How to Love Your KIDS!!!

Ever wish your kids came with a manual? Do you find yourself unsure of what they want or need? Everyone worries that they are messing their kids up, and even though kids are one of life's greatest joys, they can also be one of life's greatest stresses. Soccer practice, dance class, homework, cleaning up after them, fighting, poking, yelling, crying; this all gets overwhelming and can also be a strain on your relationships. But what you give to your kids will be a part of the legacy you leave on this earth. Are you giving them gifts of joy, love, peace, kindness, courage, forgivness, and strength? Or gifts like anger, bitterness, and resentment? In the words of Dr. Gary Chapman: "Imagine your child turned out to be just like you. If that makes you cringe, then what do you need to change that outcome?" What will they pass on to their kids? What kind of spouse will they be?

Here are some great tips from Dr. Gary Chapman, author of "The 5 Love Languages" on how to love your kids:

(February 17, 2011)

Little Love Tanks

Children with full love tanks are more likely to obey parents, help others, and reach their potential in learning. Keeping the love tank full means that we must discover the child’s primary love language and then speak it regularly. The five love languages are:

• Words of Affirmation
• Gifts
• Acts of Service
• Quality Time
• Physical Touch

Out of these five, your child has a primary love language. How do you discover it? Three clues:

1. Observe how they love you.  What they give is probably what they want.
2. What does your child complain about?  The complaint reveals the love language.
3. What does your child request most often?  The request gives you valuable information.

February 21, 2011

Serving Children

Parents serve children in a thousand ways. These ‘acts of service’ may be done out of a sense of duty and even resentment. On the other hand, they may be genuine acts of love. Loving service is an internally motivated desire to give one’s energy to serve others. Loving service is a gift, not a necessity, and is done freely, not under coercion.
When parents serve their children with a spirit of resentment and bitterness, a child’s physical needs may be met, but his emotional development will be greatly hampered. Because service is so daily, even the best parents need to stop for an attitude check now and then, to be sure that their acts of service are communicating love.

February 28, 2011

Blessed to Give

Adults and youth alike are attracted to the young man or woman who goes out of his or her way to serve others. Healthy families are producing this kind of young people. As parents we must seek to build an attitude of service into the hearts of our children. Start young by teaching children to be ‘helpers’. Then celebrate their ‘service’ with cheers and accolades. Make ‘service to others’ a big thing in your family.
When children see that serving others is important to you, it will become important to them. Take them with you when you deliver cookies to the elderly. Let them help you shovel snow from the neighbors drive. Children learn by experience that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”