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Raising Kids

Weep with Your Children Who Weep

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crying child by dj hansLast night was an all-time high for me. I was faced with a choice and I think I made the right one. We attempted to go to the movies on Valentines day. It was absolutely packed. We left. So, yesterday I told the boys I would take them to the movies, just them and Dad. It was going to be great. That is, until we got in the car and started to head north to Franklin and discovered the snow had started to stick and was making the roads very slippery. It was coming down torrentially (can snow come in torrents or is that just rain). I was sure it would be much worse in three hours when it came time to come home. So we just made the loop and went back home.

 

Ethan, who really wanted to see this movie, having already read the book, was crushed. Two days in a row of getting his hopes up and then getting them dashed at the last possible moment was just more than his ten-year-old psyche could handle. He started crying.

 

Now, my selfish, hardnosed self wanted to say, “Buck up. Don’t you realize this is small potatoes? Don’t you understand that we’ll see the movie later? Quit crying.” But God must have been doing for me what I can’t do for myself. In that moment, I remembered Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” It doesn’t say tell the weeping that what upsets them is unimportant. It doesn’t say simply try to cheer them up. It doesn’t say discount why they are weeping. It doesn’t say tell them to stop weeping or tell them to buck up. It says weep with those who weep. With that verse in mind I tried to understand what it must be like to have your heart set on something and two days in a row have it come crashing down. It may not be a big deal to me, but it is to him. I tried to think of some scenario in which I would be just as disappointed and sad. I can think of the time I was going to get to see all my friends from Beaumont after doing some preaching in Houston but a hurricane came through and we were all fleeing for our lives. I was extremely sad. I remember being crushed. It was nobody’s fault, that’s just the way it was, but I was so upset about it.

 

When we got home, I took Ethan to my room, sat in the lazyboy we have up there, and just held him as he cried. I’m very glad that my son feels safe enough with me to let his emotions show. I’m very glad that he was willing to let me hold him and console him. We were able to talk about how life is just disappointing sometimes and its okay to be sad. He then wanted to go see his mom and I let him.

 

That was a victory for me. I hope the next time one of my children cry, I can have the same Romans 12:15 mindset.

Growing Up: Part 3 (The Adult Stage)

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I recently read a very interesting book that provided an intriguing look at growing up, maturing (wait for it…wait for it… yes, here it is, an associate link: The Life Model: Living from the heart Jesus gave you). I’ve already looked at the infant stage and the child stage of maturity, today, we want to look at the adult stage (ages 13-birth of the first child).

 

The Adult Stage (13 to birth of first child)

The infant staged was marked by complete neediness. The infant neither knows what it needs or how to express its needs. Someone else has to provide for the baby’s needs. The infant moves into the childhood stage as he learns to take care of himself. The child learns how to express needs, wants and feelings. However, the only person the child is capable of caring for is self. “You will know when a person has graduated from the child level of maturity to the adult level because he will shift from a being a self-centered child to a both-centered adult. While a child needs to learn me-centered fairness (how do I make it fair for me), an adult learns we-centered fairness (how do I make it fair for us)” (pp. 21-22). If it seems that in any given relationship you have to give more, listen more, tolerate more to maintain the relationship then the other person is likely still in the child stage. By the same token, if  you spend most of your relationships complaining about how everyone else doesn’t seem to give you what you need, perhaps you are seeing a need to work on maturity in your own life. That is especially the case if you are complaining about your kids not giving enough. Sadly, in too many cases we have children in adult bodies, expecting adults in children’s bodies to provide their needs for them. That is dysfunction at its height. Yet, many of us are blinded to it because of our own immaturity.

 

There are 6 personal tasks each person must accomplish in the adult stage of maturity to move on to the next level:

  1. The adult learns to care for self and others simultaneously in mutually satisfying relationships.
  2. The adult learns to remain stable in difficult situations, and learns how to return self and others to joy.
  3. The adult learns to bond with peers and develops a group identity.
  4. The adult learns to take responsibility for how personal actions affect others, including protecting others from self.
  5. The adult learns to contribute to the community; learns how to articulate “who we are” as part of belonging to the community.
  6. The adult learns to express the characteristics of his or hear heart in a deepening personal style (p. 31).

 

The adult accomplishes these tasks as his or her family and community accomplishes the following tasks respectively:

  1. The family and community provides opportunities for the adult to participate in group life.
  2. The family and community affirms that the adult will make it through difficult times.
  3. The family and community provides positive environment where peers can bond.
  4. The family and community teaches adults that their behaviors impact others and impact history.
  5. The family and community provides opportunities to be involved in important community tasks.
  6. The family and community holds the adult accountable while still accepting and affirming the aspects of his or her true self (p. 31).

 

As you can see, adulthood is the time when we learn how to relate well to others. Adulthood is when we learn how to care for others as well as ourselves. As infants, we were dependent. As children, we learn independence. As adults, we learn interdependence. 

 

As a community or a family, we must learn to provide the opportunities for the adult to practice interdependence. I think this is a struggle for most North American communities because we prize independence so much. We think we are promoting maturity, when actually we are locking people into immaturity.

 

Stuck in Adulthood

If we do not learn these lessons of maturity, there are some pretty significant dysfunctions that develop in our lives. If we cannot accomplish the task of caring for others along with self, we remain self-centered. Other people will always be dissatisfied with us, they will be frustrated with us. Our relationships will never deepen. We’ll never be able to have truly mutually deep relationships. What an impact not learning these lessons will have in marriage. Do you think perhaps this is the reason the divorce rate is so high these days?

 

If we never learn to hang on to stability and return to joy despite what we face, we’ll learn instead to conform to peer pressures. We’ll rely on negative and destructive group activities. Is it any wonder that gangs become popular for young adults. They aren’t learning to have personal stability or to find stability from God, so they get involved in groups that seem to provide some kind of stability and identity. Of course, the other potential problem is not bonding with any group and becoming a loner, isolating, having a huge sense of self-importance. We’ll think we can handle everything on our own and cause damage in all our relationships.

 

If we cannot learn to take personal responsibility for our own actions and how our actions impact others, we can become controlling, manipulative, blaming, harmful. We crash through life without concern for who is in our path. This includes damage inflicted on spouses and even children, not to mention co-workers, neighbors, fellow church members. All we can think about is ourselves and what we aren’t getting. We will never stop to think what others are facing and how our actions impact them. We only think about how they impact us and we become users and manipulators.

 

If we cannot learn to contribute to the community, we become a drain on the community. There doesn’t seem to be much in between ground here. We are either uplifting or we are down-dragging. We are either adding life to our family and community or we are sucking life out of it.

 

Finally, if we cannot learn to express who we are and the God-given characteristics of our heart, we’ll never have the self-confidence to live the way God has designed us. Instead, we’ll constantly be trying to fill roles that others have developed for us. We’ll spin our wheels trying to prove ourselves to the world, to our peers, to the “judges” of our community. We will constantly hang on the approval of others and even become willing to sell out on our values to get it (p. 31).

 

If you are like me, you may have thought just getting to adulthood is good enough, learning the childhood lessons ought to be fine. However, if we wish to have personal fulfillment and be beneficial to our families and communities (neighborhood, church, work) we need to keep working on maturing.

 

The Spiritual Application For Individuals

We’re not done growing. We’ve learned what we need as Christians. We’ve learned how to express our needs. We’ve learned how we fit in the big picture of Christianity, our congregation, our community. We’ve even learned to take care of ourselves. But God didn’t save us through Jesus so we could take care of ourselves. God saved us so we could be a blessing to others. God saved us so we can learn to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). 

 

This is where our faith really gets tested. During infancy and childhood, we may think there aren’t any problems out there in the Christian world. We may develop idealistic notions that as long as we do what is right, everything will just work out. But that is not how it works. Satan attacks. Others falter. Personalities clash. Immaturity causes dysfunction. We continue to struggle with issues we think should have been overcome early on. We can become disillusioned with Christ and His church and even our own growth. We need to learn that daily problems doesn’t mean something is wrong. It just means we are growing. We are in a process. Things will work out. That is the promise God is explaining in Romans 8:28-30. We need to learn confidence in God that He is working on our behalf. That will help us have stability and continued growth.

 

We need to learn to overcome isolation. That is going to mean sharing our secrets with other Christians (James 5:16). That’s going to mean spending time with our brethren even when the church hasn’t planned something. Did you notice that the very first Christians didn’t just meet in congregational assemblies, they also met from house to house (Acts 2:46). That wasn’t a church planned activity. Those were individual Christians opening their homes and developing relationships instead of isolating on their own.

 

We have to learn to contribute to the church community. This is so much more than learning to lead a public prayer or teach a Bible class. Look at the example of Tabitha in Acts 9:36-43. Here was a woman, probably single, perhaps a widow. Did she wait for the church to ask her to participate in some congregationally planned service activity? No. She saw a need and she filled it. She made garments for those in need. She didn’t do everything, but she did what she could. She didn’t serve everyone, but she served who she could. She didn’t wait to be asked. She just served. She contributed. What I can’t help but notice is that James, an apostle, was killed in Acts 12. The disciples mourned and buried him. Stephen, an evangelist and a deacon (I believe), was killed in Acts 7. The disciples mourned and buried him. Tabitha, who held no office and wasn’t seemingly a “major player” in the church, dies and the disciples call in Peter and say, “Something has to be done about this.” The others were laid to rest and Tabitha was brought back to keep on serving. Perhaps this tells us how important this part of our maturity really is.

 

Don’t give up. Keep on growing spiritually.

 

The Spiritual Application for Congregations

We might think if Christians grow through infancy and then make it through spiritual childhood, they’re good. We can leave them on their own to progress. Not so. Certainly, as adults, they are responsible for their maturity. However, as a church we need to help them mature. We need to provide the opportunities they need to progress in spiritual adulthood, or they’ll get locked into spiritual adolescence. Sadly, I think numerous churches suffer because they are filled with a lot of Christians who never get passed spiritual puberty. They’re locked in the awkward stage of gaining independence but not knowing how to deal with interpersonal relationships. They never learn how to be a productive part of the church family. They can answer the doctrinal questions right. They can challenge error. They can even sometimes think for themselves and see where we need to make changes. However, they don’t know how to express that. They don’t understand how their inappropriate expressions destroy relationships. We need to help with that.

 

What are we doing for the growing Christians to be part of the group life? Don’t just think in terms of the assemblies. Sadly, as I pointed out in the last stage, we often do great and having training classes on how to lead public prayers and give talks. But what about being really involved in the community of the congregation. What are we doing to help these growing Christians be a contributing factor in the lives of the other saints around them? Are we teaching them how to encourage others? What about hospital visits? Visiting the shut-ins? What about teaching them to contribute to the secular community? Sadly, most churches today are taking the easy road. Instead of teaching the growing Christians to provide contribution to the world around them, they just take up a weekly collection and then let the church contribute to the secular community. I don’t believe that is the church’s job. The church needs to teach growing Christians how to contribute to the society around them.

 

What are we doing to encourage growing Christians to develop community with other growing Christians? Do we do much more than our assemblies? The question is not of churches providing social time for the members. The point is for more mature Christians to take less mature Christians under their wings and bring them into relationships with others. The problem is all too often we don’t have the more mature Christians. We just have a bunch of adolescent Christians clamoring for someone else to do something and provide something for them. We don’t have to get involved in unscriptural activities for the local church in order to accomplish this. We simply have to step outside our “we’ve never done anything like that” box and creatively consider scriptural options to get growing Christians together.

 

Finally, what are we doing to help growing Christians really see how their unique gifts can benefit the congregation and benefit the kingdom? Too often we simply preach guilt building lessons that make people feel bad because they are doing some thing or the other. What if instead we spent that time to find what people are gifted for and encourage them in those areas? What if instead of sweeping with broad brushes and expecting everyone to be Stepford Christians, we learn to accept folks as individuals with quirks and struggles, but with gifts and talents and learn to help them capitalize on their strengths instead of feeling guilty for their weaknesses?

 

Do you think we and our brethren would grow if we took this approach? Do you think churches would grow if they took this approach?

 

Discussion

 

Tell me what you think. Does this sound a like a legitimate step of maturity? How do you think we can unstick ourselves if we are stuck in this level? Do we need to be concerned about it at all?

Play with Your Kids While There’s Still Snow

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snowball fightI almost made a huge mistake last night. 

Supper was just about finished. I was tired. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I definitely didn’t feel like getting out in the cold or cleaning up the mess if the kids got out. A friend called and said, “Have you looked outside?” I was stunned. Seemingly out of nowhere snow was falling the size of quarters and half-dollars and it was sticking. Already, there was a layer of snow worthy of operation snowball.

Then came the near fatal mistake. I almost said, “This will be great to play in tomorrow. Let’s eat and then get going to bed. You’ll have fun tomorrow.” But something caught and I decided to let the kids have their fun. I told them they could go play and simply reheat their dinner when they were ready to eat. After I ate my dinner, Trina (the two-year-old) asked if she could go outside. My initial thought was, “No, that will mean I have to go outside too.” However, I was out of town last week and thought some impromptu play time with the kids would be good. We had a terrific snowball fight. Tessa and Ethan took on Ryan and me. Of course, we trounced them, though Ethan and Tessa did get a few good shots in.

Why would putting off the fun until today have been a fatal mistake? I was certain there would be time to play today in the snow. Usually it gets colder over night. Yet, when we woke up this morning, there was only the slightest hint that it had snowed. If I had pushed it off until today, we wouldn’t have been able to play in that snow at all.

Here’s the lesson. If there’s snow right now, go play in it with your kids. You just never know what tomorrow will bring. Putting that time off until tomorrow may mean you miss out on it completely.

Of course, I hope you understand this isn’t just about playing in the snow. (By the way, can you hear the strains of “Cat’s in the Cradle” playing in the background?)

Maybe it will snow enough today that I’ll get to play with my kids again when I get home tonight. I hope so.

Have a great day and even if it isn’t snowing where you are, do something with your kids today. You may not have the opportunity tomorrow.

Find Out What’s Really Going On Before You Discipline Your Kids

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kid in corner by Ken WilcoxI had another great reminder the other day that my initial reaction to a situation may not be the right one. I need to press a pause button before I simply lay into one of my kids with a disciplinary measure.

 

Marita was rightly upset with Ethan. He had been disrespectful and disobedient. I was at the office when all this took place, but if I understand it correctly, Marita was in a hurry to gather the kids together to get to a doctor’s appointment for Tessa. They had all gone to what we call “book club.” It’s a homeschool group we’re part of in which the kids of different ages get to read books together and do different learning projects based on the books. Two of our neighbors host it. Marita, Tessa, and Ethan were at one house, Ryan was at the neighbor’s house.

 

When it came time to go, they were leaving early, Marita sent Ethan to get Ryan from the other house. Ethan pitched a fit, acted rebelliously, caused a scene, and had various other problems. Let’s face it, I don’t care what the reason is behind this, this behavior is wrong. Discipline needs to take place. My problem is I often simply jump to the discipline without trying to figure out what is really going on. Because I don’t figure out what is really going on, the discipline doesn’t actually work. It just produces bitterness.

 

I guess on this day, God was doing for me what I can’t do for myself. When Marita told me what happened and asked me to deal with Ethan, instead of getting wrapped up in embarrassment that he had this scene in front of other people, I stepped back and wondered why my normally obedient son pitched this major fit. So, before disciplining I asked him, “What was that about? Why did you do that?”

 

The reason is he knew they were in a hurry and he had wanted to drop by our house to get a book to take with them to the doctor so he wouldn’t be bored. He thought if he took the time to go get Ryan, he wouldn’t have time to go to the house. So, he was afraid and angry. He expressed that fear and anger with a fit.

 

Please understand this. I’m not going all Dr. Spock on you. We don’t need to look at this situation and say, “Oh, Ethan was just expressing himself. That’s okay.” He was expressing himself incorrectly and inappropriately and that cannot be allowed to continue. However, if all I had done was say, “You’re not allowed to act like that,” and spanked or grounded him, we wouldn’t have actually dealt with the real issue. The real issue is he had some fear and some anger and he needed to learn how to express that. Even more so, he had a desire that he needed to learn how to express. If I had simply disciplined him for the improper behavior, all he would have learned is, “I don’t get to want things. I don’t get to tell people what I want or need. I’m not ever allowed to be upset about something. What’s going on inside me is wrong, bad, and unimportant.” In my experience, these are dangerous lessons to learn. 

 

Instead, we were able to discuss the appropriate ways to talk to his mom (or me) about his needs and desires. We were able to discuss the appropriate ways to share what his fears and angers are. We have a plan in our family to deal with this event and Ethan had forgotten it. If we ever ask our children to do something and they believe they are aware of something we aren’t or they have an idea that might be different they are allowed to respectfully say, “May I please make an appeal?” 

 

So, in this situation it would have sounded something like this:

 

Marita says, “It’s time to go. We’re in a hurry. Ethan, run up to the neighbor’s house and get Ryan.”

 

Ethan is upset because he thinks this means he won’t be able to get his book out of the house before they leave, so he’ll be bored, stuck in the doctor’s office with nothing to do. He responds, “Mom, I’d be happy to do that, but can I please make an appeal?”

 

“What is it, Ethan?”

 

“I really don’t want to be bored at the doctor so I wanted to get my book from home. Can I please run to the house and get my book and let Tessa go get Ryan?”

 

To which Marita would have responded, “Don’t worry, Ethan. Go get Ryan, we’re all going to stop at the house before we leave.”

 

Of course, Ethan is 10. The conversation wouldn’t have been perfectly like that and I don’t expect him to memorize a catechism of proper responses to his parents. But it would have been a whole lot better than slamming doors, kicking things, yelling, and making a scene. 

 

So, I was able to spend a few minutes with Ethan talking about how to respond in that kind of situation. I was able to talk to him about how to let his wants be known by talking about them instead of expressing them through manipulative displays of frustrated emotion. We were also able to talk about the fact that sometimes things don’t work out the way we want. It’s okay to be disappointed and upset, but it is not appropriate to take that out on people by rebellion, meanness, antagonism. He might make the appeal and Marita end up saying, “No.” In those moments, he needs to learn to express his emotion in productive, not destructive, ways. 

 

This whole situation reminded me that before I simply respond to an action with a discipline. I need to back up and find out what is really going on. Otherwise, the discipline isn’t going to do any good. I did well that day. I’ve blown it multiple times since then. Today, I plan to be on top of my game. We’ll see.

I Have to Bear Their Burdens; No I Don’t (Galatians 6:2, 5)

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CodependenceI find it easy to obsess about other people, especially my family members. When I say I obsess, I mean it is easy to obsess over their mistakes, their problems, their struggles. It is even easy for me to obsess over their potential mistakes. I want to figure out how I can behave to keep them from making mistakes or to keep them from enduring major consequences of their mistakes. I get enmeshed offering unsolicited advice, working behind the scenes to get others to act in a way that produces the results I think are best, trying to control whatever I think I can to make things in their life go the way I want them to, measuring every word carefully to manipulate them to do what I think is best. 

 

Please understand, this is not about me getting what I want. I can assure you. I really think I have their best interests at heart. I want what is best for them. Of course, oddly enough, usually what is best for them is pretty good for me too. That is probably a different discussion. I simply want you to understand that this is all out of love. I love my kids and my wife. I don’t want them to suffer because of mistakes. Sometimes, I convince myself that if I were to behave just right, I can keep them from ever making any and, therefore, they’ll never have to suffer any pain.

 

This can especially happen with my spouse or my children.  No matter how much stress it adds to my life, I take great pains to try to control and manipulate circumstances, other people, and them to accomplish what I think is best for them. (Oddly enough, I’ve noticed that this mindset actually makes it very easy for others to manipulate me as well, as they play into my desire to have everything be a certain way.) I have a verse that tells me to do that. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). It’s my job to bear their burdens. They make mistakes and I have to be involved. Or, I tell myself, if I’m not involved they’ll make mistakes. I have to keep them from that. Oh yes, it’s a burden for me. But God says I have to do it. Aren’t I such a wonderfully spiritual person, willing to bear all these burdens that everyone else in my family has?

 

But wait, what about Galatians 6:5? “For each will have to bear his own load.” What about that verse? What is going on here. Paul says we should bear the loads of others, but then says we each must bear our own. How can he say both? 

 

I’m not a great language scholar. I’ve read the attempts of some to explain how these two verses are talking about different things, two different kinds of burdens because the words translated “burden” and “load” are different. Perhaps they are, but even after reading the different definitions and the explanations, I have trouble seeing that difference. Instead, I think this is one of those paradoxes that Paul likes to use. He tells us two things that seem to be completely opposite and yet both are true. Believing both and using them to guide us helps us understand how we should live.

 

When my kids or spouse are struggling under a load, should I be there to help them lift it? Sure. But is it my load? No, it isn’t. Sadly, I like to live in extremes. I either want to ignore everyone completely and tell them to go worry about everything themselves, I have no responsibility here, it’s not my burden (I like to minimize this by calling it tough love). Or, I’ll live as if their problem is mine and I absolutely have to fix it or the world and our relationship will collapse, not to mention everyone else will look down on me because someone connected to me is less than perfect (this is what we call enmeshment and codependence). Instead of living in these extremes with my family (or anyone else for that matter), I need to learn to live with Paul’s two concepts in my head, heart, and hands. Should I be a servant to others? Absolutely. Should I let myself be crushed under the weight of everyone else’s burdens? Absolutely not.

 

When my daughter has trouble with her friends, should I come alongside as a loving parent, guiding her in how to properly relate to friends? Should I listen as she bears her soul and expresses her feelings? Of course I should do these things. However, should I make her problems mine, living in fear that her friends’ parents aren’t going to like me because she’s having trouble with her friends? Should I go behind the scenes to talk to her friends myself and try to fix the relationship? Should I call up her friends’ parents and try to get them to fix their daughters so my daughter can have a good relationship? Not likely. That’s her relationship, not mine. That’s her burden, not mine. (Yes, I understand in dealing with young children like mine there is a place for parents to get together, but it should be to help the children learn how to work things out, not to fix the kids and definitely not to fix someone else’s kids.) You know, to be honest, I have enough burdens of my own to be heaping the guilt and shame of everyone else’s burdens on there too.

 

I could give example after example of this. What I learn is that I should be there to help lift up my family when they have burdens. But their burdens are not mine. I don’t have to live like they are. I don’t have to live in fear that I’m bad because they have burdens. I don’t have to bear the guilt of their mistakes. I don’t have to rush around trying to cover up their mistakes or remove the consequences of them. I don’t have to be the image consultant to make sure they look good, so I’ll continue to look good. I don’t have to beat myself up trying to be perfect so they’ll be perfect to because of me. I’ll be there to help where I can help, but those are their burdens and we each have to carry our own load.

4 Keys to Help Your Kids Feel Special

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I spend most of my time afraid I’m warping my kids for life. Most of the folks around me fear the same thing. However, every once in a while, I see a glimmer of hope. Maybe I’m not doing absolutely everything wrong.

Ethan, our 10 year old, is one of the most creative people I know. He writes stories and makes up games. He’s been doing this for years. It has just been natural to recognize this creativity. A few months ago, Marita and I talked about it and decided to be purposeful about commenting on this unique gift he has and prompting him to nurture it through practice and work. When we have our family meetings or when we are just talking with him, we’ve looked for opportunities to praise and encourage his creativity. 

Two things have happened in the past week that helped me see this is working.

1) We were playing Apples to Apples (yes, that is an affiliate link, hey, I’ve got to make a living somehow, right?) Each player is given 7 red cards with different nouns on them (e.g. the 1970s, Martin Luther King Jr., my family, gorillas). A green card is turned over with some kind of adjective on it (e.g. playful, wicked, hot, delicious). Each player submits a green card with what they think most closely links to the target adjective. The judge for the round picks out the one he/she thinks most closely fits the target word. 

Anyway, the target adjective was “Creative” and Ethan quietly said to me, “If one of my green cards said ‘Me’ on it, I’d play that one.” Yes! My son believes he is creative. 

2) The other day Ethan and I were talking in the kitchen. I think I was doing the dishes. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but it had something to do with some creative thing he had done. I commented on his creativity. He said, “You know, Dad, it makes me feel special when someone talks about me being creative.” Yes! My son feels special.

This really all happened quite by accident. Here we are fumbling and stumbling our way through this parenting thing and we hit on a success. I shared these stories with Marita the other day in our family meeting time (before meeting with the kids) and talked about how we are doing a good job with Ethan on this, but perhaps not as good with the others. Now we need to start paying more attention to the others and find the unique gifts and talents they have to help them feel special as well.

Here are 4 Keys I learned about helping your kids feel special from this.

  1. Observe them closely and discover their God-given uniqueness.
  2. Ask them what makes them feel special
  3. Comment on it, praise it, encourage it frequently
  4. Give your kids lots of smiles and hugs as you do the rest of this.

By the way, what makes you feel special?