Mom, let’s get SUPER practical. Here’s HOW to be THE best MOM ever.
Your goal: changing the way you relate to your kid so your little monster saint learns to submit to God’s rule over them and, as a result, experience change their thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The heart is always the place to begin.
Click & Tweet!
But first, I want to introduce you to the Y of P.R.A.Y.
Yield to God!
In this series on becoming the best mom ever, I’ve use the P.R.A.Y acronym.
1. Prepare!
2. Recognize you’re in a war.
3. Assume your role as a benevolent dictator.
4. Yield to God.
As you yield to God, wanting what God desires for you and your family, you will become best mom ever! Believe God can handle your problems, and guess what? Your faith will increase, and you’ll become calm and confident as a mom, and as a woman of God.
And just as you yield to God, your child must yield to you.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Ephesians 6:1-3
So are you ready for super practical tips?
Super Practical Day 1
Be a student of your child, even kids as young as age 2. Watch the attitude and the behavior (both good and bad). Your child’s behavior and words reveal what’s going on in the heart. Biblically speaking, the heart is called the inner person. And be sure to confirm in your mind and heart that you are THE MOM.
You’re about to shake things up in your home. So expect great things. And pray. Click & Tweet!
Super Practical Day 2
Each time your child (again, even as young as age 2) cops an attitude (including mouthing off, pouting, rolling eyes, and so on) OR misbehaves, choose one of these two approaches:
1. State your expectations once. Not twice or 10 times. ONCE.
Then get busy doing something, anything, like. . .email a friend, paint your toenails, or capture dust bunnies.
2. Let reality be the teacher.
For instance, if your Emma doesn’t set the table after you said it once (remember, only once), then she loses an hour or more of electronics (TV, computer, phone) even if she says she is sorry and will remember next time. Expect her to her chore with no reminders. If she forgets, well, bye-bye TV/computer/phone for an hour or more.
Why These 2 Super Practical Tips?
For one thing, you are looking for a teachable moment. You want to look happily to the privilege of sharing gospel truth with your child. Her disobedience lets you discipline in love, just as God disciplines you and me and every believer in Jesus.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid. Proverbs 12:1
And you also get to show your child how to handle conflict biblically. When you correct him, calmly say, “You didn’t follow through on your responsibility so I must obey God and discipline you.” This show that just as you are under God’s authority and must obey him, your child is under your authority and must obey you.
As you may have guessed, the hardest part is changing how you parent. It takes work. It requires consistency. The choice is yours: You can be a pushover (and irritated and sad) or you can BE THE MOM. Click & Tweet!
Friend, if you need support in parenting a difficult child, feel free to contact me. I offer biblical counseling in person and by Skype. And, exciting news, it looks like I’m expanding to a secord office, God willing.
Counseling Hearts to Hope,
