Joey and Carla Link
January 22, 2025
We had the joy of 4 of our grandchildren for a week. Needless to say, since they don’t live close to us, we gave them our undivided attention. Things left undone tended to pile up in our room, and the piles are still there. This weekend, I am plowing through the piles with the best intentions to get it cleaned out and put away. I did make a dent, but by no means are the piles gone. Good intentions only get you so far. They didn’t push interruptions out of the way, or the parenting emails that could wait no longer to be answered, or the distraction of stopping to investigate what was in some piles instead of putting it on the ever-growing “to-do” pile and on and on it goes.
Often, when we ask parents what they are working on with their kids they give us a blank stare. Parents are too often guilty of thinking they have told their kids what they need to do about something, but what they in fact do is yell at them and lecture them when they don’t do it right. Kids don’t hear what you are saying when you are yelling at them because your tone told them they wouldn’t like it.
When we ask you what you are working on with each of your kids, we mean what you are currently training them in. Are you training them to be obedient, or, having gotten victory in that, in the character God wants us to have, like to live kindly, with integrity, loyalty, politeness, responsibly and much more? After we narrow down what parents need to be working on with their oldest child, usually the mom looks at me and says “I’ve known for a long time we needed to get to work on this, but I wasn’t sure how to do it and meant to contact you but never got around to it.”
Good Intentions and “I never got around to it” are very good friends. If you are feeling like you need to get working with your kids on their chronically bad behavior (which are all tied to a character trait), we want to give you a boost of encouragement to get back on track.
First, keep your training ‘to-do’ list narrowed down to working on one thing at a time. We made a list of three things we wanted to work on with each of our children. We had 3 kids which meant we had 3 lists. We would actively work on the first one on the list, and give reminders for the second. The third was just there as a reminder to us we would get around to it eventually. This helped us stay focused on working on one thing at a time.
Do you have a plan to train your children? Do you have a firm idea in your mind of how to train them and how this is different than teaching them? Training kids has 3 goals: First you want to improve what they know about the issue at hand and why they should behave in a certain way when it comes up. Next, they need to know how to do the right thing and how to stop themselves when tempted to do the wrong thing, and finally it is up to you to help motivate your kids to do the right thing with either praise or correction.
“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Deuteronomy 11:18-19
A Temperament Class is Starting Soon!
Knowing your child’s temperament gives you insight and perspective on why they respond to you in certain ways. Knowing the “why” helps you determine the ”how” to deal with it.
For example – You tell your kids to pick up their toys.
· Your Choleric child will pick them up and throw them in the toy box after you have reminded him a few times and finally forced him to do it. Cholerics only do what they want to do with a good attitude.
· Your Melancholy child will do it and pay attention to detail just because it is the right thing to do. Being perfectionists, they have high expectations of themselves.
· Your Phlegmatic child will get around to doing it after you have reminded him a couple times, but won’t have the attitude his Choleric sibling does. Phlegmatics are just slow movers.
· Your Sanguine child will start to pick his toys up, but will get distracted along the way with something else and will forget all about the toys. He is much more likely to do something that is fun and catches his interest.
The “How Temperaments Impact You, Your Spouse & Your Kids” 4-week Zoom class starts Monday, Feb 24. Class participants need to watch the video teaching each week at home and answer the questions in the book. The class time is for additional teaching by us and for class discussion. If you are interested in taking this class, please click here for more info. To register, click here.
ON SALE THIS WEEK
First -Time Obedience Pack (Instant Digital Download), MP3, PDF & First-Time Obedience Chart
Regular price $15.00 USD Sale price$ 12.00 USD
Do your kids understand that when someone in authority tells them to do something, they don’t get to argue, whine or not do it? In this Mom’s Notes session Joey and Carla share how to get obedience when you tell your kids to do something, broken down into age groupings like 2-5 yrs., 6-9 yrs., 10-13 yrs. and up. The First-Time Obedience Chart is included.
All Children Mom’s Notes Starter Pack – MP3 & PDF (Instant Digital Download)
Regular price $60.00 USD Sale price$ 29.00 USD
With 44 Mom’s Notes Presentations it can be difficult to know which Mom’s Notes will be most helpful to you. We’ve put together a Starter Pack of the 6 most helpful and popular sessions for parents just being introduced to the Mom’s Notes. It will give you a good foundation to begin with.
2. Understanding First-time Obedience Part 2
4. Understanding Freedoms, Part 1
5. Understanding Freedoms, Part 2
Includes the First-Time Obedience Flow Chart
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