Help
With Your Rule
Grumbling Children and Cheerful Compliance!
Dear Holly,
I feel myself being drained emotionally and even physically by my children's grumbling. I think that I am a good disciplinarian and generally a very upbeat person. But, my older kids don't seem very joyful. My almost eight year old is the most negative and given to tantrums and comments like "nobody loves me.." for any "no." Whenever I give an order or make a request, I feel myself bracing for the grumbling. It makes me want to put them in school just to get a break from it. I know that our fallen natures rebel from work and from obedience; how do you instill cheerful compliance? I'd also like to spend more fun time with them, however I have found that I am on-task from wake-up until bedtime and that just is maintaining the bare minimum standards of housework, laundry and food preparation. I think that maybe I'm not a very efficient housekeeper.
Labels: 4th P Parent
posted by Holly at 9:26 AM
2 Comments:
I've been doing a lot of research on Catholic Ed lately - and there are some ideas I have for you.
First off - the grumbling and negativity belong to 'will training' and THIS is the most important part of Catholic Ed. If our children are developing orderly habits, treating others well, and doing it as a service to others, then we are succeeding even if they aren't getting A's in school work. But sometimes we think everything else must 'get done'and we can neglect the most important thing.
Ways to will-train:
1) direct instruction & discussion
2) encourage them to assume their tasks to please God and to get control of negative behavior and tell them why - Jesus wants their love not complaints
3) up your prayer and sacraments with the kids - they won't have the power to do this until they get more grace
4) read to them, stories of saints and virtue and heros so that you 'inspire' them to be good, so that you train their hearts to WANT to be holy, good, positive... we can't command or coerce holiness - it must come from their hearts and be 'their idea'
5) catch them 'being good' and find their talents and give them a positive outlet for their energies, not just a series of obligations and mummy-assigned tasks. They need to wake up everyday excited about doing something they enjoy...
Also, it sounds to me like you have a too-full schedule. I would go thru the 5 Ps, start with the first one, for you and your children, and put the priorities in order.
From the sounds of it, I bet that your kids are feeling the pressure too. Kids don't want to feel that life is all work and no play. We all need to find time to do the 'fun stuff' with them - it is just as important to motivation as getting academics done. They too need a rounded balanced life of prayer, work, rest and play. A lot of grumbling can mean the need of will-training, but it can also be an indication of imbalance in our lives - some personal needs of the kids may not be being met.
I don't know what it is about us moms, but we tend to work too hard, and expect too much from ourselves sometimes. I would suggest focusing on 'essentials' rather than all the little things you 'want' to get done - to tone down too many things into a few things well-done for the love of God.
One other consideration too - you might want to check out the "Temperaments" article and link in "Holly's Notebook". This is a great aid in how to train the individual differences in our children.
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