parenting Archives - Page 7 of 8

November 3, 2015 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Letter to a Mother of Little Ones

Dear Neighborhood Mom,

“Someday I’ll be able to take a leisurely walk with my husband in the morning,” you commented wistfully as Craig and I walked by the elementary school bus stop that first week of school.

Having made lunches, read the Bible, seen my high schoolers off, and loaded the dishwasher, I was glad to walk out the door with my husband and dogs. A peaceful walk counterbalanced our usual morning whirlwind of irritated-at-life, crabby-during-devotions, storm-out-the-door teenagers.

We saw your oldest son whiz by on a bicycle earlier, the radiant grin under the helmet not unlike your husband’s when he rides. As you walked your two boys to the bus stop, preschooler Elizabeth boldly tried to keep up with big brothers, all the while maintaining a clutch-hold on mom’s pants. Dear neighbor mom, your coffee in one hand and the other arm draped around Elizabeth at the bus stop with your boys, you are the epitome of a supportive mom. Your love for your kids is obvious and precious. Strolling past you and hearing your comment took me back to my harried young mom days.

I remember the loads of laundry, dutifully thrown into the washing machine early in the morning, as the rest of the dirty clothes mounded up in dune-like ridges across the floor. The dishes piled high and spills congealed on the counter waiting for me to clean in my “free” moments, as little ones demanded help and guidance getting ready for school. Brushing hair, wiping milk off of sweet little faces, and grabbing backpacks was all part of the rush to leave. Toys lay strewn across the floor, dropped mid-game in the hurried frenzy to get everyone out the door on time.

Household maintenance, job responsibilities, family paperwork, and all the other non-parenting duties get pushed to lower priority in the midst of the pressing immediacy of young children’s needs. Please know that this busyness is a season of stages and challenges in life that will change. Someday you will again sleep in, have uninterrupted conversations with your husband, and be left alone in the bathroom!

I used to hate it when older women told me to savor this time of young children “because it passes by so fast.” I remember one woman chased me down to speak those words to me as I held a baby in one arm, balanced a tantruming toddler and a diaper bag with the other hand, and tried to open the car door. It had been a long morning and a tough wait for a pediatrician appointment, and I needed to get the saturated-diaper baby and starving toddler home. I know I growled at the woman, if not literally, then figuratively with a dismissive comment. I resolved then to never say anything like that to other young mothers, even on the chance that her words would eventually prove true.

Instead, I want to encourage you in your mothering. Someday you will have the luxury of completing breakfast chores while older children dress themselves. They will learn to brush, groom, and toilet completely on their own. Hard to imagine from where you are parenting now, I am sure. This morning, I read from the Bible as my teenagers foraged for their own breakfast – a level of independence I never imagined when my kids were your kids’ age. Your hard work will pay off, and they will have learned, and applied, the many lessons you are teaching them, day after fatiguing day.

Thank you for contributing so much to our community in your church and job roles, but I want to especially thank you for loving your four little ones as your main role. May God bless you with strength, patience, and parenting wisdom as you meet the daily challenges of raising little children.

September 28, 2015 by Kristina Lunde 1,252 Comments

Generation Z: Screen Obsessed

Head tilted down, outstretched palm holding cell phone, eyes glued to the screen – so lives Generation Z: the digital natives, the screen-obsessed.

Group of teenage boys and girls ignoring each other while using their cell phones at school — Antonio Diaz/2015 bigstockphoto

As a baby boomer parent, I see my offspring and their peers perpetually stationed in that pose. To me, the pose embodies the lifestyle of teen-aged postural clones whose eye contact and interactions are reserved for their hand-held devices. Are verbal conversations, interpersonal greeting rituals, and person to person time becoming obsolete? Did I waste my time trying to teach my children such old-fashioned concepts as manners, meal time interaction, and thank you note writing?

My phone calls go straight to voice mail. My words hang ignored in the air during teenage transit time. If I am noticed, I might get a reply to my text. Back in my day . . .

Well, I made different attempts to get privacy. I stormed off to my room. Or I stretched the phone cord beyond it’s curly maximum to sit behind a door. I went outside, confident that my mother would not follow me there. In my younger days, I had fun outside playing in the neighborhood or climbing a tree. Later, I would ride bike or unicycle – or sit in the yard with a friend. My teenage years may have been similarly self-absorbed, but not insulated behind a screen. In fact, we were limited to one hour of television per day – the only screen option in those days.

Life is different now. This mom used to limit screen time, but that ended when computers were needed for homework. When we added texting to our cell phone service, a much belated change compared to my children’s peers, I reviewed the monthly usage to check my children’s compliance with phone curfew limits. After we became a smart phone family last year, even limiting my own screen time seemed challenging, let alone monitoring my offspring’s. Surrendering to technology. Parental failure. Allowing my older teenagers to moderate themselves. Enabler of screen obsessions. Perhaps all of the above.

But my job remains the same even when so much else in the world changes: to love my children and commmunicate that to them. So I keep reaching out to my Generation Z, digital natives – the ones I love and feed.

I threaten to Snapchat or Instagram for visual contact with my precious teenagers, using absurd mispronunciations to emphasize my technological impairment:

“I’m going to Snappychatty you, so I can see you.”

“Why don’t you Instagrammy that to me?” (Late adopter of technology that I am, of course I don’t have Instagram. But I can joke about it anyway.)

Their groans are my reward. Ahhhh . . . I can still try to make them laugh.

[Originally posted July 2015]

September 28, 2015 by Kristina Lunde 1,109 Comments

Teenager, screens, and self-soothing

“Where have you been?

I was worried!

I called… [list of 3 people]…for a ride home.

I almost started walking.

What happened?!”

And so my daughter assailed me when I was 13 minutes late to pick her up. I texted her twice and called by phone once during those 13 minutes to let her know when I was on my way.

Earlier that afternoon, I dropped my daughter off at the clinic for a physical. Calculating that her appointment would take about an hour, I told her that I would be driving to the bank to run an errand. When she finished ahead of schedule, she texted me. My muted cell phone stayed in my purse as I spoke with the bank representative. With the representative out of the room at the one hour mark, I pulled my phone out to check the time and to text my daughter that I would be five minutes late. After two more phone updates telling my daughter that I was on my way, I later picked her up at the clinic.

There was comfortable indoor seating, there was no threat of infectious disease, my daughter was not injured or in pain, the clinic was not under siege, and she had wireless access at the clinic. As a healthy teenager, she had already eaten two meals that day.

Yet she was ready to report me for parental neglect because I was delayed in picking her up.

This was a child who learned to self-soothe. As a baby, she easily soothed herself to sleep. I did not deprive her of the chance to learn how to fall asleep on her own, provided she was fed, dry, comfortable, and not anxious. She learned independence at every step, often before I was ready to let her go. As a teenager, she is a self-assured young lady who thrives on outdoor adventure challenges. As a young adult, my daughter has mastered many intellectual and logistical pursuits. I am proud and amazed at her incredible accomplishments. Yet waiting for me for 40 minutes overall, 13 of them beyond the one hour anticipated appointment time, was too much for her.

In my day, I waited up to an hour for my mother to pick me up. If she said she was picking me up after an event, I knew she was coming. I had no way to contact her, but I trusted that she would come as soon as she could. I knew that I was important to her, but I also realized that she had other obligations. In the cold Minnesota weather, I was lucky if I could wait inside for my ride. Never did I question my mother’s schedule, what she did before picking me up, or why she came when she did. I did not complain when she came; I was just glad for the ride.

As much as I adore and prioritize my kids on my list of responsibilities, I have a life and other obligations beyond parenting. I have the right to ignore my cell phone during a business appointment. (Sometimes I turn it off even when nothing else is going on!)

I hope to teach my children how to wait patiently and pass the time without immersing themselves in a screen, but I don’t know if that is possible for this generation.

[Originally posted June 2015]

September 28, 2015 by Kristina Lunde 806 Comments

Kids and Bible Memory Verses: Viola’s Got it!

Dear Haley,

So you were wondering how to squeeze your three year old Viola’s memory verses into your week of work, caring for Viola and her little sister, and life in general – not to mention that you are pregnant?! (Pregnancy alone will exhaust a mom!)

First of all, you are to be congratulated for getting Viola to AWANAs on Wednesday nights. That in itself is an achievement! Please be good to yourself and stay realistic about your family goals. (That growing baby in you is commandeering much of your energy and resources.)

Viola has a great time at AWANAs. She is bright and eager – a quick learner and an engaged thinker. What I love is the way her face shines when she says her memory verses. Viola truly delights in God’s Word (Psalm 1:2.) For me, there is no greater reward to this volunteer gig.

AWANA is a great program, but it was never designed to put pressure on you. (You have a preschooler, a toddler, and you are pregnant. I’m tired just thinking about your workload!) Please don’t berate yourself for not reviewing the memory verse with your oldest. The Bible verses are shortened to 3-8 word lengths, but they can still be a challenge for the little ones to memorize.

I remember being a mom of young children and feeling the time squeeze of getting my kids to memorize Bible verses. Memorization is a good thing, something I value, but often memory work became one more chore, one more sheet on the fridge not to forget, one more item on the never-ending list of things to do with and for my kids. (That is, if the list stayed on the fridge . . . if I didn’t forget . . . if we got to it in time before the due date . . .)

(Note to my younger self:) God’s Word is very important, but as parents, we need to focus on building a lifelong love of God’s Word in our children, not just getting them to earn checkmarks on a page. Memorizing God’s Word is a process that starts when our children are little. They will build on the seeds sown now, as we role model the importance of learning from the Bible. Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it, as Proverbs 22:6 encourages us.

God’s Word is not meant to merely leave our lips, but to live in our hearts.

As volunteers, we try to help these preschool students understand who God is and how He loves them, using the AWANA Cubbies curriculum to present these concepts through story-telling, puppet shows, singing, and even while playing games in the gym. We repeatedly explain concepts like sin, shepherd, and creation, so they can understand what the verse talks about. Sometimes we barely get to practice the pronunciation of the words, let alone memorize the verse. Please know that we do our best for little Viola and her classmates.

Lord, may your word not be something that merely leaves Viola’s lips, but that deeply roots your love in her heart. Bless Haley with the rest, energy, and encouragement she needs to be the amazing mother you have called her to be. Amen.

[Originally posted April 2015]

September 28, 2015 by Kristina Lunde 1,237 Comments

Man-child, Vomit, and the School Nurse

Man-child cooked himself a big breakfast that morning before school, but suddenly he felt ill. “I’m going to throw up!” he yelled as he ran in the bathroom, and accomplished said task.

“Please go lie down. Stay home and rest, at least for awhile until you feel better. Then you can go into school later if you feel okay.” I urged, knowing that he would not take my advice.

I walked over toward him with my hand held out. “Let me feel if you have a fever.” No warmth, perspiration, or sign of a fever. No further vomiting. “You should still stay home,” I pleaded.

“No, I have to go to school. I’ll just check in with the nurse and get a pass,” countered man-child.

“That’s my line! This is role reversal again. Just stay home and rest for awhile – you can go in later.” Conceding this mother versus man-child battle, albeit minor in scope, I let him go to school.

The scenario continued to be amusing when I called in to the high school nursing office. I recognized the nurse Shelly as one of my workout friends from the YMCA. “Oh, hi Shelly. I’m the delinquent mom who sent my sick kid to school.”

“It was actually refreshing to have a student want to go to class. Usually they are in here trying to get out of going to class.” Shelly’s sense of humor was a welcome contrast to my frustration.

“Well, I tried at home. He doesn’t have a fever, but I wanted to keep him at home to at least sleep for a bit. But I couldn’t talk any sense into him. I was hoping you could.” My irritated attitude toward my son persisted.

“He was going to try class. I wrote out a pass for him just in case; he’ll come back to my office if he still feels sick.”

“Great. He’ll infect everyone in choir. Oh well. I tried. I just wanted to let you know,” I mumbled in guilty resignation.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of him. If he comes back and is sick, I’ll send him home.” With her optimistic nature and confident reassurance, Shelly absolved me of my guilt.

Who prepares you for these parenting challenges?! I certainly was taken by surprise when strong-willed man-child argued to go to school when given the option of staying home, stopped by the nurse’s office with an announcement of his illness yet insisted on attending class, and persevered through school after a vomiting episode. Strange acts of defiance against a mom who merely wanted him to stay home and rest.

Thank God for helpful, caring professionals in my community that help me with my parenting. And who keep me from losing my patience with puke-boy.

[Originally posted March 2015]