The Mission of Motherhood- Chapter 7

The one thing I find as a mom is there is always room to learn more and grow more. Through all of that, I look to the Lord to guide me and lead me. Sometimes he brings people into my life that allow me to look at things and reflect differently and sometimes it's books. I will never think I know it all and how could I? I am a mom going through these things for the first time as a Mom. But, I am fortunate that I have GRACE along the way.
Notes from Chapter 7- STRONG FRIEND

"Though children are rightly told to honor their parents, it is certainly easier to honor those parents who have shown honor to their own children by doing what it takes to build a relationship."
AMEN! Showing our own honor to Little Man is important and something we take seriously!

Relationship Principle #1: Time and Availability
"No activity can replace the heart-to-heart process of sharing emotions, truth, training, and prayer."
You can't schedule all those heart to hearts. Sometimes they just come up and you need to be ready to drop everything to have it. This time passes by so fast. It seems to me like it was just yesterday that I brought Little Man home from the hospital and now I am watching a maturing boy.  Time zipped by and I never regret the moments I dropped everything to hold him, comfort him, talk to him, play with him. Those are in fact the very moments I treasure.

Relationship Principle #2: Acceptance and Unconditional Love
"A child who can go to her mother or father and reveal her inner heart and still feel accepted will feel secure enough to take risks and grow. If that child senses she might be rejected because of her performance-or worse, because of her thoughts and feelings-then she will wonder if she can ever live up to her parents' standards."
It is important to us that Little Man feel this comfort, acceptance and unconditional love from us. We do have high standards for him. But, those standards are set to be just right for him. We don't expect perfection. We expect his best whatever that may be on the task and day at hand. We all fall and fail sometimes and those times are just as important to learn from. Often our best lessons are learned with failure. We expect him to just be who God intended him to be and use his gifts and talents in a way that would be pleasing to and honorning to God.

We truly have tried and continue to try to develop our relationship so that he knows he has unconditional love, because the truth is he does. Based on how open he is with us (praying that continues) I think he knows this. I do believe that we as mother's do have this huge privilege of instilling in children this deep experience and showing them that we are their cheering squad. I hope I always continue to be the person he comes to for sympathy and affirmation.

Relationship Principle #3: Affirmation and Encouragement
"When children feel appreciated and encouraged, they become encourager's themselves, sources of life and hope in an often discouraging world."
This just goes along with what is modeled for children they will model themselves towards others.

Relationship Principle #4: Grace
While I think it is important to hold children to high standards, I also feel it is just important to offer grace to them. We all have times we can use a little grace.

Relationship Principle #5: Relationship Training
"A person can only experience true intimacy when his heart has been deepened and exercised in real love and commitment. Consequently, an important part of deeply loving our children is training them to deeply love themselves and others."
Every single day we are faced with opportunities to teach our children thoughtfulness and compassion. It's what we as parents do with these situations that allows them to grow or not. Watching thoughtfulness and compassion grow in your children can bring about such a sense of pride.

There you have it, all summed up. Now, what are your thoughts?