Tips for a Happy Summer

We all want our kids to be happy, but as you enter into the summer months and have more contact with your children, I want to encourage you to help them learn and grow this summer by letting them be just a little unhappy.  

Sometimes we need a happiness reset. 

We have a tendency (called hedonic adaptation) to return to a happy-midpoint emotionally. This means that if we experience the same awesome event repeatedly, after a while it doesn't seem as awesome. We experience less pleasure from that same event. We then seek even greater pleasure to just feel the same level of happiness we felt before. A period of boredom, although generally not pleasant, will help your kids to more fully appreciate the fun parts of their day or week.  

Boredom has two components: low arousal and dissatisfaction. You can help your children to be more tolerant of boredom by building into your day times of low simulation (no screens, family prayer time, alone time), and by occasionally saying no to their requests.  Letting your children be bored is not the same thing as simply checking out and disengaging from them all day long. 

I am a huge supporter of planning and intentionality in family life. Each summer has looked dramatically different based on the kids' ages and our travel plans, but one thing that has helped is having some loose schedules posted in a central place. This can be a weekly or a daily schedule or both and I have examples in previous blogs (here and here). But I want to get you to think about providing structure when you create your schedule rather than over programming the children. Structure means having quiet time each day vs having a set time that they must read a specific book. Or building in some crafty creative time vs you planning and teaching a specific craft. When you schedule, you give them an idea for the flow of the day, you don't necessarily entertain them all day long. 

One area that is fairly structured in our home is meals. We typically have one wake up time and in previous years I make a decent breakfast for them. I do this because it will keep them from parading through the kitchen all morning and it gives them a good start. The key is consistency. Either make breakfast, or leave it up to them. But be consistent about it and provide some time frame for their meals. Breakfast 9ish,  lunch 12ish, snack 3ish and dinner 6ish works well for us. Getting everyone eating and sleeping in sync helps me escape the summer title of short-order-cook.

By providing a loose schedule, regular meal times, giving them a chance to be bored and saying no to their every demand, you all can have a happier healthier home this summer. If you have enjoyed these tips for a happy summer please share it with others!

Thanks for stopping by!

Dealing with Discipline: Why good cop/bad cop works and what to do when it doesn't

My oldest, had a curious way of never alienating himself from both his father and me at the same time. As a scientist it fascinated me and as a mother it made me laugh.  I used to say he always wanted to make sure someone would be there to feed him. As conflict cropped up in the family, I found this to be the same in my other children as well. Almost naturally, my husband and I would divide and conquer when it came to discipline - one of us would take the lead, and the other would follow up more gently. 

Until one night this week when everything fell apart. 

The details of the situation are less important than the lesson I learned. We both found ourselves frustrated with one of our children and decided that the drive home was the best-time to address the situation with the child. After carefully discussing that we wanted be careful not to "crush her spirit", yes those were my exact words, we inadvertently proceeded to do just that. 

The good cop bad cop way of dealing with discipline we had carefully crafted over 19 years of parenting went out the car window. Rather than letting her hear from one parent, we took turns piling it all on. Our good cop bad cop routine fell apart.

This conversation will go down as one of our greatest parenting fails. 

Good cop bad cop work because one parent is able to give the child the clear message for improvement, while the other gives the message of unconditional love. We love you irrespective of the problem, we care for you.  It lets the parents be aligned with a shared goal of helping the child fix the discipline issue at hand, without teaming up on the child. As I said recently in my podcast episode on Motherhood, you and your spouse don't need to be clones of one another, you need to compliment one another. 

So what do we do when we have one of these parenting fails? You apologize. Ask for forgiveness for being unkind, or impatient, or for your lack of prudence. Show humility and love. Begin to build back that relationship stronger. And next time you have to deal with discipline discuss who gets to be the good cop or bad cop before you head into the discussion. 

God Bless you in your endeavors!

The Parent's Role at Playtime

A few years ago I caused myself an embarrassing moment when I yelled at my kids

“would you guys just GROW UP - you’re acting like a bunch of children!”.

The comment, said in desperation, caused a further eruption of laughter from the little-ish one and smirks and chuckles from the big-ish kids.

Play is hugely important to children. A study out last spring by Metafuria and colleagues (2020) found continued evidence that parents' belief and support of play in preschool aged children is associated with greater play in the home and better children’s performance on neurological tests of executive functioning. When children engage in frequent pretend play for instance they have better inhibitory control.  This study adds to a huge body of research stemming back to the 1972 theories of Piaget on the importance of play for development. 

But what about the parents playing? What role should we play in it. A team from Stanford led by Jelena Obradovic’ reported findings recently that suggest parents actually need to back off when it comes to play. They looked at playtime behaviors of kindergarten aged children and found that parents who were more directive, provided more verbal feedback, questions suggestions, or instruction, had children who exhibited greater difficulty with self-regulation of behavior and emotions, and performed worse on executive functioning tasks.

In a second study, the researchers found that with older children, the association between parental over involvement and children’s lower executive functioning is present when the child is highly focused on a task, rather than simply passively engaged. 

Their work suggests that when it comes to play, we parents need to just let our kids play. If your child is focused on something, be it LEGOs or their geometry homework, let them work it out but be available to support if and when they ask for help. If they are passively engaged in something or doing other work like maybe a jigsaw puzzle that involves a different type of cognitive work, your involvement or engagement is not likely to be detrimental and can even be supportive. 

Does this mean you are completely off the hook for playtime? Nope. 

Parent-child play time is essential to the building of Social Skill Sets. In particular, parent-child pretend play as well as physical play, is associated with skill sets related to  gross motor, leadership, cognition, emotional regulation and even stress regulation. The important thing is to let the child lead when you are engaged in play together, and to help them develop independent play as well. In this previous blog post I discuss how to best play with your child based on Vygotsky’s principles of guided participation, scaffolding, and intersubjectivity. 

For more on how to adopt a more playful attitude in life in generally you should read this.

Now go have some fun!

How Should We Talk To Our Kids About Crisis?

How do we talk to our kids in during a National Crisis? It is a question I have received a number of times in the last 24 hours as we watched our institution of democracy undermined in an afternoon and into an evening. 

In a National crisis, some of us try to absorb as much media as we can. Others avoid.

As members of this still-great federal republic, we have an obligation to be aware, but as adults we need to protect our children. We don’t have permission to obsess and neglect and bring fear into our home.

This year has given us multiple opportunities to sit on our sofa with the news and our phones, and doomscroll while we soak in the fear and anger of others. And there is much about which to be angry.

But as parents, we have an obligation to personally educate and protect our children. It is our job to do this. We must be the filter, the translator, the primary educator. We must provide context for what they see, answers to their question, soothe their concerns, and then recognize when we should turn it all off and play a game of cards together.

Children need reassurance that they are safe, that their world is good, and that there us hope for our future. Our conversations should convey that. Our interactions and responses should provide that.

Parents are their child’s primary protector. If your child is young, this means sheltering them from information they can not cognitively comprehend. If they are older, it means being honest about the world and providing much needed context for the events they see. 

We live in a fallen world, and evil is real. People have free will and make poor choices that put the lives of others in danger. The choices we make have consequences. These are all lessons that are being showcased. 

Here are 5 things parents should do:

First, you need to turn off the news. Let your children know what is happening. Show them a bit if you want, but endless steaming of violence and hate and abuse and anger shouldn’t be allowed in any home. The stress caused by the news is real for both adults and children alike. You can always flip it back on when they go to bed.

Secondly, if you don’t know the facts, find out rather than pretending. If you don’t know the difference between a riot, a protest, an act of sedition or an act of domestic terrorism, look it up. If they ask a new question, seek an answer together. Don’t rely on the non-expert. Experts share their knowledge freely.

Third, simplify your explanations and allow the child to ask for more. Too often adults dump information on children rather than letting them explore the issue together. A child who requires a one sentence answer doesn’t need to hear a dissertation about the subject, your thoughts, feelings, and fears for the future.

Fourth, be careful with your language. Always, never, but... these are words to use sparingly. Speak with charity and wisdom. And if you don’t have anything nice to say, then say a prayer. 

Lastly, look and listen. Some children will be upset even though you do everything right. Some children are more sensitive or fearful. If they need extra help, attention, or just more TLC, give it to them.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for passing this blog post along. 

For more parenting tips follow along on Instagram @Dr.MaryruthHackett or subscribe to my podcast Parenting Smarts. 

How to Raise Anti-Racist Kids

For Christmas this year, I got Dr. Crystal Fleming’s 2018 book How to be Less Stupid about Race. In it, Fleming writes “living in a racist society socializes us to be stupid about race”.  The main premise of her book, is that the current broader culture, in her words “exposes us all to absurd and harmful ideas that, in turn, help maintain the status quo” p3. When something is part of the mainstream culture, it becomes our normal. Good-hearted people, can then contribute to the pain and suffering of others, without realizing it. With the proliferation of thoughts and ideas, of opinions and emotions, ignorance to the issues of race can no longer be an excuse for perpetuating racism.

Addressing issues of racism from a parenting approach, can be a way to address the culture in our own home- how we look at situations, how and when we discuss things on the news, with whom we socialize and how we interact with others, how we answer difficult questions. In and through our conversations, we can work to change the culture in our homes, and can continue to change our culture as a whole. Change happens on a micro-system level in the 1:1 interactions we have with our children and our friends.

Development of Racism

Racism is a way of thinking about something – it is a thought process that begins with stereotypes, biases, and prejudices based on an oversimplification or a generalization of groups or people.  This starts as soon as we notice differences, because our brains strive for simplification – our brains are going to try to classify, generalize, and oversimplify. We have to combat this because racism, biases and prejudices are inherently evil.

By age two, children recognize physical differences and by age 3 and 4 children start classifying things, including people. Children may start questioning why people have different hair or skin tones, and just like with gender they don’t necessarily see race as salient.  By age 4 children show age preferences – then by age 8, children come to understand racial constancy. And this is really a ripe time to talk about cultural awareness and racial identity.  Obviously as questions come up, we can and should talk about it with younger children as well. We should not shy away from dialogue. There is nothing shameful about talking about race.

Pandemic Parenting: The reality of limits to screen time and what really matters

I reached for my bible. while balancing the cup of coffee and journal and pen, and reached for the door nob. As the door creaked open and the fresh morning air greeted me I heard the dramatic opening notes of Star Wars thunder from the other room. These are the moments of motherhood - when we have to decide to go to battle, or choose to ignore the less than perfect choices made by those little ones in our care.

I stepped into the sunshine and let the door latch behind me.

As a mother of two teen sons and two younger daughters, I live the reality of how tough it is to place screen limitations on my household members. When a child is a 30lb - 3 year old and would just as soon be playing with her dolls or coloring, limit the screen time is pretty easy. But it is not so easy when the child is a 120 lb - 12 year old or a 165 lb.- 17 year old who just wants to veg out or talk with his friends (on the headset) as they play a game online together.  The social world of teens is now largely online. Texting, social media, and online gaming is how they communicate. Covid has made it a time of almost exclusively remote-relationships for our children.

The difficulty of the situation is compounded by the reality that we can't escape one another. Many parents are working at home, squirreled away in little corners or reclaimed desks. My husband is living a self-imposed life of exile in our bedroom as he tunes in remotely to accomplish his tasks. I bounce between children as does my computer. On rare occasion neither myself or my laptop is required, I admit want to be left alone for a little while to write, edit, catch up on emails or just scroll. Letting my kids zone out to screens for short bursts of time has alway been my go to when I need a breather, but many families are experiencing huge amounts of guilt now as their children's viewing or video game play has increased.

We worry as they exceed the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of 2 hours a day. But some of our children are spending 2 hours a day on screens with their teachers in distance learning. Does that mean everything over that is detrimental? 

Do what is best for the family at the time

Much of the research on screen time is based on what we call a deficit model. If the children are viewing excessively, that means they are being deprived of other activities or other stimulation. But what the children are doing on line makes a difference, and what they would be doing otherwise makes a difference too.

Intentionality Part Two

Intentionality 

If you missed Part One: Being intentional with God, but sure to check that out as well! 

Part Two: Being intentional with our children

In order to excel in any vocation one must be intentional about what one does.  Aren't your best days as mothers the days that you actually say "hey, lets do this".  It doesn't have to be something extraordinary – it can be a simple as having dinner outside on a blanket – but it is intentional!  Think about how much of your day you let others have control of …or how much you plan in advance (ie. Mondays groceries, Tuesday laundry)… those of us with older kids are dealing with their schedules and the youngsters have their important routines.  

Routines and schedules are critical for young kids especially because they leave kids feeling safe in a fairly unpredictable world. I am not suggesting being unpredictable. I am suggesting you be intentional about your parenting and your relationship with your spouse.  Developmental psychology tells us that the more routine you are with your kids, the better they are at being flexible when you need them to be so.

Intentionality Part One

Intentionality

Are we caotic and messy? A little kaos and a little mess is great, but too much leaves us with no opportunity to reflect, to mediate, to pray, to listen, to think. We need to do these things for ourselves and for our families. If we don't take time (not having time is an excuse) to think about what we are doing then we are simply existing and we are not being intentional. In order to excel in any vocation one must be intentional about what one does. It doesn't matter WHAT your occupation is, you won't excel at it if you just show up and go through the motions. This is a tough time for our whole country, our whole culture. We are being asked to sacrifice much for the greater good. Intentionality will help us all survive the craziness and maybe come out better for it in the end. With that in mind, Here is Part of One of a game plan for living intentionally as mothers and fathers.  

Part I: Be Intentional About Your Relationship with God

If we expect to have Christ in our hearts and homes…Shouldn't we be intentional about getting to know GOD? Do you think you know all there is to know about God? Or do you just know enough? Are you comfortable with your relationship with the Lord? Do you hunger for more? Are you a lukewarm Christian? You show up for service each week, you pray a routine prayer before bed each night...you love God right? Do you WORK for that relationship? How do you love someone if you don't know them?  Have you EVER known someone that you didn't EVER have to work to get to know?  

Do the work. 
Too often we expect someone (like our priest) to do all the work for us. The priest is then a mutual friend that we and The Lord have in common – we only know God through this person rather than having our own relationship with Him. We are so blessed to have truly wonderful priests who have a brilliant understanding of tradition and scripture. Our journey to personal sanctification needn't be completely dependent upon these individuals.

God is there for us to know. He is there for us to know in the BIBLE. Get to know God through The Word – Jesus was the Word made flesh. God is available to us in prayer. To have a real relationship with someone you must enter into dialogue with them and LISTEN. Set time aside for Him – for fellowship with those who know Him, for study, for prayer, for reflections. Join bible studies, go to adoration and just be in His presence, sign up for an online workshop, read scripture.

Be a role model. 
We need to be a role model of an intentional relationship with God...for ourselves and for our kids –

Compressing as a Remedy for Stressing

Sometimes when a muscle or joint is super tight a therapist, rather than stretching the area, will compress it in order to get it to relax. It seems counter intuitive, but it works to help that area to relax. The other night I found myself in one of those parenting moments of heightened anxiety. Maybe it was the storm outside, or the cancelation of practices (I am horrible with changes to the schedule), maybe it was the soundtrack of our life with the thump - thump - thump of the ball against the wall and the chatter of the girls interrupted by thunder outside…regardless, I found myself in the kitchen barely keeping it together.  I took deep breathes and tried to show prudence in my response to the little loves and their requests, all the while feeling a constriction in my entire torso.  I was at that moment that I just gave in. I gave into the tightness and stress and confusion in the schedule. Rather than continuing to stretch myself I constricted. I turned inward. I grabbed my rosary and went room to room asking each of the kids at home if they wanted to join me for the rosary. Right now.  In the dinning room. I sat with my 13 year old and we just prayed. And as promised a peace came over us and over the home. There are three things in this situation which were bold and new for me.

1) I prayed in a very public space.
2) I invited the kids to join me instead either demanding it, or hiding from them.
3) I added something sacred during a time of day when I typically was simply responding to the needs of others.

Let me tell you that in moments of intense frustration, I rarely have the wisdom to turn to prayer. But just as it is counter intuitive to compress a muscle that needs to be stretched, when we are stretched beyond what we think we can tolerate, we too must compress, and rest in the Lord. And sometimes that means adding something to an already full or overwhelming situation. Rather than stripping away tasks on the list, sometimes we need to add prayer to the top.

How to be a good mother in 5 sort of easy steps

How to Be A Good Mother...

According to our pastor, being a good mother really isn't that hard.

And as much as I have to laugh at the suggestion that parenting is easy, he made enough points that I started to take notes. With his permission I have summarized and compressed and paraphrased and added to put together a join list of 5 sort of easy things you need to do to be a good mom.

1. Consecrate our child to God.  Baptism is the first step here. We should consecrate our babies to God and bring them in communion with God and His Church.

2. Give your child Jesus. My Pastor brought up of the old adage "you can't give what you don't have".  Mothers should be setting aside time to develop their own personal relationships with Jesus so that this can act as a model for normal living. Just as you may give them an appreciation for sports, or art, or music, or literature, you too can give them Jesus.

3. Be sacrificial in your mothering.  Serve with love - not begrudgingly. Don't hang on to the past or worry about the future - just give what you have to give. My father used to say "if you don't go to bed tired, your didn't do enough".  Never is that more true that with mothering. Somedays it feels like we don't do enough, yet we go to bed (and some mornings wake up) exhausted. Motherhood is a sacrifice and we often have to do things that we dont want to do... but we know we are going to do them anyway so put a smile on your face and take a deep breathe and bring God in to your moment to moment acts of service.

4. Pray for your child. At all stages in their lives. And don't stop praying.

5. Bless your child. Numbers 6:22-27 instructs the israelites how exactly to bless their children and we have adopted it as our bedtime blessing.

The Lord bless you and keep you!

The Lord let his face shine upon 

you, and be gracious to you!

The Lord look upon you kindly and 

give you peace!

So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, 

and I will bless them.

It gets a little awkward now that my oldest is bigger than me, but I still try to bless him at every opportunity.

Too often, we moms set ourselves an impossibly high bar. Our kids have to be the smartest, prettiest, most polite, most creative, and most athletic or we have failed. Our measure of motherhood shouldn't hang on the snippets of our children's behaviors, but rather should focus on what we are doing in these five areas. Beyond that we have to let go. Our children have free will. All we can do is love them, keep them relatively safe and well fed, and give their spiritual life a firm foundation so that they can develop a relationship with Christ.  Now doesn't that seem easy?

Self-care in Stages

Photo credit @anniespratt via Unsplash

School started this week and I am not going to lie. I was thrilled. With 4 kids at home all summer I was acutely aware of a startling lack of anything that resembled self-care. The first day back had me wondering how best to celebrate having a quiet house all day for the first time since becoming a parent 14 years ago. I debated between going home to take a nap and going to a friends to do some work wilts drinking mimosas.

And that got me to thinking about self-care. Because self-care is all about the self and it will differ with each of you. My hope is peaking in my evolution will give you pause to look at your own, and help you to seek some significant ways to take care of yourself, where ever you are in life.

In my pre-parenting life, self-care was all about betterment of the self. I would go for a run a few times a week. I ate well. When I didn't eat well I would run a little more. I was able to mostly sleep until I naturally awoke because my graduate school classes were typically later starts and I never had to be at work before 9am. I got the occasional expensive coffee drink as a treat. I got plenty of alone time naturally.

Once we got married and started our family, I turning inward, not to myself but to our little growing family. As we solidified our union as husband and wife, we began to bond with other couples who were in a similar stage of life. Those relationships were often family based and frequently instructive for us as we embraced the new roles of Mother and Father. Self-care in those days meant regular lunches with these friends or playdates where my friends and I would watch the children play and dissect every little concern over coffee. It meant getting out of the house and talking with another adult eye-ball to eye-ball. It meant dropping the children at the gym not so that I could sweat, but so that I could clear my head of the little chatter and delved into a fictional life while I sort-of worked out, all the while balancing a book in my hand.

That was about the time I converted to Catholicism and began the mom's ministry at our parish. I had two little boys and I craved relationships with women whose eyes were on the cross and whose end goal in life was an eternity in heaven. I didn't want to just spend time with other people. I wanted to spend time with people with whom I shared values, and goals, and dreams. I wanted my children to grow up in a community of people who had strong marriages and strong faiths. Self-care started to mean more about my internal and personal growth. It still had a social aspect, but it wasn't about passing time with people. It was about growing with them. I would gain weight with pregnancy and loose it again only to gain it once more with each pregnancy. My gym time, which I still considered critical for self-care, was for mental health more than physical health because it seemed I was almost always pregnant or nursing.

And then the children started school, and I found a resurgence of discretionary time and a introduction of outside demands. People started asking things of me. Will I help with Vacation Bible School? Sure. Will we hold a bake sale? Sure. Can you help decorate the church for Christmas? Sure. Wanna run the parish consignment sale? Sure. Do you want to join our bunco group? Book club? MOPS? And on and on it went and because there was no end to the opportunities and I quickly became engulfed. There was so much I wanted to do and getting out of the house one night a week was a delight. Having a night "off" from the bedtime routine was bliss. Self-care meant escaping the responsibilities of family life for just a few hours, even though that often meant taking on other responsibilities. I became a compulsive volunteer, because it meant I could leave without guilt.

And then Baby Number Four came along and escaping became impossible. Our schedules, the demands at home, the needs of the children overwhelmed the schedule. Whereas self-care once meant saying Yes to serving outside the home, now it meant learning to say No. Learning to say No to the things in life that overwhelmed me, consumed me, and kept me up at night was one of the healthiest lessons I have learned as an adult. I realized that each time I say Yes, I took on a task that could be completed by someone else. Saying No to serving provides others the opportunity to say Yes. So I began saying No more often. If it wasn't something that I was uniquely prepared for or had a gift for, I could now say No. Saying No became the primary way to say Yes to myself and to God. I stopped doing and started being. I started to become intentional.

And I began writing. I let the Lord call me to a new life within, a new love within. He spoke to me in prayer and lit a love for words within me. He called me to serve in the quiet. During nap times, during preschool, while the little ones played. I was able to serve Him and use my unique combination of gifts, training and experience in a way to that left me without guilt or exhaustion.

Now as I settle into my 40s, life with a teenager a kindergartener and two in between has left me with little headspace for writing. I have found different a unique ways to serve outside the home through my writing and my role with Blessed is She. I am back to trying to escape, but mostly just so that I can breathe without children around. As my teen stays up later and later the quiet time at home in the evenings has been reduced. I hit the gym a few days a week for vanity purposes as my metabolism and muscle mass both decline. I have a glass of vino in the evenings and take pleasure in the fact that I can drink decent wine from a nice glass, and it is a healthy thing to do as I watch my HDL's. My friendships are solid. They aren't just the parents of my children's friends, or relationships I cling to from other stages in life although I thankfully do still have some of those. They are heart-to-heart friendships with women I want to grow with. They hold me accountable and advise me. They seek my counsel, recognize my strengths, and tease me about my weaknesses. Self-care also means escaping with my husband - Date nights, an annual trip with another couple, and a little trip for just the two of us. I will continue to grow through the years, but real self-care means making sure that my husband and I grow together as well. With the distractions and demands of parenting kids, a tween and a teen this is my biggest challenge.

One day, I am told, I will blink and it will be just my husband and me. I will be saying goodbye to the baby and entering Empty Nest status, and self-care will look much different from how it looks today. It will challenge me to evaluate how much time and energy I am willing to commit in order to combat natural aging. My hormones will shift and I will be forced to adjust relationally and emotionally. I predict a bit of a return to self-care as it once was with a more self- rather than other-focus, but now that focus will be on the internal not the external.

Self-care won't be about seeking out time away, but it will be about boundaries of some sort because it always is. Self-care will still concern balancing the needs of others and the needs of the self. And so the flow of self-care from external care - to care of family unit - to care of social/community unit - to care of internal self will continue.

Take a minute and think - Where are you with your self-care? What does that term even mean to you today? Is self-care taking just a few minutes to veg out on social media? Is it something as simple as listening to your favorite music or building a favorite activity into your weekly routine? Is it intention or does it come naturally? 

Thanks for stopping by to think with me today!

Finding Peace in Chaos: Summer Survival 2017

I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts straight, hovering somewhere between "yeah I am fine" and "ah man I am loosing it". Two separate viruses had hit our normally healthy home in the last 6 weeks. Couple those with a jumbled up schedule packed with extras like sacraments and recitals and tryouts and house hunting all as we finished off the school year. It wasn't that we had so much more going on that normal. Being released from sports practices for a few weeks gave me much more than a few extra hours in the day. No, it was the complete lack of predictability that caused the unease. 

There are seasons in life where structure and planning and purposeful living comes easier. Then there are seasons like this.  

I was leaping into summer without any vacation plans in ink, without a master calendar dotted with ideas to structure out days, without team commitments for my three club athletes, crossing my fingers that my healthy ones would stay healthy and the sick ones would get better already. Oh and we quite literally did not know where we would call home the next month. 

I am a hyper-planner. I think I was blessed with a charism of administration. Scheduling the lives of the little and big people under my roof really brings me joy. And riding through a harried spring into a more laid back time of triple digit temperatures should be refreshing and instill feeling of relaxation. So why did I find myself living instead with a sense of dread? 

During Lent I had developed a beautiful practice of rising early to work through my BIS Lent journal. I am not a journalist by nature, but the concrete daily time for me to get grounding with God was life giving. But it is hard to drag oneself out of bed early. Having a Lenten promise to do so was the only reason I persisted. Plus I didn't want to get behind in the book. The perpetual student in me wouldn't allow for that. 

But Lent ended and the Easter season brought with it joy and celebration and the sacrifice of getting up early... well it was easy to give that up. I had an Easter season book study to do. On my nightstand, on the counter, in the car. It didn't matter where I put it. I wasn't getting done. I was sleeping a little later, checking in with social media, glancing over my email and getting the daily readings, making my coffee and going about my day. But it wasn't Lent anymore so why should I sacrifice sleep?

Gone was the time to just sit with God. 

Holy Spirit come. That was the simple prayer I would utter before opening my Lent journal. Holy Spirit come. So simple and so easy, and those were the first words each day. 

Today I woke up and instead of checking the feeds or opening my email even, I listen to God. I asked Him to give me peace.

Peace doesn't come from the schedule, or the plans, or the organization and structure of the day. Peace comes from God. He will provide peace in the days of uncertainty. But our God is a gentleman God. He doesn't force himself into our lives. He loves us from afar in those times when we keep Him at a distance. When we invite Him in closer he comes equipped with all the graces we need, ready to rekindle the holy gifts he has given us in baptism and confirmation. 

In Matthew 11 Jesus tell us 

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." 

He invites us to come to Him. He offers rest, but in the next line he offers so much more...

 "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves."

He doesn't say he is going to take away our problems. He says He is going to teach us and give us rest. 

I don't want God to take away my problems- my problems are good problems. Having many hearts to love and many mouths to feed and many talents to nurture in my little ones is a joyful problem. I need him to teach me how to enter into the fullness of life without feeling weary or burdened. I need to learn how to have faith and trust so deep that uncertain and shifting schedules don't keep me up with worry at night. I need to have confidence that my children will grow through their physical suffering and if they all end up getting sick so be it. 

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light". 

The load is still there because that is life in this world. 

When we take our uncertainty, the frustrations, the worries, the sadness,whatever we have weighting down our hearts and we cast that upon the yoke of the Lord, the load is made manageable. 

I still don't know where we will be living when the next season begins. I don't know what the summer will bring. But for me, putting on His yoke each morning means starting each day with an invitation to God.

Come Holy Spirit Come. 

When Rescuing is Wrong

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We were siting around the little patio at our local pub. Just a group of us moms out for a little fellowship and some time away from our cumulative 20+ children. One of us had gotten the wrong beer or maybe it was just a stinky beer and she wasn't going to drink it. There was some passing around of the glass and the agreement at the table was that the beer was nasty and she should send it back. We all agreed that the friend who ordered it should just send it back and let the server know it was bad. But this friend was really tentative and would rather not have anything to drink if that meant she may make someone else (the server) feel uncomfortable. After some good natured teasing and laughing, she decided that maybe she would try to be assertive (see the hesitation there already?) and give it a try. As the server approached I could see the stress in her face. She hemmed and hawed and hesitated and so I just blurted out - "Can she get a new drink? This one is awful" - at which point the server smiled and acquiesced and the problem was solved.

Except it wasn't.  Another friend (who is a counselor by training and practice) looked at me with a smile and stated "You are a rescuer!"

A what?

I had never heard that term. What ensued was a bit of more drinking and lot of laughing and even more self-reflection on how each of us as the table handle conflict. 

My counselor friend is absolutely right. I am a rescuer.  I don't like conflict, but what I hate more than conflict is to see my loved ones uncomfortable, in pain, or really suffering in any way. Although it is a nice and noble thing to be willing to help alleviate others discomfort, especially when it comes to beer, being a Rescuer can lead to some rather negative parenting situations. 

Our children grow through conflict. As a mother I should be providing them with a safe and loving environment in which they have the opportunity to solve their own conflicts. I can provide guidance, I can give suggestions (when asked), I can model frameworks for conflict management, but stepping in to take away their pain, discomfort and sometimes genuine suffering, only handicaps their ability to grow into mature and capable adults. Rescuing behavior shows a lack of awareness or appreciation of the good that can come from suffering.

Children are going to have conflicts - daily - and if they have sibling it can at times seem like they life a life of constant conflict. Kids can be mean (yes even my kids) and they make poor choices all the time. I blame their poorly developed frontal lobes. But it is through their conflicts that they learn. They learn when to speak out and when to let things go, they learn how much crap they can take from their peers before they snap, they learn at what point they need to stand up for others, they learn that some friends are fun but not good for them, they learn about honesty, and loyalty, and trustworthiness. They come to value people who are virtuous and learn to avoid those who lack decency.  

So what's a Rescuer- Mom to do? It hurts so much to see our little ones hurting, but swooping in and messing with their business isn't often the best way to handle it. What we need to do is Love and Listen.

First, we are called to love. They need to know that what ever they do, however they handle a situation, they are loved by both us and by God. They are going to mess up. They are going to make poor choices. They are going to fail in some way at some time.  And we are called to loved them through that time. They need to know that good behavior is not a condition of our love. Is it easier to show them love when they are acting awesome? Yes. Will behaving well make us love them more? Nope. We may like being with them more when they are awesome, but we love them the same amount when they are awesome and awful. Our heart are designed to love them. When the rest of the world is giving them crap, we will give them love.

Secondly, our kids need to know that we are here for them when they want advice, and all they need to do is ask. We aren't too busy or too stressed or too important to listen to their struggles. We have open doors and open hearts and when they want help we are here for them. But we have the confidence in them to let them make their own choices and reach out to us when they need a little assistance.

Our children don't need us to rescue them, but they do need us to notice them. When our children are having a tough day, we ought to let them know we recognize their struggle. We don't need them to tell us everything that happened (unless they want too), but we should take a minute to let them know we see them, and we notice they don't seem quite right, and that we love them. This opens the door for the conversation and it lets them know we care. Sometimes that is all they need to push through those rough times in childhood. 

So the next time you find your little one is in a sticky situation, hold back. Give them a chance to figure it out. Let them know you are there for them, but you trust in their abilities to problem solve and to identify when the problem is bigger than they can handle on their own.  Be there for them, but let them grow through their struggles and come out more confident and competent young men and women. 

Thanks for stopping by!

The Real Story: 5 Practical Tips for Surviving Mass with Kids

A little while back a friend asked for some concrete advice regarding mass with children. I had to admit that as our family has moved from stage to stage I have become less and less concerned with what others thing about my children in mass, and more about whether I am able to really enter into mass despite the chaos around us. I wrote a post to that effect (read here), but the need for concrete help and tips doesn't go away. Here is your practical pos to help you get through the hour.  


Tip 1. If your church has a childcare use it for the 1-2.5 year age. These kids are sooooo little. It is a rare child (our 3rd was like this) who actually will sit quietly at this age. For the rest of them it is just asking a lot to sit quietly for 1+ hours. Having the little ones out of the picture, let my husband and I focus helping the older kids. Once the little ones turned 2 we would start talking about the time when they would be able to come to mass: "Soon you will be big enough to come with us!" etc. You have to keep it positive though. And it is okay if they do not like the childcare. It is just temporary with the goal of having them WANT to leave it to stay with you.

Tip 2. Remind them of the expectations. We remind them all to quiet their hearts and minds as they walk into mass. "Prepare you minds and hearts for Jesus" is a great line.

Tip 3. Try to be reverent from the start. We never really did the snacks-in-mass thing. Up until age three I was fine with a sippy cup in the pew, but not really beyond that. We get drinks from the drinking fountain before we sit down and try not to get up again. We used to also give the kids one mtint each during the homily. It kept their mouth quiet so we could focus on the message but it did tend to make the thirsty. We would also bring mass/saints books. For a while we had a little backpack ready with books and religious activity pads for the littlest ones. It initially worked, but it got to be more of a hassle.

Tip 4. Touch. We are big on affection in our house. I rub the kids hands during the worship. I let the little one bring her blanket and paci in and she snuggle and often falls asleep. One daughter loves to sit in daddy's lap or beside him most of mass. We want our kids to associate Mass with Love.

Tip 5. Practice. When possible, take the kids to daily mass. It is shorter and a stripped down version of Sunday. The parts of the mass are very clear and it helps them to identify the really really important parts of the mass. The congregation is generally very quiet but also very tolerant.

Mass with children is so hard. It really is. Give yourself a little break. Work towards your goal just one week at a time. By keeping the Eucharist at the center of your lives as a family however you will be bringing God's into your life each week. Attending mass and keeping Christ at the center will keep you grounded in the most difficult times!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Slippery Slope of Spirituality

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If you aren't moving forward spiritually you are slipping back.  

This was a statement, a reality, a truth, that I came upon during my RCIA classes. It may have been in a book, or it may have come from a speaker.  But I loved the quote because it highlights the danger of being luke-warm in our faith- we show up to church usually and check the attendance box.  Gone to church? Yup. I am done for the week. I am a good Christian.

We all think we are more pious than we really are.  Closer reflection and prayer leads us to a more accurate assessment - reality.

For instance, I am a far cry from my monthly confession goal.  I like to think of myself putting my faith first, but there is a concrete example of me NOT doing that.  And facts are facts.

Our need to have an accurate understanding of our own spiritual life is even more important when we are raising children.

If we don't set the prime example, if we skip mass, if we don't take them to their catechesis classes or have them involved in ministry or service work, what baseline are we setting for them? Our hearts pull us closer to the church and we make excuses- no confession this week because we have that birthday party and the soccer game and there just isn't time.

The kids don't ever see the pull, the evaluation, the careful mental negotiation- all they see is the end result (confession, mass, volunteering, or birthday parties and soccer games). Of course we want to let them go to birthday parties, but sometime we need to say no and choose something that is better for them. We need to ask "what do they gain from this experience?", and "Is it worth all the running around to achieve that goal?".

Stuff is going to slide- so what do you want to be the "stuff" that slides?

As parents we have to establish the baseline - then add to that. For our family, baseline is mass on Sundays, boy involved in one ministry each (liturgical reading, altar serving), and my husband and I are each in a small group, and we adopt-a-family each Christmas. We can't do any less than that, but we can add to it...so in comes daily mass when we can, journaling, Jesse Tree during advent most years, praying the rosary occasionally, frequent confession. For many, our extras are their baseline- and that is okay. We do what we can, when we can. Maybe someday I can get to that point too. But having outlined things that are "essential and non negotiable" gives me a solid footing to build upon as we try to grow in Christ as a family.

So I ask you, what is your baseline? What are you reaching towards? What is helping you grow closer to Christ and how are you helping your children to grow closer to Him as well? Because after all if you aren't helping them move forward spiritually you are holding them back.

Thanks for stopping by!