Comments on: Crazy Kids

By: Rita Joiner

Rita Joiner — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:04:51 +0000

This post inspired me a while back and I’ve been hard at work making our little home more beautiful. (Homemaker, married to an ex-NSA student for 2 years, one baby so far.) We don’t have much money, but with effort on my part and help from Walmart, our home is suddenly cozy and pretty instead of messy and shabby. I’ve never forgotten reading in one of your books how you kept your house clean: working really, really hard. Those words often occur to me. I still have a lot of improvement needed in my daily habits, but I’m growing.

By: Billie

Billie — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:42:36 +0000

Claire, “hit the ground running in the morning” Oh, I can SO relate to that–especially during the winter months when the weather isn’t so conducive to investigating the great outdoors! I’m sure Nancy won’t mind me adding a bit to her fabulous ideas. We have recently adopted a schedule (not one that makes you a slave to the clock, but one that gives you order to your day) and it has been a big help. Our 4 year old knows that first thing in the morning he has to feed the cats–which is great for teaching dominion, authority, stewardship, coordination! –and gives me a few minutes to get my bearings. Other things that have been very helpful around here are age appropriate toys that don’t require constant supervision (I have other kiddos, too!) How to get them interested in the morning? After they are asleep at night, set up a train track, lego building, whatever it is they are to play with after the morning duties, and when they wake up to it, they’ll be eager to play with it themselves (at least that trick works for me!) The only catch: you have to not care when your mom tells everyone the toys are really for you and not your kids! And to be honest, after a long day, I do sort of enjoy building my own train tracks and buildings.

By: Karla

Karla — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:31:46 +0000

Thanks Nancy…teaching him to stand his ground will be very helpful. Things have changed so much from when I was playing in the backyard!
Karla

By: nancyann

nancyann — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:00:03 +0000

Karla,
If your son is really that devoted to the neighbors and they are having more of an influence on him than he is on them, then it is time for you to redirect him. I suggest that you do not just forbid him to spend time with them, but give him real teaching about it and then help him cultivate the right kinds of friends. When my son was five we moved to a new neighborhood. One of the neighbor boys who was older would come over to play in our back yard, but he had some pretty colorful language. So we talked about how to handle it with our son. The next time he took the Lord’s name in vain, our son said something like this: “Curtis, you can’t talk that way in our yard. You can’t say (and then here he filled in whatever words were the problem). If you do, you have to go home. But you’re still our friend.” The result was that Curtis still came over, but if he fired off with any of the prohibited words, he would saunter off home again. Eventually, he quit coming around. Our policy was that our kids could hang out with the neighbor kids as long as all the influence was going in the right direction. It seems to me that this is teaching the kids to stand up for what is right and isn’t being protective in the wrong way. But it is being protective in a good sense. And we kept our yard as the gathering place, rather than the whole neighborhood. We had a similar situation in a previous neighborhood where we had to tell a little girl to watch her mouth. If she fouled, she voluntarily would leave, just like ol’ Curtis.
Hope that helps.
Blessings,
Nancy

By: Karla

Karla — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 03:45:13 +0000

Nancy,
Can you lead me to an article on this issue? Or post any ideas?
Thanks!
I need advice in how to keep things centered
around your family and not what the neighbors are doing. I have a very
social 7yr old ds who lives, sleeps, eats, breaths neighborhood friends. We
are a little concerned because he has such a “follower” personality. I
have noticed attitude issues, new vocab words, and it seems that the neighbor kids are highly sexualized for being so young!
I have tried my best to keep things under my watchful eye, they never
go in others homes without me, and only play with doors open, or in our
yard. They do ride bikes up and down our dead end street, but other
than that they are still under my wings.
How do you be protective without smothering?
How do you protect your little boys but still allow them to “divide and conquer?”

By: Claire R

Claire R — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:28:01 +0000

Thanks for the suggestions! Yes…I know extra social time can help diffuse some of that energy. We’re blessed to be so close to parks and friends. The late night idea is a good one too.

By: nancyann

nancyann — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:29:31 +0000

Hi Claire,and I know you are not exaggerating about your bright little five-year-old! Here are a few things I remember doing to keep the kids busy.. I tried to schedule one-on-one time with the oldest, usually while the others were sleeping. This usually involved reading or projects. And often it was my projects that I included them in, whether it was baking bread or folding clothes. Some of the things I did could be called a division of labor. For example, we hired a tutor one summer to help with reading lessons, enrolled them in swimming lessons, had a co-op pre-school with a friend (twice a week, once at each of our homes),a lovely older woman in our church started a sewing club for little girls, and a friend sponsored a once-a-week reading club for the neighborhood kids. But we also went to the library frequently, made mountains of play-dough, I stocked up on the dress-ups with (used) ballet costumes and pom poms, we had little friends over to play, went to the park….I’m sure you are doing many of these same things. My five-year-olds also went to kindergarten, which may not be what you are planning to do, but we had a thoroughly wonderful time with kindergarten. Many activities and friends, and of course in Logos School we had fabulous teachers (the first kindergarten teacher being my sister-in-law Meredith). We also took the kids on jammy rides and there was a lot of outside playing in the yard in the summer. Some families give each of the children a “late night” each week. On their late night they get to stay up after the others go to bed and pick a game or activity to do with Mom and/or Dad. I know you have your hands full. Hope this gives you a few ideas.
Blessings,
Nancy

By: Claire R

Claire R — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:06:36 +0000

Have you any helpful ideas for a momma who’s struggling to stay ahead of one extremely resourceful, fast, creative, and inspired five year old? I know I need to give her things to do, and I know I need to hit the ground running in the morning in order to do that, but honestly, it’s hard to hit the ground running fast enough. (She is, I’m sure, far more gifted than I am.) The problem is that at this age, so many of the things she would like to do mean constant supervision, and with the other kiddos, I don’t have time for constant anything.

Thanks for your blog–I love it, and am so glad you’re finally writing one!

Claire

By: nancyann

nancyann — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:49:20 +0000

Meredith in Australia,
I DO remember you, and I love it that you call them pegs. We call them clothespins over here.
Blessings,
Nancy

By: Valerie (Kyriosity)

Valerie (Kyriosity) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:00:42 +0000

Luma, I bet your kids know that it’s getting better, too. My ~~vast parenting experience~~ completely uninformed intuition says, “Kids take you right where you are, not where you used to be when you were getting it all wrong.” AND they get to see the example of your repentance and growth, which will bless their little socks off!