Seeds, seeds, seeds....

   I am sure that seeds are a common theme this time of year because everyone has been planting seeds in their garden.  I have been thinking about seeds because I have some very small wildflower seedlings coming up.  Of course seeing the little seedlings has reminded me of the seeds I am planting in my kids lives and how one day they will be an actual "flower".

     Since I have several teenagers I am actually at the point where I see some of the seeds I have planted in my children's lives, both the flowers and the weeds.  So I keep watering their flowers and try to encourage them to pull some weeds out of their lives.

  What can be really discouraging to me at times is the youngest child that I am still working on.  While I see the amazing things going on in the lives of my teenagers, having a younger child can be a constant reminder of how much time I have left in my homeschool journey.  Some days I am thankful for the years that are left, but since my youngest child is my biggest challenge there are days that I wonder if he and I will survive the homeschool journey.  My youngest, Troy, has quite an engaging personality.  This is another way of saying that he is the class clown in our family.  While I am sure that the Lord has many uses for his gifts, right now he causes a lot of disruptions during school and once he has managed to get school done he can be loud and rambunctious while everyone else tries to finish.

    Anyway, some days it seems to me like Troy will never learn anything, but some days he surprises me.  Yesterday was one of those days when I got to see a glimpse of perhaps a small seedling growing in his heart.  Yesterday morning during history we were studying some inventors and this led into a discussion of some of the science that inventors have to know.  Talking about Alexander Graham Bell we talked about how his knowledge of sound waves and the density of air is part of what helped him realize that voices might be able to travel through an electric current. 

     After we finished up for lunch Troy found some test tubes that his brother uses for science and asked if he could play with them.  I really didn't think this was a good idea, but since I had a few things to get done I thought it might keep him quiet for a few minutes.  Imagine my surprise when my son played with those things for almost an hour.  He filled them with water and then he was in the kitchen pretending to teach a science class and talking about the density of air molecules of all things.  He didn't have all his facts right, but it was a surprise to me that he would even pretend such a thing.  Troy is full of so much energy that I never thought that I would see him with even a small interest in science.  I don't think his personality is geared to that, but it was nice to see that somewhere underneath my son's effervescence is a serious side that is actually listening to some of the things I say, and that might be just enough encouragement to get me through the next few weeks of teaching before summer break.

If mom isn't happy....

The last couple weeks my kids have been crankier than usual.  They have been bickering and treating each other rudely.  So, I thought we should start listening to Christian music while we get ready for school, maybe change our Bible study to focus on some verses about treating each other kindly, or maybe my kids needed to lose some privileges.  I had some ideas I was going to try that's for sure.

   So imagine my surprise when I was reading a book about anger in children and I discovered that my attitude can affect my children's attitudes.  Well, of course I knew that, but I certainly didn't think that my attitude could be responsible for the level of misbehavior that I was seeing in my children.  I admit that I have one child who picks up on all the negative energy and really acts out when I am cranky, but all of my children were acting unkindly. 

    So this week I decided that instead of being snappy or having that irritated mom voice I would say things to my children like, "When you do that I don't feel respected," or "that behavior is dishonoring to me."   I actually thought that my children might find this a little silly to have their mom talk like that, but I was surprised by how effective this was.  I resolved to not be snappy or cranky and to do my best to speak to my children in a way that didn't sound like I was always scolding them.

   The results?  Well my kids were better behaved and there was less bickering this week.  The challenge was when my kids were rude or disrespectful to not respond to them in that manner, guess I still need to work on that one.  Overall though it was a very convicting exercise for me to realize that my attitude really sets the attitudes of others around here.  On the one hand I could be upset about that because it seems like I can never have a bad day, but on the other hand if a good attitude makes my children's attitudes better, then that would also make me have a better day, and I'm in control of that.  What power and responsibility, but in the end there is a payoff for me as well.  I'll try to remember that in the future.