Parenting

Ah the joys and sorrows of parents.

Its 2013 and my children are getting older and I'm getting wiser.  I am?

My daughter is in 8th grade and my son is in 5th grade.  You will think that by now, they will be the perfect children that keep their rooms organized and help their parents with chores without whining. In my dreams!

I have tried so many chore charts and tactics, I just don't know what else to do.

How about those fights about toys.  Well, being a boy and a girl, you will think there were no problems. Now this days, is the Ipod, the game system, the computer, the TV remote.

When your kids at fighting, what is a Mom to do? Is hard to be the peacemaker.  "He started it, She started it." My patience gets tested, and little by little my mood changes, and there goes nice mom turning into mom Hulk.

After meeting with the anxiety therapist over a month ago, she suggested a parent support group. It will meet every Friday starting this month in January.  The group meets for 12 weeks.  The reason I agreed, was to see what I can get out of this group.  There will be many topics discussed in the group.  Mainly how can parents interact better with their children without creating more stress in the family.  And how can children get along better with their parents.

The topic for today was stress.  The leader of the group asked,"Why it was important for us to talk about stress in a parenting group?"  One of the parents said,"Because its something we all deal with on a daily basis."

When we are stressed our relationships at home suffer the consequences.  What should we do to avoid stress?

When you are tired, rest.  When you are hungry, eat healthy food.  When you feel angry,  step aside to another room and calm down.  When you feel lonely, call someone.

One of my blog friends Melinda is now over at Mothering From Scratch
She is an amazing Mom.  I have a lot in common with her.  She has helped me understand the  weakness in me, and how that affects my children's behavior.

Every time I feel down for something I did, somehow I always get inspired by a post at Mothering From Scratch.  I feel that I'm not alone in my struggles of motherhood.  God has amazing ways to teach me things. I am learning from the experiences of other parents.  I might not be in the exact situation they are in, but it helps me to understand their struggles and avoid doing the same mistakes they have done.

There is one thing that has stirred in me from today's parent meeting.  I'm not only a parent but I can also understand my child from my point of view of a child.  Let me talk more about this in my next post.

How to Teach Your Children About Bullying

           Hi!!  It's Marah (Rosario's Daughter). Today I decided to write about bullying.  I saw a video about a teenager who got really injured, because of bullying.  He was actually put on fire!!!! If you would like to see the video click here.

         Bullying is very serious. Someone could get really hurt, as you can see by the video.  Kids should know that if they are being bullied they should seek an adult,right away.  However, most kids don't understand that.  They are afraid that if they tell they will be called a "snitch" or a "tattle tale".  And of course they don't tell , and nobody knows until the child gets hurt.That is an issue we deal with now a days.

           The main issue actually is kids who bully.  Kids think it is "cool" and "fun" to pick on other kids. When in fact it is not.  It may be fun for them but it is not for the person they are bullying.  They need to know that they could get in serious trouble.  Like in the video.  Those bullies may suffer through 25 years in jail.

           That it is your job as parents to teach your children it is wrong to bully.  And that they should tell right away if they are being bullied. Tell them it doesn't matter if they are called "snitches" or "tattletales".

           I want you sit down right now and have that talk with your kids.  A bonus would be if you show them the video.  Hope you take my advice.

See you all next week,
                                  Marah

Rosario here.  I am truly amazed at the way my daughter, expresses herself.  I do ask you to keep her in your prayers.  She is scheduled for spine surgery on September 15.

Prayer Is a Powerful Tool in Parenting

As a child my experience of prayer was to pray the rosary.  My grandmother will pray the rosary at our bedside, every night.  I got very sleepy during the rosary.  For many years I thought it was the most boring thing. 

I was mostly raised by my maternal grandmother, as a child.  My parents seperated when I was only four years old.  My Mother became a single parent, and provider for two daughters and her mother.  Mother worked all day, and my sister and I were taken care by our loving grandmother. 

We lived in the Mexican border city of Juarez.  My grandmother will take us to many churches and will pray in front of big statues of Jesus and Mary.  She will light a candle, and just mumble things that I could not understand.

When we came to live here to California, our aunt Mary introduced us to a different form of prayer.  Aunt Mary is not Catholic.  She attends an Evangelical Church.  I remember been told the day we first visited her church.  We do not make the sign of the cross here, and there is not statues of Jesus and Mary here. 

We will enter the church, and walk straight to the front, kneel in front of the altar and give thanks to God for bringing us to church that day.  I noticed everyone will close their eyes, lift up their hand and just talk to God.  Some ladies will cry, and speak in a language that I did not understand.

I later was taught that this was the Holy Spirit's language.   We learn a lot at the Evangelical church.  We learn to read our Bible, learned to recite the books by memory.  We also learned songs.   We learned that Jesus loves us, and desires to have a personal relationship with each one of us.  

You know, I am thankful for those years.  They are my foundation in the faith I know practice.  Without that foundations my building would had collapsed years ago.

Now that I am a parent.  I want my children to know that Jesus loves them.  That Jesus is their friend and that they can pray to him and ask for things.  And that God will answer their prayers, if they are for their good.

But even with what I knew about prayer, I found it hard at times to sit down and pray.  I needed a guide.  How should I pray for my children, how should I show them to pray.

I can remember how long ago, but its been more than 3 or 4 years, I was listening to the Christian radio station and they will mention  Focus in the Family.  I searched for more information online and browsed through their website.  They were recommending a book called, Professionalizing Motherhood, author is Jill Savage.

I bought the book and read it.  There is a section on how prayer is an indispensable tool.  Jill shared her own struggle in learning how to pray.  She mentioned a ministry she was introduced to  called, Moms In Touch International (MITI).  This ministry's goal is to have a group of moms covering in prayer each school in their cities.  The groups meet for an hour and pray.

Jill was interested, but did not know how she could pray for an entire hour.  A local contact person from MITI, spoke with her and told her, to gather a few moms and that she will come by and teach them how to pray.

Jill also quotes a section in Stormie Omartian's book, The Power of a Praying Parent, of how our prayers make a big difference in our life and our child's life.

When the MITI contact person came to Jill's first meeting with other moms, she explained to them how they should pray. 

There is different steps in prayer: praise, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession. Later Jill made her own acronym to remember how to pray.  ACTS

A- Adoration, praise or worship to our God.  Singing songs, reading the Psalms.

C- Confession, asking God for forgiveness of our sins.
1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

T- Thankgiving, giving thanks to God for the blessings in our life, our husband, our children.
1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

S- Supplication, asking for our needs
Philippians 4:6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thankgiving, present your request to God."

Jill also mentions how this resembles the "Lord's Prayer"

I see this same process, while I read the Liturgy of the Hours. 

I strongly believe that prayer makes a huge difference in a person's life. 

One example is my own mother.  A Catholic, who was never thought how to speak to God in her own words.  She did not even know how to pray the rosary.  She was to busy to even take time for that.  But now that she is a grandmother, and all her children are grown up, now she is equipped and knows how to pray for her children and grandchildren.

When I read about Stormie Omartian books, I immediately went to buy the books.  And it was such a joy for me to find her books in Spanish.  I took them to my mother, and she read them too.  Now she recommends the books to all her friends. She even gives them away as gifts.  She knows that prayer is powerful.  She knows the difference prayer has been in our family.  But the most important part is, that she has a personal relationship with our God.  She has known God in a different way.   He is not just someone up in heaven, ready to answer our prayers.  He is one amazing Father, a Friend, a Counselor, a Provider,  and our Healer.

I always keep this scripture in my mind. Luke 18:27, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

To finish off, I will like to share a story that I heard this morning on the radio.  A man who will tend a church's garden, one day was watering the lawn.  Some teenagers came by took the hose away, beat him and stole his wallet.  This man never told anyone or pressed charges.  He only prayed for those young man.  Years later, one of this young men aproached the old man.  He was frightened, but the young man, told him not to be afraid.  He handed him his wallet back, with everything that was in it, including the exact amount of money.  Thanked him for never pressing charges against him, and left.   When the old man passed away, his job at the church was vacant.  The young man, now married, took over the job.  Later, he told the Pastor that he will no longer be able to care for the garden.  That his wife was pregnant and he needed to find another job.  The Pastor understood, and ask him how will he name his child.  The young man replied, the same name as the old man who used to take care of this garden. 

I could not remember the name used in the story.  What I will never forget is, that this young man was grateful to the older man so much, that he was going to name his own child in his memory.

Prayer Does Make a Difference!

Join us at Holy Experience for more sharing of our Spiritual Practices in Parenting.

Guest Writer, my Daughter

    Hi, my name is Marah and I'm Rosario's daughter. My mom asked me to write about parenting, so here it goes.

   In order to really teach your child/ren about life and faith, you need to get to know them more.You need to connect with them. Talk to them and relate to them.  If you just push them to work, they will feel uncomfortable.Here are a few steps that will help you connect with your child/ren.

1.Getting to know them. To start off you need to know them.  Knowing them means knowing all their favorites. Colors,Shows,Foods,and much more.

2.Hanging out with them.You should spend some time with them.Watching TV,talking,or what ever your child/ren wants to do.

3.Becoming friends.Every parent should have a strong friendship with their child/ren.It will help your child/ren know that you're always there for them.

4.Parenting them.The final step is parenting them.Now you can sit down with your child/ren and teach them everything they need to know.

    I hope you take this advice and use it. Keep in mind that I am a child myself. I'm only 12. Sometimes the best advice on children, come from children themselves.

Rosario writing here.  Actually she wants to have a blog of her own.  But we are not able to make her her own blog yet.  So I suggested that she can be a guest writer on by blog.  That' s when she asked if she could write the post that I would be sharing today at Holy Experience. 

She is an amazing person.  A  few months ago she wrote a poem in memory of their school's receptionist,  that passed away.  She read the poem at our Annual PTO Volunteer Banquet.

She loves to read and is an A student.  I am proud to be her Mom.

I thank God for blessing me with such an beautiful daughter.

Daily Routines

I am trying to get back to my regular schedule and follow it without getting distracted by computer.  Lets see how long I am able to do this. 

Today was my first day.  I did good.  Did mostly everything.  The bad part was my mood.  I was a little too grouchy on the kids.  I think its my lack of sleep during the night.

I know that once I make up my mind to start doing something positive in my life.  There is always something trying to steal my peace.  So, I am going to stay alert and watch out for this  peace stealers and put a stop to them before they make me blow up.

This morning, after I had my quiet time in the Word of God.  And had some breakfast.  I told the kids we are going to play a game.

Let's clean your rooms and take time of  how long it takes you.  My darling son did not like that game.  Ok, lets see how much you can do in two minutes, I will give you a quarter if you finish before the timer.

Daughter did pretty well.  I told her what to do and she had to beat the timer.  I gave her one minute per task.   She was in a much better attitude than her brother.  She did all her tasks in under 10 minutes. After we did that, I got back on my chores for today. 

At 11 AM, we left grocery shopping.  We only had a few items to buy, but took longer than expected because we browsed through the magazine aisle.

Got back home by lunch time.   The kids had lunch and so did I.  Then I started preparing dinner for tonight.  I did some cleaning in the kitchen.   This week, I will be detail cleaning in the kitchen.  Organizing drawers and the lower cabinets in the kitchen, mostly pots, pans, and plastic ware.

Today, I only cleaned the counters and the stove oven.  Then I washed all the dirty dishes.  I did some laundry in between tasks.

I finished all my chores for today, at 3:00 PM.  I reloaded the washer just before I sat down at the computer.  I have a rule, that if clean, dry clothes are not folded and put away, I do not reload the washer.  That is just, so that I do not end up with piles of clean clothes.

I feel much better now, knowing most of my work is done and dinner is ready.  This way, I am not rushing to do things at the last minute.

Mean Mommy!

How I hate that my children think I am mean mommy. But sometimes, I have to be strong, and set rules and if broken, commit to the consequences.

I have problems with my seven year old boy. He does not want to do his homework. Homework is boring. He gets a homework package every Friday. The entire package is due on Thursday of the following week. Some weeks we manage to do the homework in 2-3 days. But most of the time we are rushing to do it all in less than an hour before he leaves to school on Thursday morning.

I want to teach my kids good skills and procrastination is not a good thing! I know what it is to be rushing last minute trying to complete something that is due. I guess my problem is, that I am not a strong disciplinarian. I have not set rules and consequences properly. I have to also set limits. TV and computer time should be limited. And chores need to be asigned.

If they want things like toys, eating out at their favorite restaurant, going to special events like the Justin Bieber concert, they need to earn points to get their rewards.

I need to be consistent with the plan. And follow up with the consequences if they do not do what is expected of them. I am even thinking of bringing back the time out consequence.

If any of you have some ideas that have worked with your children, please let me know.

Need Advice!

A few months ago my sister who is 28 years old, started talking about the twilight series and how she was hooked on reading the books. I have not read the books. But have heard comments from other readers. Today I was shocked to see my daughter who is 10 years old with the book in her hand. She got it from the school's library. What?! I thought this was a book for older teenagers. So I got online and looked for reviews. Indeed, this is a book geared for older teenagers, perhaps college girls. But as a Catholic mom who wants to raise her kids with good moral values, I think I should do something about it.

I spoke with my sister, who said definately not to allow my daughter to read it. Yes, I have already taken the book away. The problem is that since she is a quick reader. By the time I searched for reviews, she had already read four chapters.

Now what should I do concerning the school. Should I let the principal know my concerns. Or shoul I only talk with the librarian. This book should not be at an elemantary. If they have permited this book, who knows what other books they have that are not age appropiate.

I welcome your comments regarding this post.