It’s OK for Your Kids to Be Miserable Sometimes

It’s OK for Your Kids to Be Miserable Sometimes

Source: Lisa Bloom

Better they should be miserable than you should be miserable, that’s for sure – as long as they’ve earned it. I’m not talking about child abuse or neglect. I’m talking about allowing them to suffer a reasonable amount for the natural and fair consequences of their behavior.

So little Zachary got busted for smacking his sister Chloe, and now he’s screaming in wretchedness in his room because you grounded him. Ho hum. That’s his problem, not yours. Turn up your music, have a cookie, call your best friend, read a book to Chloe. He’ll be fine. This is how he learns and grows.

If you’re always running to comfort the crying kid or trying to calm down the hysterical toddler, they don’t learn to work things out themselves. And you have needlessly run yourself ragged. No wonder you never have a second to think.

Alone time is important for kids’ proper development, and not just when they’re wailing. Here’s another piece of advice that saw me through:

Children’s Entertainment Is Not Your Job

Many working moms unnecessarily drain themselves managing every minute of their kids’ leisure time. Unless you’re a professional clown, entertainment of children should not be a part of your job description.

By which I mean leaving the kids (safely) on their own is a good thing. Let them hang out in their room with books, blocks, paper, and crayons and figure out what to do. Some of my happiest memories are staring out the window from my grandmother’s house as a child. I imagined myself jumping off the roof or building a secret fort or stringing a rope bridge over to the next house. I mapped out my first novel. My grandma Fox did not assume responsibility for my every amusement, and it would never have dawned on me to ask her to. She loved me. She fed me. She asked me to help her in the kitchen and around the house, and I did, proud to take responsibility like a big girl for shucking ears of corn, bring in the groceries, or walking her poodle, Linus Pauling. Each time I came to visit, our first stop was the corner bookstore. I was allowed to buy one book, two if I begged (became an outstanding beggar). Then she left me alone with gorgeous blocks of unstructured time to enjoy them. Thos books and my imagination were my entertainment for the weekend, and it was heaven.

And Fox genuinely enjoyed my visits because she didn’t run herself ragged dragging me from one child’s activity to the next. She didn’t sit on the floor nor did she pretend to enjoy games with me that weren’t her cup of tea. I stretched by listening to her music (Bing Crosby) and watching her TV shows with her (Masterpiece Theatre – to this day, the opening theme music still puts me right to sleep). She quietly left my favorite cake in the refrigerator and never commented in the morning that a giant slice had carved itself out and disappeared while she was sleeping, so long as the knife, fork, and plate had washed themselves and found their way neatly into the dishwasher.

I implored my parents to let me visit Fox as much as I could during my childhood.

Two economists at the University of California, San Diego recently conducted a time study and found that moms today spend more time on child care (an average of twenty-one hours per week for college-educated women and sixteen hours per week for non college-educated) than moms did a generation ago (twelve hours per week, on average). How can that be possible when there are significantly fewer stay-at-home moms today? After all, the stay-at-home moms had all that face time with their kids. They had the home team advantage! The only explanation is that my mother’s generation left us to our own devices most of the time. Kids were expected to play alone or with siblings or friends. Parents were not expected – nor, frankly, were they invited – to play with us. Parents were, to a large extent, authorities to be rebelled against. Inviting them into the fort would give aid and comfort to the enemy.

My kids make this mistake only once: “Mom, I’m bored.”

“Oh, great!” I said, eagerly. “Here’s a list of things for you to do. Start with cleaning your room. Next, wash the windows. There’s some crud baked on to this pan that really needs a good scrubbing to get it off. Did you rewrite that homework assignment to bring up your grade? How’s that thank you note to Grandma coming along? Honey? Where’d you go?”

I always interpret “I’m bored” as “How may I be of assistance?”

When my kids were little and they weren’t required to do anything right at that moment, I called it “free time” and bestowed it upon them like the glorious gift it was: “Okay, we’re home, there’s an hour until dinner, so you have…free time!” They saw this as a special treat. As I do. Free time for them means precious fre time for you. And that’s what it’s all about.

In a landmark study called “Ask the Children,” researchers asked 1,000 kids what one wish they had for their parents. Researchers expected the answer would be the children’s wish for more family time. “I wish Mommy would play with me more”? Nope. The top answer? For their parents to be “less tired and stressed.”

In her warm and wise parenting books, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and The Blessing of a B Minus, Dr. Wendy Mogel comes to the same conclusion: Back off and give your kids the chance to solve their own problems, to exercise the divine gift of free will, to learn not to panic over pain. In short, give them the freedom to fail. She comes at it from a different perspective – because it’s better for your kids, as over-protective, over-involved parents produce flaccid, nervous children who struct to become independent, self-sufficient adults.

From my perspective, I know that mom need some grownup mental space for ourselves, to daydream and problem solve and create and wander. We need, figuratively if not literally, Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own,” a place without a changing table, playpen, or Sponge Bob.

Take a break, Mom. Even your kids want you to. And for heaven’s sakes, sleep with grownups only.

Lisa Bloom, author of THINK: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed Down World (Copyright © 2011), from which the above is excerpted, is an award-winning journalist, legal analyst, trial attorney, mom of two, and the daughter of renowned women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred. She is the legal analyst for CBS News and The Dr. Phil Show.

Is Social Media Helping Or Hurting Our Kids’ Ability To Connect Relationally?

Is Social Media Helping Or Hurting Our Kids’ Ability To Connect Relationally? by Matt Guevera

At the heart of the debate weighing the value of social media for today’s kid is the question, “What is real?” There is a great concern that the bonds that are formed between kids digitally are somehow less real than bonds created between kids occupying the same physical space. There is growing anxiety that children who relate digitally are inept socially.
Hogwash.
Here are three important things to remember as you wrestle with the question, “Is social media helping or hurting our kids’ ability to connect relationally?”
1. Kids speak the language of technology fluently
Marc Prensky coined the term digital native to refer to today’s students. They are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. A study done in 2003 revealed that nearly 70% of 4 and 5 year olds are computer users and about 25% of them use the Internet. The digital space is an intuitive environment for today’s kids.
2. Kids are natural collaborators
Children learn best in arenas where they can solve problems in groups. Edutopia.org is one of the best resources to discover project-based learning. This propensity for collaboration is a primary characteristic of today’s kid. Kids desire to work together to figure things out. By far the most impactful
learning moments for children happen in small groups where they can collaborate with other people, not in large groups where adults talk without stopping.
Inside this Issue
• • • •
Helping or Hurting? The Nugget Theory From a Conflicted User What The Church Should Do
Meet Matt Guevara
Matt holds a Masters in Children’s and Family ministry from Bethel Seminary and was just named one of the “20 to Watch” by Children’s Ministry Magazine. He serves as the KidsWorld GroupLife Director at Christ Community Church in St. Charles, IL kidsworldccc.org
Follow him on Twitter
@mattguevara
Kidology Social Media
• Kidology on Twitter • Kidology on Facebook • Kidology to Go Twitter • ToyBoxTales Twitter
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3. Kids a3re relational
Kids have been busy adopting new systems for communicating (instant messaging), sharing (blogs), buying and selling (eBay), exchanging (peer-to-peer technology), creating (Flash), meeting (3D worlds), collecting (downloads), coordinating (wikis), evaluating (reputation systems), searching (Google), analyzing (SETI), reporting (phones), programming (modding), socializing (chat) for over a decade. These actions are evidence of children’s attempts to build relationships in the digital context.
I’ve heard leaders at various children’s ministry conferences talk passionately about how children’s and family ministry leaders need to reexamine their views on media. Media has become a hot-button issue because it is viewed as entertainment and light on Bible content. To pacify the worries of leaders who are hesitant to adopt media in their ministry, I’ve heard curriculum providers
Meet our other authors Special article
Nicki Straza is Children’s Pastor at Freedom House in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, where she runs the L.A.F.F Academy. She serves as the Captain of Kidology’s CP Team, a volunteer team of Children’s Pastors from around the world who volunteer their time and talents to serve others on Kidology.org. Nicki is married and has two kids.
Scott Phillips currently serves at The Tabernacle Church in Laurel, Maryland, as the After-School/Summer Camp Director, Building/Events Coordinator, and Children Church Coordinator & Leader/Teacher.
state, “M
edia does not replace relationships, it enhances relationships.” Don’t you feel better now? This paradigm needs revision.
The truth of the matter is digital media does not replace relationships and it does not enhance relationships. For digital learners, digital media IS relationship. Social media gives kids tools in their native language to engage in the type of collaboration that feeds their souls and is a rich environment for spiritual growth. And as kids share through social networking, relate online, and create long lasting bonds of friendship through digital portals, leaders like you will need to provide help and support for those kids to meet Jesus and become more like Him; not as second-class citizens who do not understand what real relationships are – but as a new generation of Christ followers. – Matt Guevera
Social Media and The Nugget Theory by Nicki Straza!
Social media – 15 years ago if you said that phrase no one would have known what on earth you were talking about, but today – everyone knows and nearly everyone participates. On one hand we have amazing tools in Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc, to connect with friends and family on a global scale. It increases communication, keeps people more aware of what is going on in the lives of others, and offers a simple and easy way to participate in many peoples’ lives.
Interestingly enough however, like every new technology, we often don’t understand the negative impact until we see it in hindsight. Statistics show that the Internet is now the MAIN source of information for people, including their facts about religion, God, as well as sex, drugs and rock and roll! As an adult, I have a fairly well-adjusted sense of “what’s right and wrong” and my ability to discern when I am being mislead is pretty well founded (although, I have been deceived on occasion).
Scott Phillips…
What does this mean for Kids Min? Simply put, we are at risk of developing a generation with “nugget theology,” meaning little quotes, lines, snippets and tidbits from all over that they grab and call “facts” because they “read it on the Internet”, or some famous person quoted it. Even the media has become “sound bite” driven. It seems that long gone are the days of researched facts, expository articles and accurate reporting.
I am all for participating in the social media world, but as Leaders, we must be keenly aware that the biblical foundation that many of us had growing up, which gives context to the sound bites we see/read/hear is eerily absent in the next generation. Even scripture memorization isn’t enough if
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the CONT3EXT of the verse isn’t understood. Even scripture can be reduced to sound bites taken completely out of context and used to prove anything and everything – nay.. it IS being reduced to sound bites taken completely out of context.
Our kids like their chicken, and their theology delivered in bite sized pieces, but I want to encourage you to challenge yourself, and your kids to dig deep into God’s word to get a big picture sense of what God is about so that our kids do not become easy targets for half truths and twisted scripture.
How do we do this? Ask Socratic questions that engage thinking vs. dictate thinking. Let your kids explain things so you can gauge their understanding, quiz ‘em, ask them a “trick” question, set up debates. In a church culture which often values good behavior over critical thinking we must be intentional about teaching our kids how to think, to research, and to define what they truly believe about themselves, their world, and God! – Nicki Straza
Social Media and Kids from a Conflicted Social Media Junky by Karl Bastian (a.k.a. Kidologist)
I both love social media and fear it. I can’t attack it too much or I’d be a hypocrite I have over 10,000 “tweets” so far, and nearing 1000 friends on Facebook, but why do I still feel so lonely? Social networking is a part of my daily – O.K., let’s be honest, moment by moment, life! I do not, not, think it is an addiction or bad for me! (I could quit any time I wanted to, right? I just don’t want to!) Quite to the contrary, it has given me yet another avenue to amplify the message God has given me to share. Unlike many who live their lives like a pin-ball game bouncing through life from one opportunity to another with no clear game plan, I sought God for a very specific Life Mission at age nineteen and have had a laser focus on that Mission ever since. It is written and defined and has enabled me to say “no” to many good things and focus on the Great my entire life and ministry (not that I haven’t gotten distracted and needed to get back on course at times!). Social Networking has enabled me to expand this Mission into spheres that otherwise I could have never reached, and on a daily basis during idle moments that other wise could have been wasted… Relaxing? Reading? Enjoying my family or praying or… There I go again… the internal struggle erupts! But would I truly be doing those noble things every time I tweeted or updated by Facebook status? The simple answer is no. Social networking has enriched my life with friendships I would have never made until heaven! Now heaven will be a grand Tweet-Up!
But enter children into the conversation, and the conversation shifts. Is it good for them? Unfortunately, folks, there is an element of surrender here. Frankly, we can’t stem this tide – only steer it. Let’s look at it from a different or historical angle. How many teenagers DIE annually driving cars? Do we ban them from driving? Perhaps we should! Unfortunately, that will never happen. You, like them, were destined to drive. My preschooler is already talking about when he will get to drive. In fact, all he wanted for his fifth birthday last month was a REAL Jeep. So we rented one for a day and I taught him how to control the wiper blades and turn signals and let him sit on my lap and steer around the block. My own dad understood both the dangers of driving and the inevitability that the son he loved would soon be on the road without him. Once of the best things he did was take me out and teach me, not only how to drive, but how to slide and spin and control a skid. He had me memorize, “When you are spinning, you are not out of control, you have only lost the ability to stop.” This saved my life years later when my wife and I spun out of control on the highway in winter on the highway. As we crossed the center line spinning with a semi-truck plowing toward us and cars spinning in all directions off the road I yelled at my wife, “I AM NOT OUT OF CONTROL! I HAVE ONLY LOST THE ABILITY TO STOP!” And I control spun the vehicle in front of and around the semi, and back to the correct side of the highway, all while spinning. While God had a lot to do with it, for sure – my dad had trained me for this event, and saved our lives.
The point? Today kids are driving Social Media! We cannot prevent it. We would be fools to think we could stop it. They are in the drivers seat. But we can, and MUST prepare them for the spins and wipe outs ahead. They will listen to our wisdom and advice, and we can give them the guidance and protections they need to keep them safe. We can teach them to put it down. We can give them limits. We can help them find balance and foster real relationships outside of 140 characters and
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digits and3keyboards. We can show them sunshine and go for walks and plan outings and plan in-person socials. We can help them stay real and remind them that we care and make sure they know they don’t need to turn to anonymous sources when they need companionship, counsel or help.
- Karl Bastian, Founder of Kidology.org
Media and the Church by Scott Phillips
We live in a world of technology that is continually changing and evolving. Technology affects every aspect of our life and has even become expected. Imagine going to work tomorrow and preparing your daily report on a manual Remington typewriter or going through the day without a cell phone (although sometimes we may wish we could). All these modern “conveniences” have become a part of our life and have made their way into the lives of children. We see 5 and 6 year olds today that are more technological savvy than their parents. The big question to ask is “Is All This Technology Good for Our Children”?
Look at the past 100 years. We see incredible progress in technology! Let’s just list a few to get a perspective: George Eastman makes the first portable camera (1900), electric typewriter (1901), first comic book (1904), answering machine is invented (1904), jukebox is invented with 24 songs (1905), animated cartoon is created (1906), color photography created (1907), first automobile – Model T made (1908). Moving into the year 2000 we have available to us cell phones, 3-D High Definition flat panel TV from 30” to 72”, laptop super computers, digital recorders for both audio and video, microwave cooking, projectors, etc. Technology is ever increasing! It was not too long ago that we had the great shift from video cassette tape to DVD. We are now looking at a new shift from DVD to Blue-Ray. Technology has been described as a target that is moving faster each year.
What has all this progress meant to our culture? In the early 1900’s it was very common to leave your home with the doors unlocked. Assault and murder was a crime mentioned in those “Wild West” stories. The introduction of new technology was viewed as moving forward to a brighter and richer future. Today, new inventions are seen as the next version of something to make our life easier – which cannot come soon enough. But with every advance we seem to move further from our dependence our God.
In the church, technology has certainly made its inroads. We live in a day were many churches the success of Children Ministry is measured on it creative use of technology. People have looked for the spectacular instead of substance, the dynamic instead of discipleship, entertainment instead of enrichment. Thirty years ago, state of the art in Children Ministry included flannel graph, transparencies and cassette tape music. Today people are flocking to the multi-media presentations, live bands and interactive centers. Over the years we have replaced relationship building with presentation building.
It is time the leaders in the church, and in particular Children Ministry, take a step back and look at our goals. We want to reach this generation for Christ, we want to build relationship with God’s children, we want to encourage this generation of kids to develop a personal relationship with God himself. Our direction in Children Ministry must be directed to helping the children build healthy and spiritually strong foundations with their heavenly Father. If we can do this with the ADDED benefit of technology all the better. BUT we should never sacrifice the development of this personal relationship for the sake of technology. – Scott Phillips

The Girly Guide Surviving Your Female Tween

The Girly Guide Surviving Your Female Tween
By Kendeyl Johansen
“If I ask my 11-year-old daughter, MaKenzie, if she wants to go to a movie or out for pizza on the weekend she’ll want to go to the mall,” says Janie Sutton of Las Vegas, Nev. According to Sutton, MaKenzie is a master of the third alternative: If given two choices, her daughter always comes up with a third. “It makes me crazy sometimes!” says Sutton.
Testing limits and trying to get “their way” are common practices for female preteens. But with a little understanding and patience, it’s possible to embrace this and other tween behaviors.
“Preteens are reaching for independence, and girls especially are difficult for parents to raise due to the way the media presents clothes, makeup and body shapes,” says Bonnie Harris, M.S. Ed., author of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, April 2003). “When we see our daughters being influenced by the media or other outside influences, it really pushes buttons – we’re afraid of what’s ahead for them and for us.”
Increase the Peace
So how can parents diffuse their buttons and make life with a female tween easier? Harris recommends letting your daughter make more decisions and increasing her freedom as she grows. Just the thought of this frightens some parents, but preteens grow and gain self-confidence as they make decisions and solve problems.
Harris encourages parents to control their buttons (fears, judgments and criticisms) by uncovering why a behavior is so upsetting and then diffusing the button. For example, Anita Willoughby of Park City, Utah, made her tween daughter, Laurel, change out of a mini-skirt, but later learned her daughter had taken the skirt to school in her purse so she could change.
“I was livid at first, but then I realized it wasn’t the skirt that was making me so upset,” says Willoughby. “I was worried about the image it was giving off and what the boys would think about my daughter.”

A Survival Guide for Parenting Male Tweens

Boy Basics 101 A Survival Guide for Parenting Male Tweens
By Kendeyl Johansen
Messy rooms, arguments and peer pressure: Parenting a tween boy might seem like it causes prematurely graying hair. Believe it or not, with our tips and plenty of good humor, it’s possible to enjoy life with a male tween.
Support Independence Days
Preteen boys are reaching for independence, and this causes frustration if parents aren’t prepared for the behavior. “Control can feel like it’s slipping away unless parents expect that and follow along with the children as they seek independence,” says Bonnie Harris, M.S. Ed., author of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, April 2003). “If you expect a preteen to always listen and do exactly what you say, buttons are going to get pushed.”
To avoid conflict and verbal fireworks, Harris advises taking responsibility for your own buttons. “Rather than blaming children for pushing your buttons, become aware of your buttons (fears, judgments, criticisms) and diffuse them by understanding why they upset you and why your child is behaving a certain way,” she says.
Kara Wales of Park City, Utah, mom to 10-year-old Garrett, wanted to order him to change when he dressed for school in a loose-fitting tank top and baggy shorts. “I disliked the sloppy way he looked, but I took a breath and made myself slow down,” she says. “It’s not what we wore to school, but it’s what his friends wear now, and they’re all good kids. I let him get away with it.”
Wales had the courage to face her fear that people would think she was a bad mom for letting her son dress so casually. And she deactivated her button by realizing styles had changed and her son wasn’t trying to make her crazy – he just wanted to fit in.

Letting Go of The Bike

Letting Go of the Bike

It has happened to all of us. You were teaching someone (or being taught) to ride a bike. You’ve gone over the structural mechanics of handles bars and pedals and brakes. You let them sit back and watch you try, making it look as easy as, well, riding a bike. They take their seat; feet to the pedals, hands to the handle bars. And with your hand firmly placed on the back of the seat providing extra balance and stability, you begin countless runs up and down the driveway.

And then it happens.

This next time down the driveway is different. Because this time you let go of the bike. You don’t leave their side; you’re still shouting encouragement and support. You’re even there to stop them from crashing into a rogue tree or careening into the middle of the street. But you have let go, allowing them to steer, to balance, to brake.

Many preteens across the country are still waiting for this moment. Not with their bike, but with their faith and with their life. They are waiting for their pastors and parents to understand that if their faith were a bike, they are ready for that moment when we first let go.

From the moment they were carried into the nursery we firmly hold the back of their bike, telling them stories about God and God’s people, about the life of Jesus, and more. As they move into their first years of elementary school we continue to build on these stories and ideas – that Jesus loves you, that God created everything, that they can be a follower of Jesus today. They have sung songs, prayed prayers, read stories, and more. All with the firm – and necessary – hand holding the bike seat of their faith.

But as they enter their preteen years – these years of pre and early adolescence for nine, ten, eleven, and twelve year olds – something unique begins to happen. In some ways they continue to see the world as a kid, but in others they are emerging toward life as a teenager. They’re leaving one and heading toward the other. (We could call them “post-kids” but “preteens” sound much better.) Piaget calls this the move from concrete operations to formal operations. Erikson calls it a move from competence to fidelity. Fowler calls it a move from mythic-literal faith to synthetic-conventional faith. We call it letting go of the bike.

Whatever you call it, it’s happening. Kids become teenagers, but between the two is this unique age called “preteen.” And it is at this time that parents and pastors must let go of the bike, allowing them to continue owning their faith.

This doesn’t mean we let them ride across town on their own. This doesn’t mean we send them on their way, expecting them to learn it all as they go. We remain right beside them, running alongside as they pedal and wobble their way forward. Pastors and parents are constantly supporting and encouraging and helping direct the bicycle of their faith and life. Because one day they will ride across town on their own. And when that day comes – it comes closer every day – we want them to be successful. One day they will teach others how to ride this “bike” and we want them to be equipped and prepared.

So for us, the pastors and leaders of preteens and preteen ministries, what exactly does this mean? It means that instead of simply teaching them by providing the right information, we support them by allowing them to learn for themselves. Instead of simply telling preteens how their faith affects their life, we create environments and resources where they can continue discovering it. Instead of giving them all the answers about God, Jesus, the Bible, and the rest of life, we invite them to voice their own questions and even offer their own answers. Instead of telling them what they should be doing, we create opportunities to discover how God is calling them to bring God’s kingdom to life in the world.

In many ways this is what you are already doing. And in many ways, it is exactly what you need to do more of. Whether your preteen ministry has five students or five hundred students, whether you meet in living room or in an auditorium, whether you function as a part of a children’s ministry or a student ministry, your preteens need you to let go of the bike. No matter how much parents or pastors might unintentionally try to hold on, they are growing up and moving (or pedaling) forward.

Imagine a sixteen-year-old riding her bike, only no one ever let go. Imagine a freshman in college who can’t keep his own balance and remains utterly dependant on someone else. Imagine a newlywed still unsure of their role and function in life. Imagine the parent who is trying to teach their son or daughter to ride a bike while they haven’t taken the training wheels off of their own.

Let go of the bike. Because when you do, you empower your preteens to grow and develop, to learn and to question, and to discover who God has made them to be. But you have to let go.

More to come as we partner with you and your preteen!!!!