Guest Speaker Summary

If you missed GUM yesterday, you missed a great time! Careth T. came and spoke to us about parenting and discipline and a whole lot rolled into one.

I personally came away refreshed and with a new sense of purpose for my parenting. Here's the things that stuck out to me:

Be a Parenting Unit!
You and your spouse are in this together. Get on the same page. Whether it takes one discussion or a whole parenting weekend - take the time, and figure out where your coming from and where your going. What do you want your children's character to look like when they are teenagers and adults?

Build a Discipline Toolbox!
Our boxes might look different, but there should be a few different consequences used for discipline. Natural consequences is one that's been in my toolbox, but I forget to use. So I'll be working on honing that skill - or I'll be calling Tim or Christy (Careth's husband and sister - Natural Consequence Thinkers Supreme!) every couple days!

Be consistent! If you say it, enforce it. Period.
Do not undermine your spouse's authority by intervening during discipline.

Evaluate each child! and discipline accordingly.

Pick your battles, based on what's really important for building charachter. Fighting over shoes or mis-matched clothes at two is likely not the battle to choose. Uh-oh. I'm sorry you all had to hear that one too, I'm pretty sure it was meant just for me. Maybe not, but I certainly heard it loud and clear.

Careth also pointed us towards Dr. Kevin Lehman in conjunction with Focus on the Family, here's some things I've been looking at following this morning.

Successfully Handle Behavior Problems This series is a review of Dr. Kevin Lehman's work by Shauna Schutte and includes 4 follow up articles on Behavior and Strategies for different age groups. (Extra: more potty training tips in the follow-up articles!!)

Focus on the Family: Effective Biblical Discipline This page is a wealth of knowledge. Creative Disciplining Ideas, Approaches to Discipline, the Strong-Willed Child and more. If you need me, I'll be camped out here for the next week or so!

Parenting Adult Children And not to leave you mentor moms out - here's some articles for parents of adult children - Lord, help me make it here one day!!

We hope to have Careth back for some follow-up Q&A time soon!