Looking for ways to parent with more emotional health?
Here’s nine. (Start with, like, two.)
This morning as my 14-year-old scarfed down chicken-maple sausage links before school, I pulled Tim Keller’s devo (for adults) on Proverbs off the kitchen’s half-wall, where it sits by the fruit bowl. These pages have become to me a quietly cherished part of our routine.
There’s something about Proverbs’ concrete wisdom and word pictures for developing young brains that makes this book wonderfully tactile. (And bless the person who divided it neatly into 31 chapters, one per day of the month.)
The dog licked me awake early this morning. Well, early for my slumbering house of teenagers house. And I stayed awake for the quiet.
As I type to you, snow layers the landscape out my window like fondant. I love its muting effect–on schedules, on sound. My life craves more quiet, for the love of Mike. And the end of the year always seems to hush my own soul into a more contemplative place.
My kids are getting older, which means winter break looks different here. Sniff.
Of course, we’ll still be decorating cookies and mushing together the family clam dip. (It’s a Breitenstein thing.)
But Christmas Eve, we’ll have three different pickups of three different kids: two teenagers have gone for more fun with relatives this week, and my oldest–the Marine–arrives from Camp Pendleton.
Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
Can I tell you something embarrassing? …I’ve been working up to this.
When I was a super-young mom, I was thinking about writing a novel. (I have a different one on my hard drive that will likely never see the light of day.)
I confess delaying on this post a bit because I never know how to talk about stuff like this. Like, ever.
But yes, this past month, I was on the podcast/radio broadcast of Focus on the Family to talk about my book with Harvest House, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts.
Despite my severe imposter’s syndrome, it was a cool life experience, guys. (If you like this kind of stuff, you might like this post from my FamilyLife Today interviews.)
Ever wonder if you’re doing too much for your kids?
Personality-wise, this is my reality. I am a helper, an empath to a point that it arcs others’ eyebrows.
A friend asked me a good question in a roundabout way. Let’s say my child is in one of those seasons when they’re hard to love.
…Or even being a jerk.
One of my (many, many) weirdnesses in parenting my teens has been the fact that every. Single. One of mine is opinionated and fairly strong in personality.
This is weird for me because I was totally the opposite. I was an I-excel-in-being-a-doormat-and-pleasing-the-world teenager.
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