FFF#37---Teen-Parent Relationships

Speedy came home the other day and told me of an interaction he had at school.  One of the 4th years (Seniors) was speaking with him.  She is not someone he particularly knows.  They were in the same place at the same time.  She let him know that our family "is really strange and a little disturbing".  At first, I was a little put out, but I decided I really wanted to know what she meant by that so I asked Speedy to elaborate on their conversation.  'What did she mean by that exactly?'

She went on, "When we were all here for registration and our parents had to be here and we were all standing around in line, you and your mom were joking and laughing with each other and obviously had some inside jokes and looked like you were having a great time."  Speedy told me that she doesn't have a good relationship with her parents, in fact, it is quite the opposite.  She called our relationship 'disturbing, weird, and just wrong'.

I laughed out loud for a few minutes and then I was just sad.  I realized that even when I am just being myself and being what I would call 'normal' people are watching us.  I wasn't sad about the watching part, as much as I was sad that her experience led her to believe a positive and fun relationship with your parent is just 'wrong and disturbing'. 

As I pondered more over the next few days, I realized that as an adolescent, I didn't have a good relationship with my parents either.  I didn't feel like I was understood or that I could be myself.  I did not feel valued or loved for who I was.  Those feelings led me to be very active in my parenting and make significant efforts in the relationships I have with our children.  I want them to feel like I am honest in our relationship.  I want them to be able to believe the things I tell them.  If I make a mistake, I say so.  I apologize to them when I have mistreated them.  I try to treat them like I would my best friends, except I have to be their parent, not their friend.  But I am courteous, and kind.  I ask for favors, like babysitting (I don't just expect them to be available).  I do give them assignments and chores and I discipline when that is necessary.  But I really, really like my teenagers for who they are.  I appreciate their uniqueness.

One of the most important things I believe parents can do, besides teach their children about the gospel, is to validate their feelings.  They have feelings.  Infants have feelings.  Toddlers have feelings.  Children have feelings.  Adolescents have feelings.  They are people.  They deserve to be treated that way regardless of their age.  If they are hurt, sad, upset, afraid, embarrassed, or angry, those feelings deserve to be addressed and ministered to.  Children do not know the best ways to handle all of their emotions.  Unfortunately, most adults do not either.  But if you think back to your childhood and can recognize when people treated you in a way you did not like and when people treated you in a way that made you feel confident and happy and loved, then you will have some clues about how to help your children and teenagers have those feelings as well.

If as a parent, you are emotionally struggling with an issue, it is alright for your children to see your struggles.  It is alright for you to admit that you are scared or having a difficult time, especially to your adolescents.  You do not need to burden small children with your emotions or make them feel responsible for fixing your negative emotions, but it is completely appropriate to tell your children that you are sad, or hurt or afraid or sick and allow them to comfort you.  Then you just say something like, "Mommy is going to try to help herself have better feelings," or "Mommy is going to ask Heavenly Father to help her," and then model appropriate behavior.  If your children see you struggle and then watch you make positive efforts to manage your negative emotions that gives them an example to follow when they are having some of those same feelings.

Especially when emotions are shared without blame and anger, teenagers can be a huge source of comfort and solace.  And when teenagers explode with their emotion for whatever reason, kindly let them know their feelings are valid, they are OK, but their behavior is not.  Then give them other options for behavior when they have negative feelings.

To be very honest, your teenager needs your time.  He or she needs you to take time to listen to them.  Teenagers are a group that have real adult kinds of problems.  In the circles they run in, they have friends who are using drugs, alcohol and/or tobacco, having sex, discussing birth control and abortion, have parents getting divorced, they are abused, etc....  One of the things we adults do not always do well, is to listen to our teenagers.  They are trying to solve some seriously adult issues with teenage hormones and brains.  That is not an easy thing to do, which if you think back to your adolescence, you can personally validate.  Your teenagers may not be doing any of those things, but I guarantee you they know other teenagers who are.

Speedy has been upset lately because people at school are approaching him for 'dating' advice.  He is flattered, but he is also 15, so he doesn't have any experience to be giving advice.  It is a little daunting for him.  He is completely stressed out about the amount of homework he has.  It isn't more than my college boys have or more than I had at his age, but for him today, it is a huge stress.  That feeling is valid.  It is more homework than he has ever had to manage and it is causing him grief and stress.  If as his parent, I tell him to just 'suck it up and deal with it' or 'that he doesn't have anything to complain about, his load is not that hard to manage,' then I have just invalidated his feelings about his situation.  I have done nothing to help him expand his ability to meet the load or to help him feel like he can manage it.   I have invalidated his feelings of stress at his circumstances.  If, on the other hand, I remember how I felt at his age and the amount of homework I had and felt overwhelmed by and just say, "Ya' gosh!  I remember that!  It was hard to get all of that done," even if I do not give him any new strategies, just letting him know his feelings at that age are normal for those circumstances does a lot for his ability to manage those feelings.  If I then go further and help him to reorganize his workload or pick up some of his chores so he has more time for his homework, or sometimes just encourage him to go to bed and get a good night's rest and then face the problems again in the morning, I am validating his feelings and helping him to manage his negative emotions.

We all need help!  If we were perfect at always managing our feelings, we wouldn't need to be on the earth anymore.  The fact that we are still here, means there is more for us to learn.  Teenagers are trying to manage more adult situations with an entirely new set of hormones.  They deserve extra consideration, time, and love.

I think teenagers have always been my favorite because they can think like adults, work like adults, and are in a place where they are making decisions to guide their future, but they still want to play like little children.  They are going to make mistakes, some big mistakes in how they manage themselves and their circumstances, but if they are shown enough love and understanding with proper boundaries for their behavior, they are usually very teachable, if their childhood experience has given them the opinion that the world is a safe place.

If, through their childhood, they have learned that the world is not a safe place, then adolescence is much more difficult to navigate, though it is not impossible.  It just takes a lot more work and prayer.

LOVE your teens!!!  And if you are overwhelmed and exhausted with them, pray for them and pray with them.  Ask your Father in Heaven what you can do for them to help them make the right choices and show them of your love and concern.  Then do what He tells you to do, even if it doesn't make sense to you.  Trust Him.  The child you are raising was His child first.  He knows him/her and He knows what will touch his/her heart.

If you do not have teenagers, start working on your relationship with your children.  You are building the relationship you will have with them through their teens!  Build wisely and validate those little people feelings!  Overall, sometimes us stuffy adults need to let loose and have a little teenage, or childhood fun.  The children and youth need us to play with them.  Those who do, will have better relationships than those who don't have time for childish things.  LOVE and PLAY....that is my advice and counsel for today.

WOW! Where have I been?!!

General Conference yesterday (Saturday) was awesome and amazing!  I loved every word and we had a really beautiful relaxing day for the most part.  Conference was GREAT!  That was not a disappointment!  My big kiddos were attending conference at the Conference Center.  See, here they are:

Don't they look great?!!

The evening however, was a bit challenging.  I spent hours on the phone, some with a ward member who was struggling and then with my boys who were also struggling.  That was OK.  I finished off the evening with an old romantic comedy and lightened up the atmosphere.

Then, this morning, I woke up all excited about Conference and ready for the spiritual feast, day #2.  I went to go and make breakfast.  Managed another sibling issue, but had to cut that short because my husband called the house to tell me that someone had smashed our van window.  Lovely.  I spent the next 20 minutes on the phone with the police.  Luckily I assigned Speedy to manage breakfast, and Sun to change Spike's diaper.

We watched the first session of conference and then Drew and I spent 1 and 1/2 hours between conference sessions, cleaning up this:

There was a LOT of glass.  Shards everywhere!  We had to remove all of the middle seats, vacuum under the front and the back and in the doors---so much glass everywhere.  The sad thing is that I think they broke it just to break it.  Yes the car was locked, but there wasn't anything in there that someone would really want, except for my Inside Out CD's!!  I mean, come on, that is what every crook is after!  But they didn't take those either---they just smashed my window!  Ugh!

The second session was more difficult for us to pay attention to.  Probably because the time I usually feed people lunch, I was cleaning up glass.  But whatever.  We did eat, while it was beginning.  We were grumpy, I think we still are......shhhh!

And then tonight I pull up MMM's blog, just because I haven't read him in forever and he always has awesome conference posts, and find out that on Friday, he revealed his identity!  Seriously?!!  That was so cool.

Anyway, that has been my conference weekend.  Slim gets home late tonight from Utah.  He will be wiped out.  This next week I get to deal with all of the exciting fix the window projects!!  And hopefully I'll get to watch some of the conference again, since I missed some of it.

And also, my husband let me know that he is not happy about this:

Have a great week!!

So Excited!!!

Today is one of my all time favorite weekends!!!  General Conference!!  We have the opportunity to listen to the voices of the prophets of our day and age!  Do you want to know what Jesus would say to the people if he were on the earth today?  Listen to these men and women!!  They know and they are telling us!

If you need more information on how to link yourself into the broadcasts, go here.  Broadcast times are at 10 a.m  and 2 p.m. MDT today, Saturday October 4th 2014 and Sunday October 5th.  The best part is that with today's technology, if you miss it, you can watch it, listen to it, or read it later!!  Go here for that---just change the 'lan=eng' to the three letters for your language!

I am coming to the broadcast with specific questions I have about things I need answers to in my life.  As I listen to the sessions and open my heart, I have answers that help me live today.  Sometimes my questions are as simple as, what should I do with our car (it had died that year) or as profound as, What does it mean in the scriptures where it says that Satan desires to sift us as wheat?  That year, Elder Oaks quoted that scripture and said, that means.....  No joke.  It really happened that way.

The point is, God is no respecter of persons.  He loves and cares about you and your happiness as much as He does about me and my happiness.  He knows you have questions.  He knows you need answers!  If you will listen to and heed the words of His prophets, those questions will begin to be answered and you will have the peace of knowing that your life is in harmony with His plan.

Enjoy the conference today!  I will!!  Some of my children will be gathered around our television to watch and some are even lucky enough to be in the conference center today!!  (Yes, I am jealous! But excited for them!)

Have a great day!!  We will!

Plan of God vs plan of Carin

I visited a friend the other day---at the hospital.  She is an older woman.  She had recently been released from a rehabilitation center after four months to return home.  She wasn't well enough to go home, mind you, but her insurance had capped out on the rehabilitation benefit so they sent her home.  She is fighting the onset of old age and fighting for her independence.  We have tried helping her and offering solutions to her dilemmas but she doesn't want 'that kind' of help so she has declined offers for assistance.

Over the weekend, she fell, at her home, and couldn't get up.  She couldn't reach the phone and she laid there, on the floor of her apartment for two days until a previously scheduled appointment showed up at her door and she was able to call for help.

She really does need some help, even though she hasn't wanted any of 'that kind.'  I think this last little episode has opened her heart to receiving 'that kind' of help, at least a little bit.

Why do we have to be so stubborn sometimes?!!

I am not blaming my friend.  I too have had times in my life where I am insistent in doing things MY way.

In my experience, when I am in that place, the Lord throws a brick and wallops me upside the head.  It is usually an experience similar to my friend's who laid on the floor for two days.  It is as if He is saying, "See?  This is what happens when you do not listen.  Now are you ready to do it my way?" or "follow my counsel?" or "do what I am asking you to?".

This hurts!

I read a scripture one time many times, over and over again, which has seriously enlightened me, Doctrine and Covenants 3:3

Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated but the work of man.

So now when I am banging my head against the wall over a particular issue, I stop and think:  Maybe this is the work of Carin and not the work of God?  There's a novel thought!

Then I actually try to reconnect with my Father in Heaven and ask Him if maybe, just maybe I might be pushing the plan of Carin (with a small p).  Lots of times, I am.

When I stop pushing the wrong agenda and open my heart to His process and I ask Him, "What am I suppose to be learning in these circumstances? What is my place or role here at this time?"  When I begin asking questions instead of pushing my agenda, that is when learning takes place.  That is when my heart is finally ready to hear the answers He has been trying to give me.

It is a lot easier to recognize I am pushing the plan of Carin and stop and ask questions than it is to be hit with a brick and it hurts less too.

I am kind of in one of those places right now.  I am not pushing my agenda.  But it seems every day I have to ask, What are we doing?  Why are we doing it? What is the time-table exactly?  I don't get answers to all of those questions, especially the time-table one.  The answer is usually, a few more things have to be in place first, trust me.  OK...................that's fine..........................how long again?  No response.

It is one of those things I have to take on faith.  When I try to estimate my own time-table I am usually off by YEARS!  Seriously!  Twice I had the 'heads-up' we were moving.  Twice it was years early!  Do you know how ridiculous it is to get a jump start on packing years ahead of time?

I packed up all the books thinking it would be helpful to start there.  A few months later, I would have to dig through all the packed books so I could write a talk or prepare a lesson.  (Though now with so much being on the internet, maybe I could get away with packing books next time?..........)

Now when I receive information without a time-table, I just try to 'hang-tight' and not be too emotionally invested in the 'when'.

I have also learned that I cannot force the time-table.  Just because I know something is in line with what the Lord wants, doesn't mean I can have it any sooner than He wants me to.  Can you believe it?!  It's like He knows something I don't...............Heavenly Father has His own time-table---always----and things happen in His time.  Remember, it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of Carin man (and Carin, unless it is inline with God), and that is a lot harder than it sounds.

So how do you do it?  How do you bring your plan inline with God's plan?

First, you have to recognize you have your own agenda.  Second, you have to know if your agenda conflicts with His, so you have to be able to find out what His agenda is.  Sometimes Most times, we have to pray to soften our hearts and to be open to His agenda.  I pray that I will be willing to know and do His will.  Sometimes Most times, I recognize that I will put conditions on His agenda.  "I will forgive so and so if she apologizes for this and that."

Heavenly Father doesn't usually work that way.  But I think He does work with us when we are honestly trying to do His will and it is just really hard for us.  I have two examples----spiders and my daughter.  The first one is kind of funny.

I knew we were suppose to move into a basement apartment in Provo.  I only knew we were suppose to after I told my husband, "Absolutely not!  I will not live there---it is dark and dirty and there are spiders."  He asked me to pray about it.  At first, I refused.  I was not living there.  Then I relented.  I matter-of-factly told the Lord that I did not want to live there and I listed all of my reasons, but agreed that I would do what He wanted me to.  Then I asked.  He told me that He wanted me to move there.  Ugh!  "Alright, I will but only if you agree to keep the poisonous spiders outside of my house.  If they bite me or my babies, I am moving."  I knew the spiders would obey God, even the dust does that!  We made the move and the black widows stayed outside----right outside my front door, mind you---but they never bit any of us.

The second example is my one and only daughter.  When I found out I was expecting our sixth child, I told my Father in Heaven, "Hey, thanks for sending this baby.  I am grateful for the baby.  But you've sent me five sons---in a row.  I think I can handle more children but if that is something you want me to do, then I need you to send me something else.  I don't think any family should have six boys, that is too many."

You can obviously see that He has a sense of humor.  He didn't think we should have six either.  He sent eight!  But He also sent my daughter, when I asked for her------because if you want to know the truth, I have trouble asking for things, even from Him.  So when I actually do put that effort out there, He usually honors my request, or He tells me why I can't have it my  way.

don't forget this one.

I have learned that He really does care and listen.  He really does have a plan---always---and it is always better than mine.  But I still struggle with that whole time-table thing.  But at least I don't have to be hit upside the head with a brick before I try to adjust my plan to His plan, well, usually.

I think one of our greatest tasks in this life is learning to put aside the plan of Carin (insert your own name there), for the Plan God has for our life.  Here are two quotes that lead me that direction.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

The submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. It is a hard doctrine, but it is true. The many other things we give to God, however nice that may be of us, are actually things He has already given us, and He has loaned them to us. But when we begin to submit ourselves by letting our wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him. And that hard doctrine lies at the center of discipleship. There is a part of us that is ultimately sovereign, the mind and heart, where we really do decide which way to go and what to do. And when we submit to His will, then we’ve really given Him the one thing He asks of us. And the other things are not very, very important. It is the only possession we have that we can give, and there is no resulting shortage in our agency as a result. Instead, what we see is a flowering of our talents and more and more surges of joy. Submission to Him is the only form of submission that is completely safe.  Sharing Insights from My Life.


President Deiter F. Uchtdorf:

Perhaps during times such as these, we might find ourselves asking, “Do we really need to obey all of God’s commandments?”

My response to this question is simple:

I think God knows something we don’t—things that are beyond our capacity to comprehend! Our Father in Heaven is an eternal being whose experience, wisdom, and intelligence are infinitely greater than ours.⁴ Not only that, but He is also eternally loving, compassionate, and focused on one blessed goal: to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life.⁵

In other words, He not only knows what is best for you; He also anxiously wants you to choose what is best for you.

If you believe this in your hearts—if you truly believe the great mission of our Heavenly Father is to exalt and glorify His children and that He knows best how to do it—doesn’t it make sense to embrace and follow His commandments, even the ones that appear difficult? Should we not cherish the light posts He has given that guide us through the darkness and the trials of mortality? They mark the way back to our heavenly home! By choosing Heavenly Father’s path, you lay a divine foundation for your personal progress as a daughter of God that will bless you throughout your life.

Part of our challenge is, I think, that we imagine that God has all of His blessings locked in a huge cloud up in heaven, refusing to give them to us unless we comply with some strict, paternalistic requirements He has set up. But the commandments aren’t like that at all. In reality, Heavenly Father is constantly raining blessings upon us. It is our fear, doubt, and sin that, like an umbrella, block these blessings from reaching us.

His commandments are the loving instructions and the divine help for us to close the umbrella so we can receive the shower of heavenly blessings.

We need to accept that the commandments of God aren’t just a long list of good ideas. They aren’t “life hacks” from an Internet blog or motivational quotes from a Pinterest board. They are divine counsel, based on eternal truths, given to bring “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.”⁶

So we have a choice. On the one hand, there is the opinion of the world with its ever-changing theories and questionable motives. On the other hand, there is God’s word to His children—His eternal wisdom, His certain promises, and His loving instructions for returning to His presence in glory, love, and majesty.

The choice is yours!

FFF#36--Serve the Children

This will just be a quick post, as I have a ton of things to do today and I didn't get this written until everyone was up and in my face.  But, at our house things have been a little busy.

Yesterday, Speedy has his wisdom teeth removed.  Surgery went well.  We got some food and pain meds into him within a relatively short time.  The bleeding eventually stopped.  Slim hung out with him most of the afternoon watching movies while Speedy just laid there.  It was good.

The night before surgery, Slim brought Spike up to our bedroom about 12:30 a.m because Spike couldn't breath.  He said they had given him a breathing treatment but he was still wheezing horribly.  Spike has croup.  I could tell from his breathing.  After nine children, I can tell by the sound.  We took him into the bathroom and steamed the snot out of it and then just sat in the misty air for about 15 minutes.  Then I rubbed some croup medicine on his chest and we put him back into bed.

All heck broke loose at our house about 4:00 p.m yesterday afternoon.  I was trying to clean the kitchen and get dinner ready before I took Sun to her theater class.  For some reason, she kind of emotionally exploded in anger, threw something at Slim and hit him.  Then as we were explaining the choices she now had before her, her feelings got hurt because she felt she was being 'punished unjustly'.  She stormed off to her room and slammed the door.

After about 10 minutes, I decided to go and see if she would talk to me about her feelings and why she was upset.  Her door was locked and she wouldn't open it or talk to me.  I told her that if she didn't open the door, she might lose the opportunity to attend class.  She just ignored me.  I decided to give her a little more time to cool off.

Ten minutes later, I went to check on her again.  I could tell she was trying to open the door, but it wasn't working.  "Sun?  Are you stuck in there?"

"Yes, Mom."

"OK, let me go and get Slim and see if he can help us."

We spent the next half an hour trying to free her from her bedroom.  In the mean time, Speedy was late taking his pain medication--by only 15 minutes.  But he was in so much pain, it brought him to tears.  I got Speedy pain medicine, while Slim climbed through Sun's bedroom window and started working on the door from the inside.  People were hungry.  Dinner wasn't quite finished and it was time for us to leave.

Miraculously, I did not explode or lose my temper throughout the entire ordeal.  I have definitely matured in my ability to control my temper and my stress level with the children.  I knew Spike, Speedy, and Slim all didn't feel well.  I could tell Sun didn't, by her behavior.  What good would it do the children if I let my emotions of stress or irritation join in the chorus of unhappy souls in my household?  Would it help the children to feel loved and valued and cared for?  They are only children (with the exception of Slim).

A friend of mine was over the other day and she shared with us the difficulty she has as an adult in expressing, feeling, and labeling her emotions.  She has this issue, because as she grew, when she would express her feelings of frustration, or sadness, or being overwhelmed to her mother, her mother would turn the tables on her and invalidate her feelings by telling her she didn't have anything to feel that way about.  Her mother's life was hard, and here is why her mother could feel those things, but as the child, she was not allowed to.  Now as a grown woman and mother in her own right, my friend struggles to understand how she feels and why.  The treatment she received as a child, from her mother, has retarded her ability to manage her emotions as an adult.  She has to learn how to do that now, because something that should have been a normal part of development was not available to her.

Unfortunately, emotional development (or moral development) does not happen on a strictly linear time-line.  Just because you are an adult, doesn't mean you understand how to behave like one or act like one.  Adults should be able to put their own emotions in check in order to help children manage theirs.  Right?  Sadly, that rarely happens.  Now, I understand we are all going through things and probably most of us did not grow up in an ideal home where our feelings were valued and nurtured, much like my friend above, and even my childhood did not have those things.  So  how then do we give those things to our children? 

The first thing to do is to recognize our shortcomings.  We have to know where, when and how we are struggling.  That takes some soul searching and some serious time.  In our busy day to day schedule, we will not just have the information drop into our laps.  We have to take time through prayer, and pondering, to understand why we behave the way we do, analyze if that behavior is in line with the principles of the gospel we know and believe, and then decide what we are going to do about it if they don't.

In the above example, my friend recognized what she needed from her mother and didn't receive.  I think most of know those things.  We have a pretty good idea of where our parents 'messed us up'.  I think most of us also try diligently to compensate in our parenting for where our parents were lacking.  A silly example  in my life is that I never felt I had enough underwear growing up, or socks without holes in them.  As the mother, my children are never lacking underwear or decent socks.  We probably have WAY too many!  But it is my attempt to compensate for things I lacked as a child.  And that is not to say that I have bad parents.  I think they too were doing their best to compensate for the things they lacked in their childhood.  My mother religiously took us to the dentist because she did not have dental care as a child and that really bothered her.

But beyond the temporal, we need to address the emotional needs of our children.  We need to validate their feelings.  With yesterday's happenings, yes, my daughter behaved inappropriately.  She received consequences for her behavior.  But she also deserved and needed my emotional understanding.  By choosing to get angry about the door issue (we had to pull it off the hinges and remove the molding from the door, all of which now needs to be repaired), I simply add to her negative emotional burdens of her behavior.  She really felt bad enough that she threw something and hurt her brother and that she broke the door.  She did not need the added burden of my anger and frustration.  She really needed my understanding and love of her when she misbehaves.

She was also late for her class.  Why should I care?  My daughter's emotional stability is more important to me than whether or not she was late to one class.  We are usually on time.  If I am more concerned about what the teacher or the other students think of me because my daughter is late for class, then my priorities ought to be reexamined.

A few years ago, the first time I was the Bishop's wife, I had been asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting.  I had seven small children, ages 12 to about six months, I think.  Drew was gone to his meetings.  Church started at 9 a.m.  My talk wasn't finished.  I was working furiously to get it finished.  I could hear the children screaming at each other in the kitchen.  The baby was crying.  I wasn't dressed and not many of the children were ready.  Church started in half an hour and it took 15 minutes to drive there, and I HATE being late.  I decided to stop fighting for my agenda and take care of my children.

I left the computer, called all of my little ones into the living room.  I asked them about their disagreements and desires.  I told them that Heavenly Father loved them.  It was His day and He wanted us to be happy.  There wasn't happiness in our home and the Spirit could not be there.  We needed to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help us to be happy and to be kind and to invite the Spirit into our home.  We did so.

 I had to let go of my time-table.  We finished the prayer.  We made assignments for siblings to help one another so we could be ready to go to church.  We got into the car and drove off.  We were late, but we made it into the foyer for the sacrament ordinance.  When the doors opened, my little family filed into the meeting and sat on the bench.  When it was my turn to speak, I left the children in the pew and went to the pulpit.  I gave my prepared remarks.

When I got to the point where I didn't know what to say, I realized that my experience of that morning fit perfectly into my talk about how we should spend our time.  I shared our story of that very morning.  I had actually made the right choice!  I stopped fighting for my agenda and for the expectations of others and I took care of those precious children within my charge and my stewardship.  I nurtured their feelings and their emotions and I helped them accomplish the tasks they had before them.  In the process, the Lord took care of me and the responsibilities that I had.

As adults, let us always be thinking about what we can do to serve, love, and help those precious children who the Lord has given to us.  They deserve our time, our effort, and our emotional maturity.