messianic promises, bringing salvation to humanity, and establishing a New Covenant and the promised kingdom of God. By His sacrificial death on a cross Jesus perfectly satisfied the judgment of God, while also perfectly expressing His love for humanity. This salvation and entrance into His covenant and kingdom is by faith in the work of Jesus, through spiritual rebirth. It is received as a gift undeserved, not as something God owes us.

Faith
Contrary to the claims of “New Atheism,” biblical faith is not “belief in spite of evidence” (Dawkins.) This may be true of other types of religious faith, but biblical faith is not described this way. Biblical faith is relational and evidential – it has an object, God, and He goes out of His way to demonstrate His trustworthiness. So the idea of faith being “the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11) does not teach us to ignore observable evidence. Rather, read in context, one sees that this passage gives historical examples of people who believed what God had promised despite circumstances that made it difficult to trust Him. The point is relational in nature. There is no conflict between biblical faith and rationality.

Love
Love must be foremost for anyone embracing a biblical worldview. The Bible describes God as love, and as light in whom there is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5; 4:8.) Jesus declared the greatest commandment in the Torah to be love for God, and then love for neighbor, saying all of the Torah and the prophets depend upon these two commands (Matt 22:36-40.) He stated that the way people would recognize His disciples would be by their love for one another (Jn 13:34,35.) He claimed to have existed in perfect love with the Father before the creation existed (Jn 17:23-25.) His chosen apostle Paul exalted love above all else in His New Covenant writings. Paul stated that he would be nothing, and would gain nothing, without love (1Cor 13:1-3.) He called love the fulfilling of the Torah (Ro 13:8-10.) We are to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15.) We are to walk in love, in the example of Jesus (Eph 5:1,2.)

Worldview and the critical role of kids’ storybooks
Storybooks are one of the best ways to instill a biblical worldview in small children because stories can show them, rather than merely tell them, how the world works. Stories engage the whole person – mind, will, and emotions. By engaging the mind and the heart in a non-abstract and enjoyable way, stories reach the deepest part in all of us. Bullet points and abstract principles do not engage the emotions. Stories do. And they stay with us. If you would like to be notified of new, creative storybooks for kids that are designed to instill, reinforce, and normalize a biblical worldview in the children you love, you can sign up on the homepage of this site.