Day 108
I received a message from a friend who just recently had her sixth child. Life can be crazy with any number of children, as moms our doubts and fears often get the best of us. She asked questions about how we raised our nutty bunch. This was my response. I figure one day my kids will appreciate reading it.
Life with kids is overwhelming. The thought of failing them is downright terrifying. However, God is the one that sent each one of those combustible firecrackers to you. Your strengths, as well as your weaknesses, are the very thing they need in this life to begin their journey back to Heavenly Father. You doing the best you can will always be enough, especially when you feel like you’re failing. When early morning seminary hit, our scripture study hit the skids. I had Sam up at 5, Casey and Rebekah up at 6 and the rest of the kids up at 7. We had three completely different schedules happening, and I couldn’t manage it well. We went from scriptures every day to hopefully four times a week. Our saving grace was rereading the conference talks prior to the next general conference. I bought the kids their own copy of the GC Ensign, and they would mark the things that stood out to them as we read and then we would share with each other. Within the last couple of years, I found a great book, The Book of Mormon Family Reader edited by Tyler McKellar. “Select passages and discussion prompt for five-minute family study.” I read it to my seminary kids as they eat breakfast. The questions/discussion prompts give them something to think about as they leave each morning. Then I reread it to Victoria before she leaves for school. I’ve found that trying to wake everyone up super early for scripture study created more stress for my kids in seminary. It was more peaceful having multiple family scripture studies in the morning. We still read the general conference talks as a family in the evening. Come Follow Me is still evolving for us. Sometimes we do a lot through text which includes all of our college kids. It isn’t so much what you are doing but that you are consistently doing something.
As far as screen time, I’ve been extremely blessed. My kids have never gotten into a lot of screen time activities. Their phones are often silent throughout the evenings. There will be an occasional text here or there, but for the most part, they are sitting in a bag or on a counter. I had everyone (even our college kids) delete Snapchat 2 years ago after a couple of negative situations with Porter. At first, they were annoyed and some mad. But all would agree it was a good decision. Our family group chat is what normally blows up their phones. Thirty minutes sounds fair and reasonable. I’ve read a couple of articles about the emotional damage social media and screen time does to our kids. I think you are wise limiting them.
Dinner time sets up bedtime. We usually ate dinner at 5:30 PM Our HS and MS kids were home from practice around 5:15 pm so I tried to have dinner on the table by 5:30 pm We would ask the kids two questions which often led to gospel discussions. 1. What was the best part of your day? 2. What did you do for someone else today?
Littles=elementary school
Middles=middle school
Bigs=high school
Bedtime: this is what happened most often.
My littles were heading to bed by 7 pm. I turned into the most impatient, irritable, grump at 7:30 pm. I’m not kidding when I say at 7:31 a switch was flipped.
My middles were heading to bed no later than 8 pm.
And my bigs I tried hard to have them getting ready for bed by 9 PM.
Activities and things would interfere sometimes, but when that would happen, we often read scriptures/listened to a talk in the car ride home and said prayers before getting out of the car so everyone could go straight to bed. Sleep is a huge thing for my kids. If they don’t get enough of it, we are in TROUBLE!! A lot of times Ryan and I would split up. He would often go to a performance or activity, and I would stay home and get kids to bed. It turned out to be a fun one on one time with whoever was performing/competing. Other times it was a whole family ordeal.
We have emotionally driven kids. They have a lot of needs. Learning and understanding those needs helped us, parent. Sometimes I didn’t get to do a lot of what I wanted because a couple of our kids couldn’t handle the stimulation or lack of sleep. I guess what I am saying is parenting is going to look different for everyone. No two kids are alike. No two families are alike. But the key to every child and every family is love. Figure out how to best love each of your spunky kids. That may look like a mean mom sometimes or a too lenient mom. But with God’s help, your faith, and desire to do the best for your kids things will be ok. Don’t let the opinions, looks, or judgments of others create doubt. You are a wonderful person with so many strengths. Trust your Heavenly Father; He knows what he is doing. Those kids are in the very best place they could be, with you and Tracy❤️
Life with kids is overwhelming. The thought of failing them is downright terrifying. However, God is the one that sent each one of those combustible firecrackers to you. Your strengths, as well as your weaknesses, are the very thing they need in this life to begin their journey back to Heavenly Father. You doing the best you can will always be enough, especially when you feel like you’re failing. When early morning seminary hit, our scripture study hit the skids. I had Sam up at 5, Casey and Rebekah up at 6 and the rest of the kids up at 7. We had three completely different schedules happening, and I couldn’t manage it well. We went from scriptures every day to hopefully four times a week. Our saving grace was rereading the conference talks prior to the next general conference. I bought the kids their own copy of the GC Ensign, and they would mark the things that stood out to them as we read and then we would share with each other. Within the last couple of years, I found a great book, The Book of Mormon Family Reader edited by Tyler McKellar. “Select passages and discussion prompt for five-minute family study.” I read it to my seminary kids as they eat breakfast. The questions/discussion prompts give them something to think about as they leave each morning. Then I reread it to Victoria before she leaves for school. I’ve found that trying to wake everyone up super early for scripture study created more stress for my kids in seminary. It was more peaceful having multiple family scripture studies in the morning. We still read the general conference talks as a family in the evening. Come Follow Me is still evolving for us. Sometimes we do a lot through text which includes all of our college kids. It isn’t so much what you are doing but that you are consistently doing something.
As far as screen time, I’ve been extremely blessed. My kids have never gotten into a lot of screen time activities. Their phones are often silent throughout the evenings. There will be an occasional text here or there, but for the most part, they are sitting in a bag or on a counter. I had everyone (even our college kids) delete Snapchat 2 years ago after a couple of negative situations with Porter. At first, they were annoyed and some mad. But all would agree it was a good decision. Our family group chat is what normally blows up their phones. Thirty minutes sounds fair and reasonable. I’ve read a couple of articles about the emotional damage social media and screen time does to our kids. I think you are wise limiting them.
Dinner time sets up bedtime. We usually ate dinner at 5:30 PM Our HS and MS kids were home from practice around 5:15 pm so I tried to have dinner on the table by 5:30 pm We would ask the kids two questions which often led to gospel discussions. 1. What was the best part of your day? 2. What did you do for someone else today?
Littles=elementary school
Middles=middle school
Bigs=high school
Bedtime: this is what happened most often.
My littles were heading to bed by 7 pm. I turned into the most impatient, irritable, grump at 7:30 pm. I’m not kidding when I say at 7:31 a switch was flipped.
My middles were heading to bed no later than 8 pm.
And my bigs I tried hard to have them getting ready for bed by 9 PM.
Activities and things would interfere sometimes, but when that would happen, we often read scriptures/listened to a talk in the car ride home and said prayers before getting out of the car so everyone could go straight to bed. Sleep is a huge thing for my kids. If they don’t get enough of it, we are in TROUBLE!! A lot of times Ryan and I would split up. He would often go to a performance or activity, and I would stay home and get kids to bed. It turned out to be a fun one on one time with whoever was performing/competing. Other times it was a whole family ordeal.
We have emotionally driven kids. They have a lot of needs. Learning and understanding those needs helped us, parent. Sometimes I didn’t get to do a lot of what I wanted because a couple of our kids couldn’t handle the stimulation or lack of sleep. I guess what I am saying is parenting is going to look different for everyone. No two kids are alike. No two families are alike. But the key to every child and every family is love. Figure out how to best love each of your spunky kids. That may look like a mean mom sometimes or a too lenient mom. But with God’s help, your faith, and desire to do the best for your kids things will be ok. Don’t let the opinions, looks, or judgments of others create doubt. You are a wonderful person with so many strengths. Trust your Heavenly Father; He knows what he is doing. Those kids are in the very best place they could be, with you and Tracy❤️
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