LOVE AND LOGIC MAGIC!: The Final Post

"I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth." 3 John 1:4

Hello again!! It's me and I'm back with one last post. If you haven't been around in a while, my past four posts have been about a parenting book that Drew and I love called Love and Logic Magic. You can find my previous posts here, here, here, and here.

To end my series on parenting I'd like to remind you that it's never too early to start teaching your children! Some people believe that children cannot learn or benefit from discipline until they can converse. Nothing is further from the truth! By the age of nine months, human babies are more intelligent than any other creature on the planet. Begin discipline early so that it will be easier to enforce as your child gets older!


Isaiah loves his Aunt Adelynn



Isaiah with his cousin, Gavin, and his Mimi and Poppy.



Our little family!

This opening presents stuff is fun!



My parents didn't have Love and Logic when I was born but they raised me using many of the same techniques. I'm so thankful for the time and effort they put into parenting us children in this way and I think they did a wonderful job! I have always been best friends with my mom and I have an even greater appreciation for her now that I'm a mom myself! In the same way, Drew is best friends with his dad! We are so blessed to have godly examples of family who show us what it means to be good parents!

And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.

Titus 2:7

Bed Head!



Eating his "man" breakfast. Sausage and eggs!

  

Always lovin to make music!

Being a parent can be a tough job but it can also wield many wonderful rewards! God gives us encouragement in His word: Deuteronomy 31:8 tells us that, “The Lord is indeed going before you – he will be with you; he will not fail you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged!” We have the best teacher a parent could ask for in the Lord! He's given us His word and He's given us a direct lifeline to Him (prayer) that gives us ultimate access to a wealth of information on how to be a parent. And the Lord is walking us through the process. No issue or question is to small to bring before Him! 



Oh, a drawer that's not in the dresser at the moment? A perfect spot for a hideout!

  

Supporting Drew's youth group with our Under Fire hoodies.

One of my favorite quotes from the Love and Logic book is this: A simple trick of successful parenting is to have lots of fun with your kids when they're behaving so they'll miss you when they go to their room. What a wonderful way to parent! =) Be silly with your kids. Have fun. Partake in the joy. Then, when they misbehave, all the fun shuts down. You're not angry, and you don't yell, but you are very boring when their behavior turns sour. Teach them that a life of misbehavior is pretty dull.

 Remember: Parenting Can be Fun! :)

Zai loves his Auntie Addie and Auntie Janae because they play fun games with him!

 Well, it's been fun and I'm a bit sad now, but I think it's time to end this series! I've enjoyed writing these posts because it's helping to drill these concepts into my mind as well!

I just want to encourage some of you out there who may be discouraged in your parenting journey. Parenting is not guaranteed. Sometimes parents can do ALL the right things and they still end up with disobedient or rebellious children. Some children are more strong willed than others and thus make parenting more difficult. Different children need different punishment techniques. Different parents need to use different punishment techniques! And despite our best efforts, our kids may not turn out as perfect as we want them to. And that's ok. You know why? Because God has instructed us to do our best in raising our children. He doesn't expect us to be perfect and it's not always our fault if our children stray.

At the end of the day, we can take comfort in knowing that we have done the best job we can as parents- we have covered our children in prayer, we have learned what God's word says about children/discipline, and we have determined, with the Lord, the kind of parenting our children need. In the end, some of it is out of our hands!

I am totally head over heals in love with this boy. =)

Something I read in my Bible study this week really encouraged me. It said: "Children make choices and choices have consequences. We can only train, guide, and discipline. Then we hope and pray. We do the best we can with the knowledge we have at the time, and we must never stop praying! Our job as parents is to try and turn our children's hearts towards God, knowing full well that some hearts turn towards Him and others turn away." Amen! 

 I'd like to leave you with a song by one of my favorite artists, Sara Groves. It is a very moving song about how our actions today affect our children and our children's children and their children's children, and so on. We can pass on a curse or a blessing to our future children! What legacy do you want to pass on????