Once when my kids were younger, back in that season I was covered in toddlers and preschoolers, we met my husband at Chick-fil-A (always a win) after work one night.
When they’d slayed the nuggets and the playground and it was time to go home, I asked our four kids who’d like to ride with Dad, and who wanted to ride home with me.
This is one of those posts where I’m not an expert, just a mom. (Um, most of my posts?!)
But maybe these small ideas will help. And if I’m smart, I’ll keep this short, right?
Okay, yes, I am this big Enneagram 2, and I am frequently caught “two-ing” in my family—overfunctioning like a crazy person, sublimating any needs of my own, etc.
But I also have this monstrous, flapping-larger-than-my-triceps 3-wing. Which means, for all of you unfamiliar with enneagram-speak, that I am an achiever. Goal-setting can fill my sails (…to the point of what we’ll call “Christian workaholism”).
My mom and I had a good conversation last week–one of those “Oh, that’s how it went down on your side of things” talks.
Groove back with me to around 1993. I’m growing out my formerly-birds-nest bangs. I have braces. Both are just as becoming as they sound. But though there at 13, I’ve been a Christian for eight years, I haven’t been baptized.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.
It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained.
“Am I mad a lot?” I asked, willing him of course to say no.
“You’re mad a lot, but not in this picture,” he clarified helpfully.
See, I didn’t really think I had an anger problem until I had kids. (Newlywed-me actually told my husband I’d never had problems like this with anyone else, so it must be his fault.
True story.)
Maybe you already know your hot buttons.
I’m personally more likely to lose it when we’re in a hurry. When I’m feeling taken for granted. And one particular week a month.
But it helped me to conduct autopsies on my outbursts–discovering what was fueling my anger and how to start cutting off the source of that fuel.
See, back when I was potty-training kids, there was a progression:
1 ) Kids recognize what their bodies just did.
2) Eventually, kids recognize when their bodies are actually doing it.
3) Finally, kids recognize before they need to go.
And that’s me with anger. A lot of times I’m still on step one–figuring out what just happened and what should have happened. When a freeze-frame of my yelling, livid face might not hold the caption, Behold! A Jesus-follower loving her children.
There’s a need for confession and repentance to God. To my kids.
Or sometimes I’m on step 2. Hey, you’re blowing your top! Better step away and make sure the Holy Spirit’s in the one control of you.
But the best happens in step 3–when I’m able to head off an angry outburst at the pass. Or when I can hit the brakes enough that I’m not driven by the emotion, but by love and laser-precise anger.
Keep in mind the powerlessness kids may feel when an authority figure and provider is angry with them. It could possibly be an escalated version of a boss raging at us.
I had to ask: Do I want my kids to have to protect themselves from me?
My anger, for all its energizing power, has been a destructive, corruptive force, incinerating my kids’ emotions.
I need to handle conflict in ways that actually build my family up rather than tearing it down.
So allow me to ask: Why does God get angry?
You probably know this.
Jesus was angry. Anger is a jetpack for change and injustice. It’s a sign something valuable and precious is trampled on.
God’s anger displays proper justice against those who legitimately do evil. It protects what is right and holy and pure; it acts on behalf of the oppressed.
When we see unspeakable atrocities from genocides or racism or against the poor, it is God as Righteous Judge that gives me any hope for the future (see Matthew 10:26).
For a more extreme example, if someone hurt your son or daughter, for example, anger would be an appropriate emotion.
Making us in his image, God allowed us to share his capacity for this emotion, too.
But too often, my own scale of “righteous judgment” is…off. (Think of a conveniently non-zeroed bathroom scale after the Chinese buffet.)
My loves swell disproportionately. A proper desire expands into a clawing, judging, punishing demand. (See Hungry: When Soul-cravings Leave Us Vulnerable.)
Usually, I need a few minutes to get out of the more instinctual part of my brain (my fight, flight, or freeze instincts)…and help my kids get out of theirs. It gives me time to pray, too.
Try these questions to help yourself emotionally step away when anger is hot.
So in light of that inevitable human miscalibration, I like Tim Keller’s summary of the anger I need: not No Anger, not Blow (up) Anger, but Slow Anger. God describes himself throughout Scripture as slow to anger, abounding in love.
Keller explains we want to use anger as a scalpel–not a grenade.
Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).
So I could be like, Lord, the dog puked on the carpet! And my kids are SO disrespectful! And my husband totally forgot again to pick up milk, so I have to go out with all three kids and strap them in the car seat and take them to the bathroom in the middle of my shopping.
…but that’s not the real issue, is it? Isn’t the issue inside of me?
When I see the source of my anger as outside of myself, I surrender my ability to change.
And honestly, I wish I could tell you, So that was then! Great news is, I’m so much better now!
My anger issues are unquestionably better. In some ways, I’ve sadly passed them on to my kids.
In nearly all ways, it’s a “long obedience in the same direction.” But I’m not the same mom I was when my kids were little. (And my hips are definitely a little wider than a stick figure.)
It’s the hard, beautiful work of God in my life toward holiness–of the Holy Spirit making self-control a reality.
Ready to get a grip on anger with me?
Two of the most important words you’ll ever say
When Your Teen Yells at You: 8 Win-win Ideas
When Anger’s Hot: Raising Self-Controlled Kids in Outrage Culture
Reading Time: 6 minutes
So like it or not, we’re all homeschooling now, right?
I personally was World’s Most Reluctant Homeschooler…until surprisingly, I ended up loving it. I even learned some things about my own strengths and passions I wouldn’t have known. (My kids eventually transferred with relative smoothness to public school.)
That very well may not be you. You might just be looking for ideas so your child, the walls, and the permanent markers stay socially distanced.
But homeschooling your preschooler with some fun and creativity might be easier than you think. Grab these easy ideas!
Reading Time: 6 minutes
First week of COVID-19 closures: a week of strange dreams.
Once, I dreamt I was driving in the dark, but my headlights kept flipping off. I kept protesting that I could hit something.
Another night, I was unprepared for a trip to a writer’s conference I wasn’t sure why I’d signed up for–but my editor was there, anticipating I would have great things to say. I’d forgotten shoes, blouses, my computer charger.
In real life, I fell back spread-eagle on our mattress. “Why am I so worn out?” I mumbled, eyes closed pathetically.
My mind went to my first days in foreign countries, where I would marvel at my fatigue–which increased the more I interacted with the culture.
Everything seemed just left of my own normal. But I underestimated the piece of my pie it would commandeer.
Of course, none of our COVID-19 stresses happen in a vacuum. One of my friends is in her first trimester, now working with kids at home. Several of us and spouses labor long hours for newly hatched problems. Personally, a family emergency added intense stress to our home.
And this week, my friend struggling with cancer woke up one morning in Paradise, his body now not just restored, but glorified.
(The rest of us did not.)
One morning, I researched the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on the human brain. One of its effects: brain fog (the article actually said this). (I was fascinated and educated by this article’s 11 ways to lower your cortisol .)
But as I’ve written before, I’m learning to pay more attention to my stressed self so I can manage my emotion, rather than the other way around.
What can it look like to respond as parents and humans to #coronanxiety?
The whole country’s stress is ratcheted up a notch.
When someone steers around us to get to the toilet paper first, it takes forethought to operate beneath human generosity and graciousness rather than letting our own fear label what must be their (selfish! panicked! oblivious!) motivation.
It’s a time for more counter-intuitive kindness. Not less.
And we’re more likely to do that when we forbid ourselves to be controlled by fear, but by the God with reins on every atom.
When we, as a friend wrote recently,
trust him more deeply than just having faith we [or our loved ones] won’t get sick.
My sense of security has to be in something greater than my power to control my surroundings.
Comfort has to be in something greater than my stash of food.
Safety has to be in something greater than the healthcare system.
Peace has to be in something greater than any preventative measure I can make.
I’ve mentioned studies finding gratitude so closely linked with happiness, the two are nearly indistinguishable.
Gratitude also lessens anxiety and helps us heal from grief.
Personally, it helps me remember the ways God’s packed my lunch–my personal reference to one night when I was worried as an adult. My mom, who packed about 5 lunches every weekday for at least 18 years, asked if I’d ever had to come down in the morning, wringing my hands. “Did you pack my lunch?”
I smiled when she said this. Not with my mom at the helm, you see. She always packed my lunch. To worry about this would, in some ways, be an affront to her constancy; her faithful care and provision for me.
You see where I’m going with this.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of us that urgency is how the news makes its money. (I.e., They live off our fear.)
Yes, we need to know facts. But we don’t need them 24/7. We need some trustworthy information maybe once a day.
And the normal (non-pandemic) stats about social media’s increase of our anxiety, depression, and loneliness are well, old news. I’m sure that brother-in-law constantly posting about COVID-19 doesn’t scream, “Trust God. Dwell in peace.”
Our kids and spouses are absorbing our stress. Need we fuel it?
I realize the Enneagram has its issues (time on your hands? You could try a free online test). Yet one of its valuable aspects to me is its predictions of each personality in its stressed state.
I happen to know I become either the equivalent of a military dictator or, diametrically, maintain the self-possession of mashed potatoes: I’m a passive people-pleaser who’d only like to keep the peace.
Admitted fiction-junkie that I am, I read a great line in a novel this week. It’s one I can’t recommend because it doesn’t meet my criteria, but the line itself smacked me like a bottle of hand sanitizer to the forehead.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t get to decide…I think you can decide about this and you’re talking like you can’t.”
I have to intentionally remind myself I can say “no” rather than being lashed at the heels by clients or shortages or others’ needs.
(If you love the Enneagram, don’t miss this hilarious meme on coronavirus responses by enneagram.)
What narratives are we telling ourselves about what’s going on? Are we taking our cues from our worry, empathy, desire to appear calm and collected?
Around the world, many nations will suffer far more than the U.S. from COVID-19. They don’t possess clean water, adequate health education or facilities, or enough cash to stockpile. When the economy falls, it’s the poor who take the greatest brunt.
We have the power monitor the stories we tell ourselves and our kids. Without being false, let’s exchange discussions of gratitude, a God who’s got this, and with a keen eye to how we’re each responding to stress.
Someone recently told me about a meme that says, “Me homeschooling, Day 1: [image of Mary Poppins] Me homeschooling, Day 50: [image of Annie’s Ms. Hannigan].”
Remember all that stuff I was learning about rest? I think I’m going to have to relearn it.
Because rested, I’m just better at loving. At not being driven–and driving everyone else–by fear.
FamilyLife.com has a free link right now for a “Soul-Care Staycation”–including a great soul-care assessment and tips for Parent-Burnout.
Think about neighbors and friends. Who’s immuno-compromised? At risk for COVID-19? More likely to be anxious or isolated?
Loving a neighbor as ourselves is great to take our eyes as a family from our own bellybuttons.
Maybe it’s picking up the groceries for that neighbor over 65. Or it’s Facetiming the friend who’s anxious. Could be using Marco Polo to check in, or sending a note in the mail. Perhaps it’s walking or running with a friend with 6′ between you.
Kids can join in on this: Thinking about a packaged treat to leave at someone’s door, or who might need a card in the mail or a video over text. They can create a paperchain of people to pray for every day who might be vulnerable or afraid.
It’s good for all of us to maintain virtual community amidst social distancing, rather than isolating, where fear–and for many, despair–grows.
This could be a great time to have the kids pick a reward, and memorize verses about trusting God (I’ve got a couple of printables here for that).
Or have a family competition. Maybe put on a face mask with your daughter and read a devotional. Or cuddle with a child and a cup of tea.
My husband and I realized we need a bit more structure. Kids will be doing a half an hour of school until online learning ramps up. We’ve asked them to have at least 15 minutes of devotional time.
I’m doing a few things like playing instrumental music and diffusing some essential oils (I like some of these blends), totally for myself, since God’s connected my spirit to this body of mine. I’m waking up to exercise, have some chai from this recipe I love, pray, read the Word.
Sometimes this is totally going to look like us sitting down and hashing out, then forgiving each other, over all the little “He’s had the computer, for like, an hour!” and “Could you please not chew that like a cow?”
God seems to get me thinking about how I can set the tone I want in our house during COVID-19.
Who does he want your family to be?
Coronavirus: Tips to Talk to Kids
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Courage (with Book List & Printables!)
The Stressed Version of Your Parenting
Reading Time: 4 minutes
For most of my life, I’ve been one of those people who could fall asleep anywhere. This is both a rich blessing and potentially a mortifying curse, of course.
Airplanes? Hotels? Weird bedrooms? Check.
Class? Church? Rollercoaster? Check. (Except the last one. Kidding. That would be narcolepsy.)
But my daughter–as I wrote you last summer–has wrestled with insomnia for the last year. We believe it to be somewhat performance-anxiety related.
But every night, and especially with a night away from home, sleep is a thing.
And of course there’s the super-fun insomnia effect of, Oh, shoot! I’m not sleeping! That makes me more nervous, which makes it just that much harder to actually sleep.
Below, I’ll hand you some of our favorite methods, because sleeplessness seems to be on the rise.
But wait (really). Before I do–since I’m all about these meaningful/uncomfortable conversations: What’s underneath your child’s insomnia?
Fact: Over 10 years, there’s been a 17% increase in the diagnosis of anxiety disorders in kids.
What if understanding the fears that keep our kids (literally) from resting is an opportunity?
See, we can restate to them their source of value. It’s a time to be present with them and really engage–because what we fear is so closely tied to who we are, what we worship.
As my heart was breaking for my girl, I got to tell her something like this:
Trying to be perfect all the time can make us really nervous, depressed, busy, and fake.
You don’t need to be afraid of not being perfect, or even of disappointing people.
Jesus loves you. So you can do all this great stuff–loving people, being kind, achieving. But don’t do that stuff so he’ll love you. That’s backwards.
Our kids’ fears are a chance to bathe their developing brains in God-realities stronger than their fears–and start widening those neural pathways with truths they’ll need for a lifetime.
So how does who God is, and what he’s done for us, address what scares their hearts the most? For tips on this, see Holes–and why it’s important to know yours (and your kids’).
Develop a reliable, calming bedtime routine to signal “rest” to your body. Begin at least a half an hour before bedtime.
Make a list of sleep-promoting strategies for your child to consult.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201905/longer-exhalations-are-easy-way-hack-your-vagus-nerve
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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