Parenting By The Book

I am reading the best book with my Mom to Mom group at church. It is by John Rosemond - a long time syndicated columnist on parenting and psychologist - and most recently a Christian, hence the title of the book. It is great to hear his frank words on how so much of the "psychology" of raising children that came out of the sixties free-thinking era is a bunch of "doo dah"!!
For instance, What is self esteem? Good for your child, right? REALLY?? God says that the proud will be humbled. What we should desire for our children is a humble heart, not a proud, "self-loving" spirit. Besides, the psychologist in John says that people with high self esteem often have terrible trouble dealing with any failure in life because they have been built up so much by well-meaning parents/teachers. How much better to teach them to rely on God for strength and not on "their own inner strength". Who would you rather have as a friend, someone with high self-esteem or someone with a humble spirit? Just some thoughts...
But here is a funny quote (of which there are many funny parts of the book, too, not just the heavy stuff :o)
"God in His infinite mercy has distinguished us from animals in many ways, but one of the most significant to our discussion: He has not allowed human offspring to grow to full size in one or two years. Imagine the consequence to the mother who denies her five-foot-ten-inch-tall, 165 pound two year old child a cookie before dinner. Not a pretty picture! God is good!" :o) :o)

Sometimes there are days that I feel like all I do is yell "No... Stop that..." etc. At the end of the day I feel like a "big meanie". I don't know how any mother could be as loving and patient as all the great moms you read about in the books. But I just heard an encouraging story about Ruth Graham (You know, Billy's wife...) and her daughter. Her daughter was feeling like I do a lot of the time and asked her mom "How were you able to be so patient and loving and kind while raising all of us? You never lost your temper!" to which Ruth replied "I just prayed every day that God would erase those memories from your minds and by His grace, He DID!"

So there is my new prayer! That God would erase all those impatient, "mean Mommy" memories from their little minds! :o)

Well, Dusty is teaching a seminar at church today so the kids and I are off to the mall! Let's hope we don't have any memory-erasing moments today! :o)