When Your Child Should Disobey The Authority

  Okay...they are beautiful aren't they?  Among the most often heard comments when people see us out in public are:  "Still trying for a boy?", "Are ALL five yours?", and my personal favorite, "You DO know how that happens, don't you?"  You have to laugh at that kind of ignorant, closed-minded view...if only to keep yourself  from punching a total stranger in the face. 
   We feel so blessed to have such lovely daughters, both inside and out.  We hope to train them for life and godliness, by teaching them to be loving, responsible adults.  From early on we teach them to obey the first command with a cheerful heart, but we also have to teach them when NOT to obey.  It is a sad truth that in our world we have to teach our children, girls and boys, to resist an adult who would abuse their bodies sexually.  I hate this topic, but I think it is one we must mention in our talks about parenting.
   Statistics are cold truths, so I won't post any.  A more meaningful truth is that almost all of you who read this blog will either have experienced this kind of abuse first hand, or know someone who did.  It is a difficult thing for a child who is taught to trust authority, is then abused by it. The emotional and physical damage is great.
    From an early age we teach our children about their private parts and who may touch them, and for what reason: a doctor who is caring for their health, or a parent who is helping to clean them until they can care for themselves responsibly.   If any other authority such as a pastor, teacher, relative, etc. should approach them and touch them, they are told to yell and run.  Details are not needed to equip our children to deal with the world's ugliness.  I hope and pray that none of  these ladies have to experience this kind of evil, but I want them to know that this situation is one where it is needful to disobey an authority.
  My oldest and I had to have an even harder talk recently, prompted by a near abduction of a homeschool girl in our area.  The girl was out playing in her yard, and a man jumped out of a white van and quickly approached her.  The girl ran quickly into the house.  The man, thinking that she was home alone, came to the front door and banged on it loudly.  He retreated quickly when the mother came to the door, making some thin excuse and jumping into the van.  So, I had to explain about the dark truth of human trafficking and young girls of 12 or 13 being prime targets. We talked about running from strangers who might ask her to help them find a "lost puppy" or some other excuse to prey upon the tender feelings of a young girl in order to make her come with them.  We talked about screaming, "This is NOT my parent, call 911!", etc.  We can not protect her from every evil, but we certainly do her no favors by keeping her unprepared and ignorant.
  It is a hard world, and it seems to be getting harder every year.  We do not need to live in fear, but we do need to be equipped, prepared and wise.  I hope that you will make time to have the hard discussions, even young ones can be equipped without terrorizing them.  Tailor the talk to the age of your child. Please, don't think it could never happen to your child, you do them a great disservice by not being aware, and not making them aware.

Good Mom, Bad Mom

  Recently I heard that certain government boards were throwing around the idea of paying teachers according to their student's performance.  Seriously?  I wonder if  we applied that approach to the health profession if we could solve all our health care problems. If the doctor makes you well, then he gets paid.   Surely, there are certain professions where your performance gauges your pay, but it is usually related to your performance and not that of another.  Even an excellent teacher will get students who are determined not to learn.  Should their pay really be in the hand of hormonal adolescents?   The thought is ridiculous, and I hope that those in the world of politics will see how obviously wrong that idea is when played out in the classroom.
   Yet, how often do we gauge our performance by our children's behavior,  especially in public?  None of my children came ready-made examples of politeness and thoughtfulness.  I'm imagining that few of yours did either.  But here we are, after just a few attempts of teaching them how to act, feeling devastated as a mother when they act rudely, or when they fight with their sibling. (Not to mention how destructivie it is to compare ourselves with mothers whose children are farther along in their training than ours.)
  A mother recently told me how she felt like a bad mom because her children were fighting.  I hope you hear me when I say that your worth as a mother does not hinge on how your children behave at a given moment, but rather on how you react to their behavior.  Did you catch that?  Your child acting poorly does not mean you are a bad mother, but your response to her behavior is the guide to your performance.  Any time we wrap our self-worth into the performance of others, we are setting ourselves up for failure.  Your consistency and creativity in delivering the consequences for her actions is the true test of your mothering.  If your children are like mine, or like we were as children, then they will test those boundaries, and forget how to act, and let their emotions control their responses.  They are people in training, not performing monkeys to dazzle all your friends and relations. 
  To be consistent, and observant, kind, but firm, are the marks of a good parent.  And just like our children, we need the grace of God to fulfill our role daily.  It is exhausting, exhilarating, demanding, and rewarding...and completely unattainable without the proper perspective.

Purging the Home, and the Heart

  The birthday trifecta is about to descend on the Zwemke family.  Every year I determine to get a head start on the festivities so that I won't consider checking myself into a mental institution after the dust clears.  It is a wonderful thing to celebrate birthdays and we have four of them in our family within three weeks, plus our anniversary right on the heels of the last birthday.  So in efforts to get ahead of the game, I began ordering all the birthday presents in one lump sum last night. 
  I don't know how you handle things in your home, but whenever I start thinking of adding all the new toys and gifts into the home inventory, I immediately think of things we must get rid of in order to make space for the coming bounty.  Many things I know would not be missed, but some things, although unused, would cause some tears if removed permanently.   I believe it is important to teach our children to be good stewards of the things they own, and to practice respecting the rights of others' ownership.  So I don't want to force them to give up their toys, but I do want to teach them to hold all they own with an open hand, ready for God to take and receive as He sees fit. 
  Many a discussion has come about in these purging times (we do it before Christmas, too), and I'm happy to report that the show "Hoarders"  has helped us in our case for giving up the little trinkets and such things that little girls love to cling to...petals from a flower picked last summer, stones from the driveway, little pine cones kept because...well because they are cute...and the like.  Not to mention the toys that have been loved and need to move on because they are no longer used, or the toys that were never really loved after being opened at a previous festivity.  How can we make way to receive the new, if we are not prepared to let go of the old?
  The memories attached to an object can keep us too grounded in the past.  It is too easy to think you need the object to keep your memory special.  There are ways to help preserve a special moment without keeping yourself fettered from living in the present.  So many sweet pictures drawn by little hands would fill a library, but perhaps our digital world can lend a hand.  Taking pictures of the special scraps of paper and turning them into a compact picture book could help keep the clutter down, and remind the little ones that you love their offerings. But, our children need to learn to give generously, and to live freely in this materialistic world, and they will not be able to love people and like things if they are holding their possessions in too tight of a grasp.
  Children aren't the only ones that hold tightly to their things.  Parents, too, need to hold their possessions lightly, ready to let go when asked by the Master, for our children will see and learn from our example. But my mind began to ponder this purging to things less material.  Do we not sometimes hold a past offense of a family member or friend a little too tightly?  Sometimes we allow the pain of things gone by to cripple us from receiving the freedom of the life God offers now.  We build a little fortress of self-righteousness and we think that the other needs to pay penance before we will let go of the offense.  We seldom realize that the only one fettered by our un-forgiveness is ourselves.  Lonely in our grief, we linger too long over the pain and it begins to turn to a caustic substance called bitterness.  There is no room in a heart full of bitterness to receive the new gifts God wants to give.  We can not see where we are going if we are constantly scrutinizing where we have been.  Forgiveness purges the heart, freeing us to make room for what God offers next.
  So today, I have been examining my home and my heart, and the purging of both,  keeping me free from the ties that bind. 

Leaving a Barrier

  Spring is the busiest season in our home.  It's filled with testing and field trips, and multiple concerts for band and chorus.  By the time Spring Break rolls around, I am more than ready to find a quiet place to curl up with a cup of tea and a book.  But there have been several weeks recently where I found that life was hurtling at such a monstrous pace, that I couldn't give an honest answer to my husband when he asked me how I was doing.  I honestly didn't know.  I hadn't been still long enough to have any clue as to HOW I was doing.
   This strange occurrence has been happening more frequently than I would care to admit.  So I began to take stock of our life, and tried to find a few things we could cut out in order to leave the much needed barrier for quiet and reflection.  I don't know about you, but I desperately need that barrier, or buffer, of time to allow space for evaluation. Space to know how those in my care are faring, including myself.  As the main nurturer of the family, it is my job to have my finger on the family's pulse.  And what I was feeling and seeing wasn't good.
  Too many responsibilities, expectations taken on from those around us, and too many activities, makes for a group of harried roommates, but doesn't build the foundation of a family team.  Ryan and I have had a call and vision for a family team since day one, and we would be fools to think that we need to take on more during this time of our lives if it caused us to sacrifice that dream.  Even ministry and church activities can put a strain on a family team, especially during the young, foundation-laying-years of raising elementary and pre-school aged children.  Just because an activity is a good thing, doesn't mean that it needs to be in your life. There are more good opportunities out there than can possibly be incorporated into a family's life, one must be careful in her choices.
  This is one of the reasons our girls do not participate in group sports. Don't get me wrong, we have nothing against them, but we have seen how disconnected our lives would be as a family if we were always separating to follow each child's practice and game schedule.  So when the girls have lessons we work hard to find something they are all interested in doing, and then pray for the opportunity to find those lessons so that they happen all at one time. It has taken patience, and creativity, but the Lord has always provided a way.
  This time around, I had to take a break from blogging, and talking on the phone with friends, or even watching t.v., until the whirlwind settled.  I also had to turn down a couple of leadership roles for our homeschool group next year.  Knowing that the youngest child will be joining the ranks of the homeschooled in our family, means that I will be homeschooling all five little ladies in our home, and there will be even less time for me to know how I am doing.  So leadership roles and other roles of ministry will have to take a back seat until my family matures and is more able to stand on their own firm foundation. Then I may be free enough with my time to take on more outside opportunities to share.   If I concentrate on how God wants me to walk during this stage of my life, perhaps He will give me the honor of teaching the younger ladies in the way they should go.  But, for now, I would only be the blind leading the blind.
  There is a scripture verse that God has been making a theme in my life:

Psa 16:6  "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance."

These "lines" are my boundaries, and life is full of them. We can kick at them and push them, but the ones that God places in our lives are for our benefit and rest.   I want to remember to leave room for them, for they are a barrier of protection for us as a family, and as followers of Christ.

Stop and Breathe

  It's been a busy week in the Zwemke home.  Planning for a birthday party, planning and practicing music for the Resurrection Sunday service, and of course planning and preparing food for all these events as well.  My eyes are blurry from all the frantic commotion.  I have been deep in task mode for more than 48 hours, and my heart feels the weight of it.
  This evening, the evidence of a successful party is scattered all throughout the house, and the music for tomorrow is floating in the air.  I had a cup of tea, and sang my songs, and now I am realizing that I have hardly taken more than 5 minutes to think and meditate on the glorious work Christ has done by paying the penalty of my great sin, and how He arose and sits victorious at the right hand of God, awaiting His perfect timing to return and claim His own.
   Our tradition this time of year is to build a tomb of sorts, and place a doll, or something signifying Jesus, wrapped in a cloth inside, and then roll a "stone" in front of the tomb.  In the morning, before going to the Resurrection Sunday service, we enact the women arriving at the tomb to find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.  We usually leave some Easter baskets with gifts for the girls inside the tomb, where there is a sign reading "He is Risen!"  It's a wonderful tradition, and the girls truly look forward to it, but in all my busy-ness, I forgot to get presents...and there was no energy left to think about the tomb.  I sat on the couch, begging the girls to let it go this year. 
  It is at moments like these that I am reminded that Mom doesn't have to do it all alone.  Ryan and the girls busily worked to make a tomb, and by the judgment of the 8yro, "It's the best tomb, ever!"  Then, I had to admit that I didn't get them any presents...only to find moments later, the 12yro stealing the baskets from my closet for "a surprise." I am looking forward to what she will do, and my heart is touched by her generosity, and care.
  Grace...grace is what is needed in my heart tonight.  I am sad, that I have grown weary with all the work to make times special.  What I truly need is to stop, breathe, and meditate on the grace of Jesus, unbounded, and free.  Grace that is greater than all my sin.  I am thankful, that I have teammates, working with me to make memories for the younger ones.  I desire for God to strengthen me tonight, so that tomorrow I will not just check off the rest of my to-do list, but will have the eyes to see past it, to the eternal, lasting things of God.

Ogres and Faries and Trolls, Oh My!

   Roll up your sleeves and buckle your seat belt, we're going to embark on yet another controversial subject.  Should Christians read fantasy literature, and how do we allow our children to develop their imaginations without delving into the world of witchcraft: which the Bible clearly states, has no place in the life of a Christ follower?
   Let's start with some of the scriptures that define witchcraft and God's view of it.  The main passage  of interest is found in Deu 18:10-11  "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. ".
And in the Hebrew law we find, Lev 20:27  'A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.' "  Regardless of your feelings on the subject, it appears that God has stated His firmly.   His people are not to participate in any such activity.
  But then we come to fantasy literature....hmmm.  So much of it deals with magical lands, creatures, and the like.  Many parents have a healthy caution when it comes to what they allow their children to watch and read, and I would commend that feeling.  It is true that God has placed us in the position of protecting and guiding our young ones, which includes the guarding and training of their minds, spirits, hearts, bodies, and character.  Every family must be careful of what they choose to allow their children to view and read, and it will look different for each as they follow God's leading.  For us, being a homeschooling family, we place a great value on the power of literature to form the patterns of thought and learning in our children, and we happen to love fantasy literature. 
   We love the creative worlds and courageous adventures found in many of the stories we read. In C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia,  we find a beautiful allegory to the Gospel and the Christian's sanctification.  In the J.R.R. Tolkien's  The Lord of the Rings, we find friendship, loyalty, courage, and the weak and frail overcoming the strong and evil.  Some of these books have magic in them, and mythical creatures, such as elves, and fairies, etc.  Even in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress we find giants and other such fantastic creatures.
  For us, the presence of magic or fantasy creatures is not the main criteria we use when deciding which stories to read.   It has more to do with how those items are presented.  For example, we do not choose to read fantasy literature that encourages the reader to find the magic within themselves, or to seek spiritual guides, or that present the magic in such a way as to suggest that it is available to those who would seek it in this world.  We feel that this type of presentation would trespass the above scriptures by encouraging its readers to seek after and participate in sorcery, etc.
  But if we were to rule out anything that mentions witchcraft or shows others participating in them, we would have to rule out the Bible itself.  Sunday School quiz time....Which King of Israel sought the advice of a medium?  That's right, the very first...Saul...found here:  1Sa 28:7  "Then Saul said to his servants, 'Find me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.' And his servants said to him, 'In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En Dor'.''
 (Don't you just love the town's name "En Dor"? Sounds like it came straight out of a sci-fi book.)
And the end of his story is recorded for us...1Ch 10:13  "So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance."  This is not the only time these things are mentioned in the Bible, yet the Bible does not condone these activities, even though it records them.
  Fantasy literature is a removed world from our own, and in that setting one is sometimes more open to learning issues of character than in literature that relates so closely to our own experiences.  Richard Scarry, the famous children book author once noted that he chose to use talking animals as his main characters because he found that children could identify with the lessons to be learned more readily than when the characters were humans.  We have found that fantasy literature allows us to do the same with our children.
   So when you are deciding what to allow your children to read, ask yourself if this story encourages the reader to seek after witchcraft, or whether it mentions magic as some happenings in the story?  Is magic the main thrust of the story, or just one component of it?  Is there a deeper more valuable message to be found in the story, beyond the creatures and magic?  Are the creatures, such as fairies simply doing what they were created to do in their world?  Or is the author attempting to make you believe that such things are to be sought in this world?  There is a difference, and you will have to seek God in guiding you as to what would instill a love and reverence for Him in whatever you read, whether full of fantastical creatures or not.
  (On a side note, some have voiced uncertainty toward the Disney Fairies, etc.  I cannot tell you what you should do for your own family, but I will tell you what we have done in ours.  We have no problem with these fairies (although we wish some were more modestly dressed at times), as we see them doing the tasks that they were created to do in their world.  We don't mind our girls painting pictures of them, etc, but we do not allow them to think that these fairies truly exist or make our seasons change.  They belong in the category of pretend...and we have found many useful character lessons come out of the land of pretend to find root in our world quite nicely.)

The Picky Eater Strikes Again

 A difficult lesson was dealt to our three year old last night.  She decided she wasn't so fond of the dinner on her plate before her, so she chose to spend her time in a more palatable way, by making the rest of the family laugh.  Unfortunately for her, that choice landed her a prime seat at the table all by her lonesome once everyone had cleared away their dishes.  This might not have been so terrible a punishment had it not been for the puppet show her two older sisters were putting on for the family right after dinner.  The girls had really made it a first-class affair with posters around the house to advertise the evening's performance.  Not only that, but they were charging admission, and offering snacks during the intermissions (there were two).  Needless to say, there was a buzz of excitement among the other three siblings in anticipation for the evening's activity.
  But, not for the three year old.  Although warned several times that she would not be able to go to the show without finishing her food, she still stalled and, I suspect, secretly hoped she would be given a special grace to attend the show and THEN finish her food.  It was hard to see her fall into desperate tears as we watched all three sections of the show without her.  At each intermission we encouraged her to finish quickly so that she could come see the next act.  She would rally and tell us how she was going to finish, but wouldn't put that excitement into action and was truly crestfallen when she realized she missed the whole thing...and by just a few bites, too.
  Several times we had to explain to her that she had chosen her fate that night.  By refusing to eat in a timely manner, she alone was responsible for her choice to miss out on the puppet show.  Such a hard lesson, but one that we hope will stick with her and motivate her to action in the future.
  We have had a few picky eaters in the family, and have found that all our kids went through various stages of picky-ness at different ages.  The standard Zwemke policy is: "If you do not eat this food tonight, then you will see it again in the morning"...and so forth, until the child decides it is a good idea to eat the food. (a very few times this has lasted almost a 24 hour period...we do give them a glass of milk or so, but that's it...it's never gone past that.) Sometimes I heat the food up again, but if I am busy, I don't.
  We do recognize that people all have a few foods that they REALLY dislike.  Honestly, Ryan and I have a few things we don't eat as well.  So I do give some allowances for having a particular distaste for an item.  We generally ask them to take one or two "no-thank-you" bites of something new that they may not take to at first.  But if it is a down right refusal, accompanied with complaints about the meal, showing a great amount of ungratefulness, it comes down to the "this is the next thing you are going to eat, and nothing else until you do" policy.
  Sounds tough, but there is no way I am opening up a private restaurant to serve each person an individualized meal every time we eat.  It's unrealistic, and it doesn't prepare our children to show kindness and respect when we are visiting at another family's home and they are served something that they do not care for.  It is an important social grace to know how to show gratefulness for a meal, even if it is not your favorite.  And these social graces and strengths of character, are practiced and learned at home.