Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Who's winning?

Summertime has been extremely difficult for me. I love the lazy days, the sun...and sleeping in. Those are given, right?

Unfortunately, there is always a draw back..some sort of scientific reasoning behind it. {Thank you Newton!} Basically saying, "Hey moms! Thanks for letting us have lazier days. Thanks for letting us have a bit more sugar. Thanks for letting me stay up." These end up turning our kids into the 7 dwarfs of summer: I'm grumpy, whiny, meany, back-talker, yeller, moody, sulky.

Thank you children!

I promise, we have talked and talked and talked about how they are each other's best friends. They need to stick up for each other and to be kind to one another. So far it has worked wonderfully on the playground, but it's another story at home.

Thankfully we have FHE or Family Home Evening. This is one night a week that we set aside for just our family. It gives us a chance to talk, sing, play games and to show our love for one another. (For more information, click HERE)
Tonight I felt very strongly that we needed to focus on us. Our family. We talked about how when we do things that aren't nice or kind, we are letting Satan control our situation. It was very eye-opening to see our children work hard to combat something as powerful as he.
We came up with a family plan. A game of sorts. We know that when we are doing something wrong, "Satan is winning." On the other hand, when we are doing things that are right, "We are winning." It has been great. Yes, it has only been in effect for 3 hours, BUT a lot has happened.
Case in point: Spencer was pushing Livi. All she had to ask was: "who's winning?" To which Spencer replids, "Satan." I can see him internalizing this and really trying hard. Did we have to ask this question to both of them most of the night? Yes. BUT the fact that they are trying means so much to me.
So, here is the big question(s): What have you done to help combat the summertime woes? How do your children get along? Ideas?

1 comment:

Trapper and Suzy said...

I don't feel like I have enough experience with the summertime woes. It's more like every other day woes right now and lasts all year! lol So, I haven't really had to do anything super special yet. Although I have often thought of the idea to set up little service projects for others and have my kids help me with them so that they learn to work together and they also get that warm fuzzy feeling when they've helped someone. So I should probably start implementing that a little more.