THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Tag: methods (page 1 of 2)

Christian Mindfulness: How It’s Changing Me

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Christian mindfulness

My father is the broad-shouldered, strong, internal teddy bear type, with fingers like sausages. In my childhood, he was a Midwestern farmer.  In his spare time, he donates his mad skills to car repairs of missionaries, single moms, people like that. He’s that kind of guy.

And it’s common for him to come back into the house with blood zigzagging down his leg or seeping through his shirt. read more

Help! My Kid Can’t Sleep

Reading Time: 4 minutes

sleep insomnia

For most of my life, I’ve been one of those people who could fall asleep anywhere. This is both a rich blessing and potentially a mortifying curse, of course.

Airplanes? Hotels? Weird bedrooms? Check. read more

ADHD and What Works for Us: Tips, tactics–and hope

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Author’s note: This post veers a bit to a niche audience. But my posts on what I’m learning from my son’s learning disorders—ADHD and dysgraphia—and this one on helping our kids turn suffering into praise have been perennially visited by whom I can only assume are parents hoping to adjust to similarly harrowing and frustrating diagnoses.

I’m not a doctor or an expert—just a parent who has found some gratitude in all this.

Six years ago, my heart wasn’t just gripped by preparations to heave our family of six over to Africa. It took only till September of my son’s kindergarten year to piece together that something wasn’t right. read more

Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: 13 Simple Ways to Teach Hospitality

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Missed the previous posts and the ideas behind this series? Catch ’em here.

He was barely in the front door, cheeks flushed from the bike ride home. He smelled like the cold and that faintest puff of little-boy sweat. “Mom! Guess what! We’re getting a new kid and his name is Toby and the teacher wants me to show him around and tell him all about the school!” He drew a breath, those Chiclet-sized adult teeth still, charmingly, just a bit too big for his eight-year-old mouth. read more

Guest Post: Helping Kids Learn to Walk with the Holy Spirit

Reading Time: < 1 minute
Helping Kids Learn to Walk in the Holy Spirit

Take good care of my baby. (Yep, the kid actually managed to get five front teeth in this photo.)

It’s happening.

After eight years of homeschooling, this year, all four of my children strap on their backpacks and head down to our local public school. read more

The Stressed Version of Your Marriage

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Missed Part I, Questions to Understand THE STRESSED VERSION OF YOURSELF? Grab it here.

One of the unexpected delights of our final couple of months in Africa was the arrival of a college friend who’s known my husband and I since the beginning. She watched us meet, cautiously date, giddily become engaged. She played the piano when the two of us spring chickens said “I do” forever. Later, I stood with her as she spoke her own vows beneath a spreading tree. And when she visited us in Africa and we stayed up entirely too late, she gave us this gift: I told my husband, “I love that she reminds us how good we are together. That you and I together are a really good thing.”

I wrote before that this time of leaving Africa, of setting a foot on two highly divergent continents, has delivered unavoidable stress to our relationship. Both of us are strained, so it makes sense that our most intimate relationships would bear that weight. So it was kind of God to remind us that despite the ways we occasionally feel like the losers in a three-legged-race right now—“us” is still a really good thing.

Part I of this post outlined some essential reasons we need to identify when we’re stressed. If you’re convinced, let’s get down to it. What are the signs your marriage is under stress?

10 Prayer Tools and Printables for Families

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In light of the series on Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families, I’m hoping this easy, often printable tools will help weave prayer into the fabric of your family.

If you love this kind of thing, try signing up in the right sidebar for the first chapter of Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write On Your Kids’ Hearts. It’s packed with ideas like this–and connects to more printable resources on this site to help you teach spiritual life skills!

The Prayer of Examen

This printable poster makes it easy for kids to learn to pray through their day with God. (If you’re new to this prayer, don’t let the name intimidate you! Here’s an introduction to this ancient, traditional, contemplative prayer.) read more

Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families: 13 Easy Ways to Teach Meditation and Contemplation

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Missed the first post in this new series? Catch it here.

If you’re like me, you might just be fascinated by the idea of this post because it’s hard to think of your kids meditating on anything than, say, Minecraft.

Meditation’s for quiet families, right? Maybe those who, say, needlepoint together. Not the kind of boys like mine, who I have to remind to remove all Nerf weapons from the dinner table. read more

Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families—10 Practical Ways to Teach Prayer (FREE PRINTABLES!)

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Last week, I heard from my sister in Thailand some of the heartbreaking moments they’ve been struggling through in their community of refugees. An 11-year-old girl sent to possibly “work” in Bangkok with her mother. A stabbing. A man depriving his family of enough money to buy food. And I thought, my kids and I should pray.

Then I thought of our prayers the last several weeks: Mostly stuff about…us.

Of course it’s good to teach our children to seek God for all their needs. But at that moment I thought, I want to up the ante on teaching my kids to cry out to God for other people. read more

Freebie Fridays: FREE Printable Love Languages “Cheat Sheet”

Reading Time: 2 minutes

freebie-fridays

If you’re new to the “love languages” concept, check out the 5 Love Languages website. love languages text

Happy Friday, everyone! This week I’m excited to offer this free, printable 5-page “Cheat Sheet” to the 5 Love Languages: Twenty practical, innovative ideas per love language: words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, physical touch, and quality time. (If you’re not sure which of the love languages your spouse, kids, and friends “speak”, try this quiz.) Print them all, or only the love languages you need. read more

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