June 2023 - THE AWKWARD MOM

Month: June 2023

4+ Ways to Get More Out of Summer with Kids

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There’s always this weird tension for me when summer break splats on our family like an ice cream cone on a sidewalk.

The kids are fatigued, even exhausted, from school. Heck, I’m tired from the school year. read more

3 Ideas: When Your Kid Acts Like a Kid

June 9, 2023 / Janel Breitenstein / 0 Comments

Reading Time: 3 minutes

She gave me a gift that day.

Years ago, my friend and I sat on my back porch in Uganda–no doubt with tea or coffee in hand. I was preparing for our first home assignment, and the forecasted meltdowns of at least one jetlagged child in a crowded plane where everyone would be able to sleep if it weren’t for your kid.

Our youngest would have been three, and 20 hours of flying or so makes full-fledged adults want to throw their own fits sometimes.

My friend’s wise words to me that day: “People expect kids to mess up. It’s how the parents handle it that makes the difference.”

I think of God’s words that it’s his kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). If my kid did the limp-body thing in the middle of the aisle, bawling when everyone’s hoping to get off the plane, I can scoop him up and whisper in his ear: I know you’re so tired. We’re almost there.

If he hits a sibling in his exhaustion, I can calmly discipline with a consequence, rather than blowing my own top.

(We discipline differently for rebellion than for childishness, no?)

Their inevitable childishness or outright sin is going to happen, despite my perfectionism, control, or vigilance. But what I do with those invitations to love my kids like Jesus?

That’s my (Holy-Spirit-fueled) choice.

Saw that coming: When your kid acts like a kid

Maybe these don’t feel like a huge “aha” to you. But this jewel folded in my hands has offered me comfort–when, say, the principal called to say my son was caught jumping off the urinals in the school bathroom, trying to touch the air freshener.

Or having teens, when I’m discouraged by choices they make.

But that idea doesn’t just extend me comfort. There’s wisdom in expecting our kids to be childish–or even to be sinners. I mean, God actually prophesied that his kids would screw up.

It prevents me from being as crestfallen when I discover my child spit cherry pits on the floor.

Yet, to quote my mom, I’ve learned to always expect your kids are smarter than you think they are. And I’m not just talking about them understanding a great deal about adult dynamics and conversations in a home. See, they’ll also be crafty at seeking out ways to sin.

I mean, we’ve all been in those conversations where you or a sibling reveal to your own parents what you were actually getting away with in high school.

Don’t get me wrong. Yes: Have lofty hopes and goals for your kids. Don’t water them down or dumb them down.

I believe in the “aim small, miss small” philosophy: If we aim for holiness and perfection in our kids, the consequences of them making decisions off that mark are hopefully far less.

And yet, it’s healthy to totally anticipate they’ll mess up, as sinners like ourselves tend to do. (If we don’t, in our shock that our little angels would do such a thing, we might be prone to shame-parenting.)

So my thoughts are these, when my kid acts like a kid:

I can expect my child to be a little sinner.
I can be prepared to act in redemptive, rather than shaming ways–like God acts toward me when I screw up or generally act like a human. (Don’t miss God’s Attachment Love. Your Kid’s Darkest Moment. Your Open Window)
I can ultimately place my trust in God. He commandeers even my kids’ mistakes for his purposes (check out Genesis 50:20).

So when your kid acts like a kid this week? Don’t miss your chance to show them Jesus.

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On Doing Hard Things for Our Kids

June 2, 2023 / Janel Breitenstein / 0 Comments

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A few weeks ago, I needed to take my son in to have a couple of teeth extracted.

Can I just say this is not my favorite mom-job?

I held his hand during the injections, whispered “breathe” through his anxiety.

I remembered my own extractions when I was around his age, and other dental memories which would cause my hands to shake years after. So even getting in the car to take my son demanded some discipline.

When Parenting = Doing Hard Things

Like any of us, I’ve had my share of these moments throughout parenting.

Driving up to Denver for scans to see if my son had cancer. Purchasing the plane tickets for our family’s move back from Africa. Enduring tough conversations with my disenfranchised teenagers in a local Starbucks, swallowing my urge to cry.

Sometimes, my mental image is that of Abraham asking Isaac to carry the wood up the mountain…that Abraham planned to sacrifice Isaac upon. Is it some form of cruelty? I wondered more than once about this story.

But here is what I know.

That wood on that son’s back was a forerunner of another man centuries later, bending beneath the wood to be used for his own sacrifice. In fact, that wood was so heavy and the man so depleted, he collapsed beneath its weight.

God, too, is used to doing hard things for his kids. Because love is brave. It overcomes for the sake of the beloved.

And there’s this: That man not only carried his own wood, he grew it from the ground. God watched as men mined and forged iron into spikes that would plunge into his Son’s wrists and feet, or literally into his Son’s heart. He was there the day some Romans hatched the idea of crucifying criminals.

Not just crosses

But he also shaped the cave that would house Jesus’ body–and the stone that would both seal and unseal his tomb. He grew the garden around the tomb.

God created the means for both his own death and resurrection.

I mean, he also pressed seeds into earth to grow the trees–and their arboreal parents and ancestors–for the boat Jesus would sleep on, then rise from to calm gusts and waves from the weather patterns God had swirled together. He watched as the boat-builders learned and honed their trade.

I’ve learned what I share in this post about walking through a tough season for my son: That God, in orchestrating our suffering, ordains his own.

But he also ordains our resurrection and healing. And triumphs with us there.

Getting into the car together after my son’s procedures, I knew he didn’t just have the makings of a healthier mouth. Like a chick pushing through a shell, he had fledgling muscles he’d developed by doing hard things.

Good people, and good parents, can do that. And a good God does, too.

Lord, we pray we never find ourselves without hope, without a glimpse of the empty tomb each time we happen upon a cross. Help us begin our daily journey expecting both crosses and empty tombs and rejoicing when we encounter either because we know you are with us.

– Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals