Why Won’t My Kids Listen?

Spoiler alert: you don’t (and they won’t). Wait wait wait, please keep reading, I promise there’s something useful here! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a ton of times: it takes a village. My friends and neighbors and small group and Mothers Ministry are my village, and someone from each one of those groups has either parented their children or somehow given me a tidbit of wisdom in PRACTICAL real-time situations that stuck with me. What I mean is, I read tons of blogs and books and listened to tons of podcasts on parenting, but there’s just something about seeing a mom interact with her five-year-old who is having a colossal meltdown in front of you that makes it stick with you more than all the best blog posts in the world.

Read on, and don’t forget to comment at the end if you have something that’s been particularly helpful in your season. Share so we can all benefit (myself included)!

Yep, that’s right. I’d like to say it’s always been the plan, but back in December my husband and I decided it was probably a lot less chaotic to send our oldest to brick and mortar traditional kindergarten. So we enrolled her in Pre-K in January, and she did great for 8 weeks! Then COVID shut everything down. And well, now here we are.

If you know me IRL, you know I was (ahem, am) a strong-willed daughter. So it seems only fair, then, that I’ve got not one, but two, of my own! I read this post recently, and it just resonated with me so much, I wanted to share it with you here, too.

Christmas is almost literally right around the corner. I say this with joy and excitement because I LOVE this time of year. I love giving gifts, I love shopping for the right gift, and I enjoy the expectant excitement of the preparation of the season.  I love celebrating Jesus’ birth and the season of Advent is even more fun with little children. Their excitement and innocence is yet untainted by the commercialism of our culture.