Discipline and Love

These past few weeks I have been feeling like the "No Police"!  I feel like I would tell AJ to do something he would do the opposite.  I would take away something he would have a tantrum or yell and scream, we were constantly at odds and I just felt my patience go out the window day after day.  Ahnie has been watching and  as she told me two days ago "Mommy don't say that to me!" also listening to her brother. I just felt defeated.

Well I was on Pinterest one night and came across a pin that took me to this blog: http://www.notconsumed.com/2012/05/02/consequences-for-little-hearts/
She talks about having natural consequences for your children.  When I read it I was thinking wow that sounds great but it would never work for my kids.  The biggest thing I have taken away from her blog post was that she has one rule "always show love".  When I read this I quickly thought, what about the no throwing balls in the house, or pick up your toys before you get something else out, or obey your mom and day?!?  But she quickly describes how everything comes back to love....  While I read this and went on with my days until I came to one of those situations with my 3 year old and I felt like the love idea would work so I tried it.  I can't remember the exact example but he looked at me and did what I asked and we were over it and had moved on.  I was amazing but also was like well yeah that fit perfectly but it won't always happen like that.  So I tried it again (luckily my son has given me lots of time to practice in the past week) and it worked again.  Here are a few examples I can think of that we have dealt with in the past few days;  Ayden yelling because I asked him to put on his jammies and he didn't want to take off his jersey.  "Ayden can you try telling me that again but using loving words".  Ahnie pushing her brother.  "Ahnie are you loving Ayden right now?  How can you show Ayden love?"  Ayden got a time out at school for throwing blocks in stead of picking them up.  "Ayden were you showing Ms. Sarah love my not picking up and throwing blocks?  Were you showing love to your class that could have been hit by those blocks?"

This past week I tried this with out telling Brett what I was doing.  I just want to see what would happen.  I really wasn't sure but liked the idea of it.  Well, it wasn't until last night when my small group and I went out with Corey Peters to hand out groceries and offer prayer for people in our community.  Before we left he was talking to us about how he talks to people about Jesus and the bible and eventually asking them to ask Christ into their life.  He was talking about how the bible says that we are to share Christ with everyone we meet and that is not always by talking to them about Christ but just by showing love to them.  That was when it all came together and put a meaning behind this idea!  If I truely want to mold my children's hearts to be followers of Christ and to share Christ with others the best way to do that is start by showing love.  Ayden and I were able to have such a great conversation today about why Love is our main rule in our house and how Jesus came to this earth and showed love to everyone he encountered.  We also were able to tie that into holy week and how Jesus showed us love in the biggest possible way, by obeying God and dying on the cross for our sins.

I need to read her blog a few more times to get the natural consequences down that she talks about but I have been amazed by this idea of showing love at all times and that being our main rule in our house.  I love it!  I hope if anyone of you are struggling with discipline like we are this might be something to think about for your family.

Bedtime Prayers

Ahnie has started to insist that we pray before we leave her room at night.  She always looks at us and says "I pray Jesus!"  With her hands folded so tightly and a cute little smile looking up at us.  Then we ask her what she would like to pray for or thank Jesus for.

Today at nap she was having a hard time staying in bed so I put her back and bed and asked if she wanted to pray.  She said yes and took off with it.  She said "I pray Jesus for baby _____(correct name inserted)."  I said yes we need to pray for our baby sister.  What else would you like to pray for.  She replied "I pray Baby _____ love me!"  Melted my heart!  I too pray that all of my children love each other!  I just thought it was so sweet that she thought of that and I never want to forget my precious almost 2 year old praying for her baby in mommys tummy to love her!  I sure know she loves this baby too!!!