You have redeemed us out of destruction,

Delivered us from the power of sin in our lives,

Given us your loving kindness and mercy.

Help us, Father, to express your love to our children

In ways that teach them to honor You above all.

Help us so we do not bruise your fruit, Lord.

Make us always aware of your desire for us,

Our duties, our hope and delight in You.

Renew our motives.  Stretch us and strengthen us in You.

Expand our awareness of your love.

By your power we were made from nothing.

You made our brains, yet we use a small fraction of that gift.

Give us grace to use more of our resources in your service.

Help us to commit all our resources to building your kingdom.

Purify our aims, ambitions, and activity.

Focus our scattered lives.

Teach us, that we may master your lessons.

Make them second nature.

Dear Father, only You can expand our spiritual,

Mental and emotional boundaries beyond our small selves.

Help us to create, out of the confusion of our lives,

Holy priesthood teams in our church and home.

You are the great I AM, giver of every good gift.

Thank you for the gifts we already enjoy.

The greatest of these is our children.

Amen.

All back talk has the same goal, whether it is confrontational or not. The goal is parent—or teacher—control: gaining power and attention.

Backtalk is any noncompliant behavior

Which of the following statements applies to inmates in correctional institutions (jails)?

1. …tries to “butter you up in order to get favors.”

2. …may fake illness to get what they want.

3. …tries to change the subject to avoid consequences.

4. …flatters, acts friendly, inflates your ego to make you emotionally dependent on his or her approval.

5. …does favors for you in order to manipulate you into breaking or changing rules.

6. …asks to be excused just this one time; won’t do it again.

7. …tries to get different people to say “yes” when the answer is always “no” in order to follow rules.

8. …tries to fast talk–guide–you  into ignoring rules.

9. …will take advantage of your depression, carelessness or other weakness.

10. ..tries to get you on an equal basis rather than allow you to be the boss.

11. ..hates being told what to do.

Yes, all of the above are “games inmates play” to get you to lose focus, give them your authority, and take control without responsibility for consequences.

Is it a coincidence that these behaviors start in childhood? Are you rewarding your child’s wrong choices by falling for this stuff?

Discipline is consistent consequences.

If a child gets away without consequences, we are rewarding bad behavior. We only help him or her to perfect his manipulative skills such as those above, drama and lying.

The above behaviors were all taken from The Art of the Con: Avoiding Offender Manipulation, by Gary Cornelius, published by The American Correctional Association, Alexandria, Virginia.

Stress-free Discipline gives a step-by-step plan to relieve stress on you and your child while keeping gentle pressure on the child to make right choices.

Remember, what’s OK is the enemy of what’s best.

“Watching television for two to three hours or more per day is linked to significantly higher risks of developing diabetes and heart disease and dying from all causes, according to a new analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health.” (June 15, Journal of the American Medical Association.)

If it were just health, some parents would ignore the need to change TV habits.  But wait! Thinking ability is also at risk here.

A New Yorker study indicates that “A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some…a reader and a viewer even think differently.” (Crain, 2007, 135)

 In several cited studies, illiterates resisted giving definitions of words, grouping like objects, and making logical inferences about hypothetical situations. (Crain, 2007, 137) Moreover, “in an oral culture, cliché and stereotype are valued as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon…” (Crain, 138) 

Detailed and consistent decline in reading and thus in thinking ability have been reported by the National Endowment for the Arts…

It is much harder to compare viewpoints and ideas between streaming media than to analyze the written word.

Juxtaposed images give the impression of cause and effect where none exists. Logical thinking and learning words become a strain.  Social and communication skills suffer.  Experienced teachers and social workers have noted the trend.  Teamwork, highly valued in the global marketplace and in parenting, is suffering.

According to the scholars Jack Goody and Ian Watt, Crain says, (2007, 138) “it is only in a literate culture that the past’s inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth.”  My experience on the Navajo Reservation corroborates all of the above.

Recall is also enhanced by reading, as opposed to merely viewing. Moreover, viewers from the age of eight to sixteen months begin loosing word power for every hour of baby DVD’s and videos they watch daily, according to Crain.

Data on more than a million students worldwide by Micha Razel “found ‘little room for doubt’ that television worsened performance in reading, science and math.” (Crain, 2007, 138)

The N.E.A. reported recently that “readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theatre, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteer.” (Crain, 2007, 139)  

If parents cannot read, their children will not be encouraged to learn more than the minimum to get by.  Thus, each generation will become more ignorant.

Apply the Bingo test:  is reading, good health and the ability to live a richer, fuller life worth changing your TV habits? 

Oh yes, we do need to relax from a stressful day of work, and TV will reward us with entertainments which either stimulate or sedate us…just like addictions will. 

According to Dr. Archibald Hart, writing in Healing Life’s Hidden Addictions, “…two basic drives or fundamental needs can be behind all addictions:  excitement seeking and tension reducing…These two drives are directly related to the two basic categories of drugs (stimulants and tranquilizers)…” (p. 57)

 These psychological needs play a “significant role even in non-chemical addictions.”

Hart says that “Since the function of an addiction is to place a buffer between ourselves and our awareness of feelings, wrenching the buffer away results in increased anxiety…”  Hmmm.  How uncomfortable do we get  when we miss our favorite program?  How many of us are truly listening to our children or our body or our felt needs during those hypnotic sessions with streaming media or facebook? 

Do we really need exercise after being chained to a computer all day, or a couch potatoe session?  Do we need real rest or merely a change of activity?

Moms, Dads, and teachers:  Stress-free Discipline of our children will relieve our stress as it happens, and it will provide rewarding, consistent consequences for our children’s right and poor choices of the day (or period).  The reward is time spent with us on educational, interpersonal activities.  Those activities may be a game of basketball ourtside, spell-down baseball inside, or learning good manners at a nice restaurant!

Let’s apply the Bingo test to those activities.  Is what I am doing now building skills and bonding and family teamwork for the long term?  Teachers, are your present choices of stress-relief really working for your body?

Personal financial hardship is only one cost of  divorce. 

According to CitizenLink.org, a study done by the Institute for American Values has found that the breakdown of families costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion yearly.  The national, state and local costs–which add up to more than $1 trillion over the last decade–are caused, in part, by high poverty rates of single, female-headed households, which lead to higher spending on welfare, criminal justice and education programs.” (Williams, 2008, 1) 

What could the government do with a trillion dollars to create jobs and a better quality of life?  What could parents do with a little more in their bank account and lower taxes for preventable problems?  This is not rocket science.  It has to do with self-control and intelligent work toward family health.

The human cost of family breakup cannot be calculated.  While the average mother looses quality of life as she enters the ranks of the poor, there are many hidden costs.  If she got a divorce wanting control and freedom, her impulse control problems have bad consequences.  She is so overwhelmed with an additional work load–an impossible blend of the need to provide adequate income and good parenting–that she is unable to discipline her children or teach them essential skills. 

Happiness research by Dr. Ed. Diener of the University of Illinois indicates that we are most happy when our ability and the task at hand are closely matched.(see www.psych.uluc.edu/~ediener/research/research.html).  Poor parents can only be miserable, single parents are all stressed, and both children and parents suffer the kind of pressures which lead to poor health, depression, dysfunction, violence and full-blown mental illness.

Self control issues–impulse control problems–pass from parent to child, and “may predict health problems, less financial stability and a criminal record by adulthood…a survey of more than 1,000 children who were studied from birth to age 32, found that kids who scored lowest on measures of self-control…were roughly three times as likely by adulthood to report to having multiple health problems and addictions, earning less than $20,000 a year, becoming a single parent or committing a crime than kids with the most self-control.  

The good news is that self-control can be learned. (TIME, February 7, 2011)

What parents want to curse their child to an unhappy, unhealthy and dysfunctional life?  Yet, according to Stanley Bippus, Superintendent of Central Consolidated School District, Farmington, NM, “The primary cause of most behavior and student achievement problems in the public school system is irresponsible and/or incompetent parents…No child is more handicapped that one whose parents don’t understand and accept the responsibilities of parenthood.  Poor parents destroy the lives of more children in this country than drugs, alcohol and gangs combined.”  (published in the Farmington Daily Times, 9/4/1994)

Parenting is the hardest job we will ever do, in my opinion.  The consequences of poor parenting have the largest negative consequences of anything we are likely to do.  Every fallen culture throughout history has preceded their fall with family decline.  David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, said that “reducing family fragmentation rates by just one percent would save taxpayers $1.1 billion.”  Our impulse-control issues can break this country or build it.  The same applies to our families.

My book, Stress-free Discipline, teaches how to cope with impulse-control issues in both parents and children.

We don’t feel thirsty until we are already dehydrated.  According to Brian D. Foltz and Joe Ferrara, PhD, chronic dehydration elevates histamine, which can lead to allergies and an increase of stress hormones (cortisol).  This suppress the production of white blood cells and we become more vulnerable to more allergens (triggers of  allergy).  Less energy is the first sign of dehydration.  For every one percent drop of water inside your cells, energy production is cut by ten percent.  Unfortunately, much more harm can result.

Dehydration can cause constipation, diverticulitis, polyps, and colon cancer.  But wait!  Dehydration, according to Foltz and Ferrara, “is a frequent cause of mental difficulties, including depression…feelings of anxiety, anger, irritableness, short attention span, impatience… asthma, hypertension…pain and Type II diabetes.”

http://www.hydrationsecrets.com details other consequences, including weight gain and decrease of oxygen uptake.  Our brains need 40% more oxygen than the rest of our body.  Brain fog is not always the result of sleep loss.

What can we do?  Short-term dehydration shows up in darker urine—except urine colored by certain vitamins, foods, medications, etc.  Extreme dehydration is orange color.  The darker your urine, the more acidic your body is, and the more damage occurs in cells.  Acidic blood feeds pathogens, while normal pH helps kill germs, viruses and other problems.  Keep your urine clear or a very pale yellow.

Now that you are aware of physical needs for water, what about your spiritual need for the Living Water of Christ?

The woman at the well in Samaria (John 4:5-26) was not aware of her need for the living water of eternal life.  We are also unaware of our spiritual needs, even if we have accepted Christ as our savior from sin.  Christians–distracted by cares of this world–do not feel spiritually thirsty until they are dehydrated.  They may skip church for a swim meet, unaware of their need for the living water of God’s word.  They may not be in God’s word daily. 

Christians may not be in the mood for these efforts because they are spiritually dehydrated—and deprived of divine energy…”

Do not let your strength be sapped by sloth.  Be energized by the living Spirit of God, who works in us to will and to do His good pleasure.  Connect with the One who loves you more than you can imagine or hope for, often.

Spiritual warfare is working against the passive “now I’m saved, I don’t have to do anything” attitude.

Hardships end up in one of two possibilities:  either we choose to submit ourselves to God’s vision for our lives, passing through the trials with His help, or we choose to cave in to temptation, which leads us away from God.  The same loop of events—OODA—is repeated each time we face hardships. 

Hardships are either trials or temptations, depending upon our choice to walk with Christ or to depend on our own flawed understanding.  First, we have to see the truth of our situation through God’s eyes or our own eyes, through humble dependence on God or prideful rebellion (Mt. 5:3-4).  When we are sad because of our sin, we receive the blessing of comfort in forgiveness.  We will then have observed truly or we will have fallen for satanic lies. 

Secondly, we orient ourselves toward God or turn our backs on Him by how we approach hardship, verses 5 and 6.

We are blessed with inheriting the earth and with satisfaction.

Third, we decide to take action depending on our flawed selves or on God.  As we rely on God’s mercy (vs. 7) and remain pure in heart (vs. 8), we receive blessings. When we humbly depend on God we are blessed with receiving mercy and with insights into our Creator.  If we depend on our faulty selves, the outcome is never long-term joy.    

Fourth, we act.  When we face hardship by making peace with those who are worthy (Mt. 10:13), we are blessed as children of the Prince of Peace.  Matthew 5: 9-11 shows us consequences of our choices to act. 

Some of those consequences are difficult to accept.  We may be persecuted for righteousness’ sake, but be blessed with the kingdom of heaven.  At the time we are feeling cursed with hardship, praying to get out of suffering, God is blessing us with greater unity with Him and with a greater reward in heaven.  When we are the objects of ridicule, curses, persecution and false rumors, we are only following the footsteps of prophets before us. 

God’s word promises joy in the midst of sorrow.  God does not give us the short-lived, bubble of temporary happiness, a joy which depends on the event at hand.  We have the hope of heavenly peace and joy and power, here and hereafter.  Events—consequences of living live God’s way—may please us or test us and have us begging God for relief. 

However, heavenly joy is a divine blessing which cannot compare with earthly moods. Let us aim high and enjoy a divine high in the midst of earthly hardship.      

It’s no surprise that the OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide and Act—was first formulated in the Beatitudes. The first step, Observe, depends greatly on how honest we are with ourselves, and how alert we are to the world around us, as seen through the lens of truth:  God’s eyes.  Matthew 5:3-4 help us to observe and mourn our moral bankruptcy with promises of blessings and hope in heaven. 

Our ability to observe depends upon rooting out sin, keeping focus, and learning from God’s word. We need to see the world through God’s eyes in order to take the second step of this strategy: Orient

The race car driver orients him- or herself, taking continuous action into account, using information gained through study and observation to place the car in the right position for a win. Matthew 5: 5 and 6 detail the importance of this step in a spiritual win.

These verses speak about blessings for meekness (humility), and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  Humility is not being a doormat so others can victimize us.  We do have to realize that our sins–selfishness and greed and deadly mental games—are not things we can fix with our own will power.  We probably are so comfortable with them that we do not really want to fix them, only to make them more effective or workable.

With help from the Holy Spirit, we need to realize that “true goodness” requires a God fix.  Righteousness is not a set of rules, but a relationship with our Creator designed to give us “the kingdom of heaven.” 

Gradually we recognize that hungering and thirsting after righteousness brings us satisfaction that our own sinful messes cannot provide.  The sinful hunger is never satisfied, because we never have “enough” of what we want.     

Before we can be blessed in receiving salvation, we must come to the end of self, choosing to observe the needs of others and choosing to seek and find God’s goodness.  At that point we find satisfaction, guidance, love, peace and power, but not if we are “stuck in the loop.”   

Many Christians get stuck in the Orientation phase of spiritual life, perhaps implying salvation but denying them the blessedness of a fruitful, joyous victory over many evils of this world, including their own separation from Christ. 

They feel frustrated, angry, intimidated and impotent over the daily challenges posed by being in this world governed by the prince of the power of darkness.  Spiritual darkness works against them.  The Beatitudes show us that God’s design is for us to continue growing via obedience to His word and prayer.  God would have us take the next step in our warfare: to decide to do something.  Matthew 5: 7-10 detail steps we can take (to be continued).

God’s Spiritual Warfare and the Top Gun winning strategy against migs in Korea have much in common.  The Biblical strategy in Mathew 5: 3-10, known as the Beatitudes, is a real winner whether we apply it in warfare, business, education or family problem-solving.  If we use it within God’s will, God’s power guarantees a win.

It’s no surprise that the OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide and Act—was first formulated in the Beatitudes. Just how does this winning wartime strategy work?

Step one: O stands for Observe.  By God’s grace we can be sensitive to His leading and responsive to His knowledge.  How do we do that?  Second Timothy 2-7 suggests that we learn, teach others, avoid being entangled in civilian pursuits, keep focus on pleasing God, compete according to the rules of the game (sin will hinder our prayers and sidetrack us), and work hard like a farmer, planting, nurturing, then harvesting.  Our ability to observe depends upon rooting out sin, keeping focus, work and learning from God’s word.

Consider how important it is in a race to be aware of all the action in front and around us. In wartime, both artificial and human intelligence are essential for adequate observation.  People die for lack of knowledge, both in warfare and spiritually.  Thus, a race car driver, a war college, and an active (not passive) Christian all seek out information about the action around them, and it can be tricky to sort out truth from error. 

What do we need to know and be in order to discern truth in this corrupt world?  I suggest we need to know and be more skillful and alert in the world of the mind and spirit than in the concrete world.  We need to know Christ as the only way to Heaven.  We need to be constantly learning from God’s word, the Bible.  We need to be alert and receptive, through prayer and meditation, withdrawing ourselves from distractions as soldiers don’t become entangled in civilian affairs. Note that the Seven Deadly Sins (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins) are all sins of the mind.  Wikipedia states that the Seven Deadly Sins are a classification of objectionable vices that has been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct followers concerning fallen humanity’s tendency to sin. The currently recognized version of the list is usually given as wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony).  Those sins cloud our vision and ability to observe clear truths in front of us.

Truth, then, is essential in order to take the second step of this strategy: Orient.  Continued in part 2 of this post, coming soon..

This weekend was a mess with the 4-year-old being sick… he is sort of okay. He was really coughing up phlem last two nights, I didn’t get much sleep… and to top it all off, _______ and I broke up… AGAIN… yesterday afternoon. I think this is the final time. This time I told the boys –

My 6-year-old was devastated and broke down three times in the half hour between my house and his mother’s.  I told her in a text message so she would know what was up – just a complete worthless weekend.

I don’t know really what to say – after four or five times I just figured it best to at least let the kids know. It’s not any fun but they come first in my life and the sooner they get over it the better I think.  I didn’t want to do the same thing I had with my previous girlfriend – just telling them that she’s unavailable.

Oh well, I hope I didn’t scar my oldest for life.

I said,

These are teachable moments:  teach the boys that friends–much as we would like them to be for a lifetime–may self-select out of our circle because of their vastly different values, or by moving away, or having different interests as they grow up…along with examples of what those differences may be.  Ask the boys for reasons and examples to make it real for them, and keep it all interactive.  Use simple sentences, because what I’m telling you is concept-dense.

Everyone is free to make choices, which may be positive or negative in their impact on ourselves or others.

Pain is something God came to earth to heal, and it is caused by sin, a Bible word for selfishness and greed…pray with your eldest that

1. God will heal his hungry heart, and
2. that another person will come into your lives who has interest in you all and willingness to sacrifice time and effort for your benefit.
3. Help him to look for the blessings to come when you submit to God, who allows worldly pain for a purpose.

He is getting old enough to begin defining some important value-laden words such as selfishness (with Bible examples)…Better understanding will shed the light of Christ on that black hole of pain.

Use this format for definitions:  Selfishness is a type of __________ (you fill in the blank:  is it feelings?  attitude resulting in behavior?) with the following characteristics:

• the selfish person cannot see, admit the importance of  other people’s needs,
• a selfish person will not  act on behalf of other people’s needs,
• a selfish person will not consider their feelings, their health or safety, etc.

Print out these definitions and concepts to review with the boys within the next couple of days.  Read about and discuss Abraham’s selfish, fear-based lies re: his wife being his sister–which landed Sarah in painful trouble, and people had to get hurt in order for God to get her out–not to mention her emotional fears and pain.

Pain, then, can be the result of someone else’s sin. Make those connections for the boys: you are translating the world to them.  God’s word translates the world for us throughout our lives.

Pain in this life is the result of sin. Only Christ can heal the hungry heart with that peace that goes beyond our understanding.  God’s forgiveness is the model for our forgiveness.  His Holy Spirit gives us the power we need to be Christ-followers clear through.

Part of pain is the powerlessness of it. Get your children used to the idea that God is the one with the kind of power to heal and save.  We do our best and He does the rest.

Dropping pain at the foot of the cross lets it go with divine help:  use imagery for children by picking up the bag of garbage out of the kitchen and dropping it with them into the dumpster.  Then let them know that just like we are not going to pick up the garbage and bring it back into our lives, we are not going to pick up the polluted garbage of unforgiveness and self-inflicted pain back into our lives.

Use word pictures to explain abstract ideas.  Unforgiveness  festers like splinters not taken out.  Those splinters grow into vast, infected territories of unspoken but acted-out pain.  Satan gains a foothold in those toxic places of the soul.  Explain to the boys what a foothold is in war, and how hard it is to get rid of once an enemy is entrenched.

Toxic places of the soul include the anger we don’t know what to do with socially.  Anger management is an important skill to teach children.

Train them not to bag it up like dysfunctional parents may encourage–”Boys don’t cry” or “It’s nothing:  get over it”.  You’re training the boys in functional anger management.

It’s good to express our fears, frustration, pain and the resulting anger to God (the Psalmists even asked God to “get even” with evil-doers–those are called imprecatory psalms).  Vengence belongs to God–it is not our job to punish.  Our job is to practice clearing our hearts of unforgiveness often, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Searching the Bible for answers can’t start too early for those daily conflicts which can leave invisible, lifelong scars.  Further, if we do not defuse them, they build into pathology–great grief, mental illness, anxiety or worry.

In my experience, the habit of dealing with feelings via the Bible and via thinking compassionately (praying for our “enemies”) can only bring benefits by glorifying God and cleansing and maturing us.