Children and Emotional Neglect

This fabulous article is one that I would recommend to every parent I know:

How to Not Emotionally Neglect Your Child

Go read it. Now.

It was informative, specific and empowering- inspiring change in your own parenting style without driving by guilt. We may indeed be practicing habits that leave our children emotionally neglected at times but that is most likely because the same was done to us and it is never too late to change and affect our children positively.

This spoke straight to my mother heart.

Allow me to highlight some important points:

The Three Goals of the Emotionally Attuned Parent:

1. Your child feels a part of something. He knows he’s not alone. You’re always on his team.

2.Your child knows that whatever she feels, it’s OK, and it matters to you. She will be held accountable for her behavior, but not for her emotions.

3. Your child learns how to tolerate, manage, and express his feelings.

Any parent who accomplishes these skills well enough is raising an emotionally healthy child and an emotionally intelligent child. You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to do it well enough.

 I do often times find myself reacting to my children's behavior rather than what they are feeling. Isn't it so easy to do that? Especially when we as adults act out our feelings through bad behavior. Wouldn't being a parent be so easy if you never got frustrated or angry or hurt? But I don't want to show my children through my angry responses that I don't care about their feelings- I only care about their behavior.

I feel like I have been learning these things through trial and error over the past couple of years, particularly when dealing with my son's behavioral issues and anxiety. I will give a few examples.
Please note- this lengthy bit is personal stories that you can feel free to skip. It is how I connect to this and may or may not be something of interest for you.

My son (now 6) has been going through some behavioral issues in the past few years and he and I butt heads often. When he acts out he is a real challenge for me. Once after some pretty significant tantrums and a fight between us I began to cry and told him, "I don't know what to do when you behave this way. I want to help you! How can I help you?" He began to cry and the anger left him and he simply said, "Hug me."

He seems angry and mean and out of control and I just want to send him to his room and tell him what he is doing is not ok....meanwhile he is a little boy that doesn't know how to manage his feelings of frustration and anger and needs his mother to reassure him that she still loves him and help him work through what he is feeling in an appropriate way. Validate his feelings and tell him what is ok to do and what is not ok. (His father is MUCH better at doing this with him than I am, to tell you the truth.) Instead I react in anger and send him off very often and then he slams doors and throws things. When he is acting like a little monster it is very difficult to hear what his heart is saying, "Hug Me." That has been a turning point in our relationship since he confessed what he needed and I hugged him so tightly and reassured him that I loved him.

In our quiet time together I remind him that he and I are on the same team. It is important for us to remind each other of this. I always need to remember to show him that I am on his side, even when I am not happy with his behavior. His family loves him even when he makes bad choices. Some mornings when he comes to wake me up, he will hug me and say, "I'm going to be on your team today Mom." I know that what I say is important to him when I let him know that our relationship is important to me. When he sees his sister acting out and me getting stressed he looks for ways to help me. Because I show that I want so much to be there for him, he wants to be there for me. Number 1 hit me straight in the heart because I know how much my son needs to hear that I am on his team.

At the beginning of this school year I saw first hand with my son that number 2 is very important. At the beginning of first grade he went off to school excited and came home happy and yet at the beginning of each week, or maybe even just a few days here and there he would start to say that he didn't want to go to school, or he didn't want to ride the bus. We would ask him "why? why? why? Is someone being mean to you? Did something happen on the bus? But you like school. Tell me why you don't want to go." etc. He always initially responds no, nothing happened but they would make up different excuses. One night while talking with him, alone in his room, he told me that he didn't want to go to school the next day. I asked why and he said he was scared. I asked why he was scared and he said he didn't know. That time it hit me that he really didn't know. He was telling me that he was scared but he couldn't put together why. It struck me then that he may be suffering from some sort of anxiety. I started explaining to him that when I feel anxiety I feel nervous or scared or upset about something but I don't always have a reason to feel that way. He agreed that that is what he felt and once he gets to school he does fine and feels fine but gets worried before starting a new week. I told him that it is normal to be scared and that he doesn't need a reason for feeling that way. What he feels is ok. He looked so relieved.

Things have changed since then. When he starts saying that he doesn't want to go to school or that he is afraid to ride the bus, I don't pester him with questions regarding what happened to make him feel that way. I acknowledged how he feels and let him know that his feelings are ok and that I understand and have felt similarly. Then I tell him what works for me when I feel that way. We don't ever tell him ok, don't go to school. He still needs to go and he knows that but we talk together about what may help him to feel better when he is feeling anxious. He is trying to communicate more with us now.

What's my point? When I look back at instances in which I have acknowledged and focused on my child's feelings, I have left him feeling more secure and closer to me and our relationship has improved. Some of his behavioral issues may be the result of feeling emotionally neglected.

Rambling done and ready to come back to the article.

I love the hope in the article- it isn't about shaming yourself or despairing over your imperfections:

Be assured, it is never too late to start responding differently.

It is never too late to improve your relationship with your child and affect their lives in a more positive way.

And finally the specific examples for how parents tend to respond and how an ideal parent would respond:

WHAT WE ALL SAY	WHAT THE IDEAL PARENT SAYS
Stop Crying	Why are you crying?
Let me know when you’re done with your fit	That’s OK. Get it all out. Then we’ll talk.
Alright, enough! I’m done with this.	Let’s take a break so we can both calm down.
Fix the attitude!	You sound angry or upset. Are you?
You need to think before you act!	How’d this go wrong? Let’s think it through.
Go to your room until you can behave better.	I see you’re angry. Is it because…?
OK, OK, stop crying now so we can go in the store.	Look at me. Take a deep breath. Let’s count to five.
There’s nothing to be nervous about.	Everyone gets nervous. It’s OK.
Don’t talk to me with that tone.	Try saying that again, but nicer so I can hear it.

I hope that this article has given you hope and some guidance for how to handle situations with your children in the future, as it has for me. I need to work this ideal parent talk into my vocabulary so that it becomes my go-to response, even when I am feeling stressed or tense. I naturally say a lot of things on the left column....and I want the right column to becomes things that come from my mouth naturally.

I DO care about my children's' feelings and I want that to be the message that I am sending them through my words and actions. Them knowing that will help them to have a better and happier life.

Communication and Pornography

Here is a great video for children explaining pornography and what they should do when they see it.

What Should I Do When I See Pornography?

The world that we live in (sadly) is one in which children will be exposed to things that we want to protect them from. They need to know what pornography is, why we need to stay away from it and how it works to hurt our spirits and our bodies. We need to communicate with our children so that they can feel comfortable communicating with us.

Should there come a time that children view pornography quite innocently and without knowing what's happening- because it can be accessed anywhere- they need to feel safe talking to their parents and to God about it without feeling like they are somehow bad and can't come to those trusted people.

I have had good friends struggle with pornography addictions and seen them suffer consequences that were both horrible and unexpected. I want to be able to have open and honest conversations with my children when the time is right. There are bad things in the world but we have eternal truths that we know and that bring light to our lives.

We live in the world but not of the world. We can't pretend that pornography doesn't exist but we can educate and warn and help them through.

Communication is an important way that I can keep my children safe.

Family Prayer

I've been thinking a lot about prayer this week. How I am a better mother when I am praying regularly, how much I need to be praying, how my family's prayers could be better and more meaningful, how much my children need to know why they need to pray, and how I can be doing better.

When out talking with some mommy friends of mine, the subject of our personal prayers came up and my thoughts jumped instantly to this month's first presidency message by President Henry B. Eyring. (In the LDS church we have a message from our Prophet and/or his two counselors that is published each month in church magazines.)

Families and Prayer by President Eyring

President Erying focused his message on his father's example of prayer and this particular quote jumped out to me and inspired me to change and improve the way in which I pray:

"I am still being blessed by a father and a mother who spoke with God. Their example of the power of prayer in families is still blessing the generations who came after them."

What my children need and what they need to know is that their mother and father speak with God. We speak with God in their behalf, we ask for help for them, we ask for blessings for them, we are praying for their safety, we are praying for them when they are away from us. We know God and we love Him and we can teach them how to know Him too.

All of this inspired a family home evening lesson in which I opened up my heart to my young children regarding prayer and it has been changing the spirit in our home this week. I write this so that I can always remember that these goals have the potential to change my children's lives for the better. Confession: building up the habits for good personal prayer have been a struggle for me. I grew up in a home where we rarely prayed together, I was not taught or reminded to pray besides the random prayer here and there to help us find something or get home safely when we were having car trouble. Regarding Heavenly Father as my Father who knows and loves me and wants to hear from me is a concept that has taken me years and years to wrap my head around. And I want to give my children this precious, important knowledge right away in life.

I opened by telling my kids that they were given to us by Heavenly Father and that he expects and needs us to teach them things so that we can all return to live with Him as a family. "Heavenly Father wants us to teach you to prayer so that you can know him and speak with him." This caught my 6-year-old's attention immediately. I am not just telling you things because I'm in charge, blah, blah, blah- be quiet and listen. I am telling them that Heavenly Father wants and needs them to learn this. We need to teach them how to pray and why we pray.

The Bible Dictionary points out the reasoning behind many of our struggles with consistant personal prayer- and the solution:

"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship."

The Family, a Proclamation to the World teaches us what is necessary in successful families, and prayer is an important part:

"“Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

President Eyring's message struck me. I dare you to read it without hearing the spirit whisper to you that your children need you to pray with them:

"Think of what that can mean to those who kneel with you in family prayer. When they feel that you speak to God in faith, their faith will increase to also speak with God. When you pray to thank God for blessings they know have come, their faith will grow that God loves them and that He answers your prayers and will answer theirs. That can happen in family prayer only when you have had that experience in private prayer, time after time." 

The best way to bring my children to God is to show them the way. My children need to know that God loves them! And they can learn this through my prayers and through our family prayer. There have been many times that I just want to give up when attempting to have family prayer and scripture study with young children that ends in sheer craziness. "What's the point? They are just fighting. They aren't listening. I'm just getting frustrated. It would be so much easier not to do this. I don't even know why I try." Ever find yourself saying these things? I would venture to bet that you are probably doing better than us but are still saying these things. I would always tell myself- keep going so that they will always remember that we tried- we had family prayer and scripture study. It wasn't perfect but it was important to us and we worked at it and didn't give up. This message spoke to me and reminded me not to give up!


The main thing that hit home to me in this prayer light-bulb-moment, and the way to help my family was: If we want to strengthen our family prayers we all need to be working on our own individual prayers! All of us: me, my husband, my 6-year-old that often wants to do only what he wants to do, my energetic 4-year-old that cannot be rushed, my baby....well, she can't talk yet but she does know when we pray.


When we are working to do this- because prayer can be a form of work- we need to remember that a loving heavenly father hears and answers our prayers. We have to remind our children when we are wrestling them to come kneel with us that we are getting ready to talk to Heavenly Father.

I loved what President Eyring said his father would do when praying:

"My father had often said that when he prayed, he thought he could see in his mind the smile of Heavenly Father."

I remind my children of this now. That He is happy when we speak to Him. He wants to hear from us. Her knows us. He knows our names.

And this is our Family's reminder (that I need to print out so that we can have at our bedsides)  "A loving God is as close as a prayer."

I have been touched by my 4-year-old's sweet prayer that she has said nightly since this lesson, "We are thankful for Heavenly Father and that we can talk to you."

One thing I know- prayer in my home will bless my family.

Our Value Comes From 3 Places

One parenting book that I have been picking at and have loved is The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers. One concept addressed from the very beginning is the importance of knowing our value, as mothers, in order to be good mothers and teach our children their own value.

The book states that our real value as mothers comes from three places:

1. We are loved
2. We are needed
3. We are born for a higher purpose

We may sometimes feel like failures, but we are not failures. We are loved, we are needed, and we are born for a higher purpose. This book offered a needed reminder for me that I am the center of my children's universe and my mood changes their world a bit. Especially to my young baby, (as I provide for all of her needs) I matter as much as life itself.

Some days I feel like I am doing all the work behind the scenes and not being noticed whatsoever. If you come to my house, I promise you will hear me say the following or something close to it when talking to my children, "Hello? Hello! Are you listening to me? Yes, Hi. Focus on me for a second." Sometimes I even have this conversation with my husband...I loved these reminders that feeling good about my value to them (my family) is important because the better I feel, the better my relationship with them will be and the happier we will all be.

My children and my husband deserve a happy mother and wife. They need me to remember that I am loved by them. They need that love to guide me in all that I do for them (even in housework) because I am needed. I am born for a higher purpose- I am born to be a good mother. This is the calling in which I will leave a mark in the world. My very presence is important in my home.

Put it on a sticky note

slap it on your mirror

write it on your hand

stencil it on your wall?

chant it to yourself in public places...and laugh at people's reactions

1. We are loved
2. We are needed
3. We are born for a higher purpose

(From The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers)

Laughter

Because wisdom can frequently be found in children's books, I give you this quote from Beth Shoshan's,  If You Can...We Can.

There's nothing in this world that can make us feel so good as laughter can, as laughter does, as laughter should.

Then What? Things to Remember

This is an exert from Dr. Laura's book, In Praise of Stay at Home Moms:

"When you haven't shown patience? When you haven't gone with the flow? Then what? Remember these 5 things:

 1.tomorrow is another day
2.most mistakes can be fixed. Figure it out or ask for help. ...
3. It is never as bad as you think. Not really.
4. A lot more good than bad things happened today. Admit it.
5. Everybody still loves you. Let people hug you. "

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

I find confidence, as a mother, in the partnerships that I am in. I am not doing this alone (even though at time it feels lonely and overwhelming). I am blessed to have a husband that carries this responsibility of child-rearing with me. And we have a loving Heavenly Father that entrusted us with these precious children. He knows them better than we do. He knows who they need to become, and what they need to do in life and he will help us along the way to learn that also. He knows their talents, their challenges, and their hearts. Who should I then be turning to when I need help with my kids? My husband and my God. (And the mothers in my community. Because moms need other moms) I firmly believe that God gives us no trials/challenges/responsibilities that he is not willing to help us with. When it comes to parenthood, he stands ready and willing to help us. I need to Rely on Him. I need to rely on Him heavily.

This message from Elder Jeffery R. Holland  speaks to my heart, reassures me, and encourages me to keep trying. Keep going, be happy, remember what I am doing and why.

Watch repeatedly (with a box of tissues)

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God


For those (like myself) that need to SEE the words in order to cement them into their brains, the full text of the message:

The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever.

One young mother wrote to me recently that she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet—all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.” She worried because she felt she didn’t measure up or somehow wasn’t going to be able to be equal to the task, the mental investment, the spiritual and emotional exertion, the long-night, long-day, stretched-to-the-limit demands that sometimes are required in trying to be and wanting to be the mother God hopes she will be.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going. I quote: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that my motherhood is an eternal partnership with Him.”

Mothers, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are, better than you are, and better than you have ever been. And if, for whatever reason, you are making this courageous effort alone, without your husband at your side, then our prayers will be all the greater for you. Know that in faith things will be made right in spite of you, or more correctly, because of you. We thank all of you, and tell you there is nothing more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and glory of God. 

May I say to mothers collectively, in the name of the Lord, you are magnificent. You are doing terrifically well. The very fact that you have been given such a responsibility is everlasting evidence of the trust your Father in Heaven has in you. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.”

What more can be said? Thank you Elder Holland, your words have been an answer to prayer.



For my insecure parent moments: this amazing promise must be remembered. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are, better than you are, and better than you have ever been. My children do deserve better than me....but I can be made better. They deserve a mother that relies heavily on the Lord to care for them and allows the Lord to make her more than what she could be alone.

The WHY of this Blog

I love being a mother. I love my children and my life. I am thankful to be a stay at home Mom and for all of the blessings and opportunities that are mine.

There are times, though, where I end the day discouraged and in tears. I have not been the mother (or the wife) that I wanted to be that day....and sometimes that is a large understatement. Most of the time I can brush myself off, apologize to my kids and say that tomorrow is another day and I will do better. Some nights I let my fears get the best of me and sink into despair. I love my children- I just want to be a good mother! (I am beginning to realize that we are all crying the same thing. Right???)

When those times get dark, I start to think thoughts like: I have no business being a mother, my children deserve better and that I am making huge mistakes that will impact them forever. These fears are rooted in pains of the past- in a place where I honestly believe that I am inferior to other women. I can't do what they do and it does not come easily to me. I have to work so hard...and everyone else is just good. In these places in my mind I lose sight of who I am. Not just who I am now, but who I have the potential to become. Who I am meant to become. Who I can become, with help.

Well...now that we are all depressed...I am not one to sit on my hands. When I am feeling down I allow myself the necessary time to wallow but eventually I say to myself, "So? What are you going to DO about it?" You had a bad day. What are you going to do to make tomorrow better? How will you get out of this rut? How can you ensure that you end the day feeling that you did enough- and that has nothing to do with accomplishments- but that you have been the mother that you want to be.

THEN...I typically pray to ask for strength and courage. I follow with a fervent search amongst scriptures, LDS talks, self-help and parenting books etc etc etc. I always find words of wisdom and love that speak peace to my heart. I find ways to help myself be better and ways to help my children through whatever struggle they are having. (Most often- the best way to help them with their problem is to make a change in me.) I always find sources that bless my life for the coming weeks and months and I think to myself, "I must always remember this." And then I continue in my life as a mother of young children- really 'in the thick of it' over here- and because some days I can scarcely remember my name, I frequently forget these valuable messages.

And so- I give myself a place to PUT it all. On the internet, where I cannot lose or throw away. And a place that makes sharing easy. Because it's not easy being mom. It takes work and effort and persistence to love the life that you lead. Moms love their children and never wish to go back, of course, but each month and year that passes brings reason for new learning and problem solving. And then you have another child, but ah! This one is completely different and you are learning all over again. The lessons that my children are teaching me? Beautiful, amazing, mind-blowing. That is why it is so important to keep my life in balance and to take care of me so that I can give to them the best me.

What is helping me? What is helping you? Here it is.