Teaching plans are forthcoming in a series and will speak further about:

– Tell them WHY you are giving the advice even though they’re mad at you.

– Tell them the consequences in Life of the particular misbehavior and

– Seeing others, even adults, say and do inappropriate things and behaviors does not mean it is a cool thing to say or do.

As I think through this, tell me what your experience has been with your teaching plans.

Child abandonment is being used in a broader, less obvious sense here. What I mean is, in many cases, girl becomes pregnant. Boy disappears. To me this child the girl is carrying AND the girl have been abandoned. This is the story of many, many, many people.

This leads to an ingrained lack of self-esteem, very deep lack of self worth. One comes out like a guided missile looking for affection from ANYone. It leads to reaching and grasping for attention. The child or young adult can easily become a victim because predators of all shades look for people who are needy in that way.

Then there’s the other kind of abandonment. The kind where the parent is there physically but they mostly ignore the child, won’t listen or shuts them down often when the child is trying to communicate with them. That’s abandonment also. Not a good feeling. Everyone wants to be listen to. You validate a person’s existence by giving them that attention. Truly listening and participating in their lives says and shows to them that they are valuable and loved.

If one finds they are guilty of behaving this way toward their child, think back on your own childhood. Were you ignored? Shut down often? Feeling alone a lot? Are you from a single parent household or lived that way for a long time? Did you have both parents but they worked a lot and had little energy for you when they got home? Are you repeating a pattern of emotional abuse?

Parents need to be extremely disciplined and visual about themselves to be able to change the pattern. I know you’re tired. Find ways around your tireness. Are you in your head about money or some such and totally distracted? Put your arms around them and breath with them. Whisper how much you love them in their ear and have a whisper conversation. You’ll find it relaxing. They’ll find it endearing. Most of all, you’ll stop the pattern.

Have you considered that you may be engaged in child abandonment?

Pretty amazing huh? Parenting, one of THE most important jobs in the world, is executed largely by people who have no experience in the job. Even if some think they are experienced, along comes the child who proves them wrong. What is our guide on this sea of uncertainty? Feelings.

It’s about feelings. Everything we do in our lives is about how we’re feeling. How we feel dictates what actually shows up in our lives. So if we’re feeling good most of the time then mostly good stuff shows up.

Our feelings are our direct communication with God. It is how we know that something is about to show up, good or bad. This is why it’s important to learn how to control how you’re feeling…so we can usher a lot more good stuff into our lives. Make a point of feeling good at all times.

Let’s teach this to our children as we are doing it and as we are learning to do it. It enhances their and our experience of life to know how to keep our feelings at a certain good level. The things we want can show up as we want, there’s a lot less frustration and a lot less need for heavy discipline!

If we stop in the moment and check our feelings, they tell us what we need to do. We can examine the thoughts that led to a bad feeling and change them. We can ask ourselves "What thought is gonna place these feelings where I want them to go?" Push the pause button and reflect instead of being on automatic with negative reactions. ‘In the moment’ is where the feeling is. Recognizing that is the difference between a happy life, an okay life or a miserable life.

How good are you at controlling your feelings and what you are creating?

Draw the line at being disrespected. Sometimes you have to let them know “Don’t talk back to me, I’m NOT one of your little friends!”