Emotional Bank Accounts

Talking about attending to your child and his/her world yesterday reminded me of another colleague of mine, Fred Jones.  Dr. Jones is a clinical psychologist who has spent the last 20+ years helping teachers teach and discipline in positive and effective ways.  On the subject of being involved with one's child, he always stated that it's not a question of parents spending time and attention on their children: it's just a question of when and in what circumstance. You can spend the time up front in listening, reading to, playing with, and demonstrating your love and affection when the child is young or you can spend it in the principal's office, detention center, or treatment program when he/she reaches adolescence.

Dr. Steven R. Covey talked about each of us having an emotional bank account.  According to both Covey and Jones, parents need to begin making deposits into their children's emotional bank accounts from the beginning.  Each little hug, each kind word, each moment of listening and encouragement adds to the child's emotional wealth.

By the same token, every unkind word or behavior withdraws from that account.  Experts have said that it takes ten positive deposits to compensate for one negative withdrawal.  If, as a parent, you have allowed your child to become emotionally in the red, don't be surprised if you see an acting-out child or one who has given up completely.  I have know many people who's accounts are in the red and I'll bet you have, too.  They are truly empty human beings.

Parents also need to make deposits into their own emotional banks.  For me, that happens through daily prayer and meditation; reading the scriptures and uplifting literature; taking care in what I choose to see at the movies or on DVD at home; sharing sweet moments with friends and family; creative activities from blogging to my new quilt; serving others.  I am able to lend emotional strength to others because I keep my own account full.

The best way to fill your emotional well is through the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit.  I talked on Sunday about the Spirit as Testifier and Revelator.  He is also the Comforter and will make deposits into your account so that you can reach out and serve others.  Yesterday I quoted a favorite scripture on the best way to disciple and discipline your child.  Here are the next verses of that passage that will help you keep your own accounts full and ready to use.  I will close with them today:

• Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine . . . shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.
• The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; . . . and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever. (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 45-46)

Text copyright Gebara Education January 2013

Awareness is Your Best Friend

Yesterday, I wrote about the still, small voice.  It is important to listen to the Spirit whenever He speaks, but never more so than in our role as parents and grandparents.

When I was working in the schools, I served as a trainer and facilitator for the Parent-to-Parent program (P2P for short.)  It was developed by Bill Oliver who was, during the 1980s, the director of one of the largest drug addiction rehabilitation programs in the United States. Bill realized that what they were doing in treatment wasn't, as he put it, "rocket science. We were just teaching kids how to be kids and parents how to be parents."  He reasoned that if he could take what they were teaching in the program and make it accessible to parents before their children had problems, they might help many families avoid the heartache that is drug addiction.

P2P was designed to help parents recognize and intervene early when they notice their son or daughter moving in potential dangerous directions.  On of the skills they taught was called Awareness is Your Best Friend.  The basic precept is for parents to pay attention to their children.  Even those who don't often pray or seek the Spirit can receive warnings regarding their children if they will listen for them and not rationalize them away.  If, as a parent, you feel that there is something not quite right with your child, it is usually because there is something not quite right.  Connect with that child instantly!

 

Here are some suggestions for connecting:

• Listen.  Make eye contact.  Don't interrupt.  Listen to what they are saying and what they are not saying. 
• Look.  How are they dressing?  Wearing their hair?  Jewelry? Make-up?  What kinds of posters are one their bedroom walls?  Books on their shelves? Video games on the phones, computers, etc.
• Affirm and Encourage.  According to developmental psychologist, Rudoph Dreikers, children who act out in self-destructive ways are discouraged children.  We love our children.  They just don't always know it.  We need to say it often and we need to show it more.
• Teach family values by both precept and example.  Children will not not learn.  You cannot say one thing and do another and expect your children to listen.  "Do as I say, not as I do" doesn't fly with kids, nor should it.
• Intervene, when necessary, immediately. 

I'm going to close with one of my favorite scriptures. It was written specifically for Church leaders, but I have shared it with dozens if not hundreds of parents over the years.  I find it very applicable guidance for parents:

 

• No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, [here, read parents] only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned*;
• By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile**—
• Reproving betimes*** with sharpness****, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
• That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41-44)

Good advice for us all.

 

* unfeigned means genuine, sincere, not phony or put-on

** without guile means without duplicity or cunning

*** betimes is on old word meaning speedily, immediately, in the moment, not later

**** in this context, shapness means with clarity and perception (not severe or harsh)

 

Text copyright Gebara Education, January 2013

The Still, Small Voice

After the prophet, Elijah, performed a great miracle on Mt. Carmel wherein God shot down fire from heaven to consume Elijah's sacrifice, the King and Queen and all the people of Israel sought Elijah's life.  The prophet fled until he was far away and he hid in a cave.  I'm sure he must have been wondering to some extent about his relationship to God and why things were happening this way after such an impressive miracle.  While he was in this brown study, the voice of the Lord came to him:

• And he [Elijah] came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
• And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
• And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
• And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19: 9 - 12, KJV)

Now you have to admit that calling down fire from heaven is a pretty elaborate show.  I'm guessing Elijah may have thought that all communication from God would be that obvious.  The Lord had to teach Elijah that He doesn't communicate with men in that fashion.  Rather, He speaks to us through the quiet stirrings of our hearts - thoughts, ideas, feelings, impression. 

 

As I have grown older and - hopefully - wiser, I have tried to fine-tune my spiritual radio reciever so that I can understand God's voice when He speaks.  As I do, I become keenly aware of those things which He has placed upon my heart.  I seek each day to know His will for me that day.  It almost always involves something I can do to serve one of His children.  If you want peace and comfort in the midst of our chaotic world, remember that God is not in the whirlwind or the earthquake or the fire, but in a still small voice.

 

Text copyright Gebara Education January 2013

Just Sayin' Saturday

I've been working this week in my backyard shed.  It now has power and water and insulation.  My grandson and a friend came over New Year's Day and we painted the inside.  I still have to finish the floors, but must wait until the utility sink is installed.  Soon it will be a wonderful place for my sewing and crafts as well as a place of quietude.  The view from the window is spectacular as I can see the steeple of my church over the treetops.  In the summer, I'll have those beautiful garden views. 

It's not a shed anymore.  I'm renaming it The Cottage.

It's nice to take something that has been fairly useless and full of junk and turn it into something lovely and productive.  I think that is what God does to us when necessary.  If we've let our lives slip into unproductivity and full of the refuse of sin, God can clean us out, make major improvements (often a painful process) and fill us up with beautiful things.  When He does, it then behooves us to help others come to Christ so that their lives can be refurbished and beautified as well.

Just sayin'.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.  (Revelation 3: 12, KJV)

Text copyright Gebara Education, January 2013

Frustration!

I am frustrated this morning!  Blogspot has changed its format and will not let me download pictures from my hard drive.  I have to set up a Picasa album (controlled by Google) or get a Google phone app.  I may be shopping around for a new blog sight.  I will let you know.

Faith is Knowing

 

We live in scary times.  Christians who have read Revelations and Matthew 24, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel know that we are living in the last days.  In His final sermon to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jesus said:

• And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
• For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
• All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24: 6-8, KJV)

Hundreds of years before that, the Prophet Isaiah said:

• Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:                          . . .
• Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
• Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
• Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
• Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! (Isaiah 5: 18, 20-23, KJV)

I don't know how any believer, reading these and other scriptures, could doubt that we are in these days.  So how do we face a new year with optimism and hope?  In these very scriptures lies the secret:  God is in control!  God, who knows the end from the beginning, knew these things would come to pass! He has prepared a way for us.  He said: When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place . . . (Matthew 24: 15, KJV) 

 

Where are these holy places?  In the apostles' day, it was in the tiny settlement of Perea.  Today, holy places include:

• Christ-centered homes. 
• Congregations of believers.
• Temples.
• Groups of Christ-focused people gathered together in fellowship.

Jesus taught: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20, KJV)  When the Holy Spirit is present (the comforter whom Jesus sent), then that place is a holy place.

 

Knowing that Jesus Christ holds the future - and me - in His loving hands gives me the strength to face each day with faith, hope, love, and joy.  I want to share the good news of the gospel so that others may have these assurances.

 

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Matthew 18: 14, KJV)

 

May you face each day with joy and optimism and peace in your heart.

 

Text copyright Gebara Education January 2013

Poster downloaded from Facebook

Carpe Diem

 

I struggled with a different blog this morning that just didn't seem to be coming together.  That is usually my signal that I need to go in a different direction.  I found that direction in this Facebook post this morning.  Posted by my sister, this message meant a lot to me. 

 

I am getting to that age of human development that Erikson called Integrity versus Despair.  It's not a chronological age.   It's comes when you realize that you have more birthdays behind you than ahead of you.   As you look back over your life, you can have a sense of peace or a sense of extreme sorrow and regret.  The past cannot be changed "That it is what it is, do not blame me," said the ghost of Christmas past to Scrooge.

 

That's why I love this message and its allusions to repentance, forgiveness, and grace.  Each day of our lives we have another chance for a new beginning through Christ. I am grateful.  Because of His gift to me, I can look back at the things I have done wrong and say, "Thanks for the lessons learned," and not with regret or despair.  I can move foreword and take this opportunity at another chance in the future that begins now, no matter how many birthdays there may be ahead.  Dr. Cecilia Peek once said of Jesus Christ, "I am the totally present and totally current God.  Your past can be forgiven and your future assured all in this single moment in time."

 

Reach out and grasp that opportunity.  Seize the day!

 

Text copyright Gebara Education 2013