One of the greatest struggles for me has been consistent and purposeful parenting. Not parenting out of my emotions in the moment or not just come up with a temporary, quick fix goes against I guess what I know and what comes so natural to me.
Remember how I said my husband was a good father a few days ago? Well, this is where my husband completes me. 🙂 He studied this in college and worked with children in therapeutic foster care for 4 years at St. Anthony hospital before I even met him, and for the last 9 years in private practice, he has helped many many couples in the parenting department. And besides the academics, he just really has a God-given ability to think so clearly even in the throws of a toddler tantrum or in the heat of a fight between siblings. He thinks forward and is able to not let his emotions get involved.
The Lord has done such a work in my life regarding parenting (although I still struggle a lot) that now I am feeling a desire to share from time to time what has helped me. We approach our parenting from a Biblical perspective first and then we have used other resources over the years, that I am compiling a list of and will hopefully share soon.
I did want to share this little video glimpse into how my husband dealt with an “issue” last night with Hayden. The issue was Hayden not wanting to do his chores for the last couple of days and me calling Shawn to cry to him at work because I was so frustrated. Last night I just sat back and admired. Please excuse the poor video quality and I wish I would have gotten the whole thing on video.
Basically, Shawn went through Hayden’s chore list and gave him a “solution” to every chore that he no longer wanted to do. Genius.
FYI– Hayden’s chores are age appropriate. For example, he is required to do “laundry” twice a week. This consists of him switching the clothes from the washer to the dryer and then taking the clothes out of the dryer to the couch for me to fold. I promise you we are not running a sweat shop. 🙂