Staying Inspired, Effortless Success by Michael Neil

Sometimes as parents I feel like we get stuck in the day to day hamster wheel and after a while the joyful life seems to turn into a life of drudgery. Too keep myself inspired and help myself move forward as a person one of my many solutions is self-help, self-improvement or inspirational books. During any given month you'll find me listening on and off to some random audio book and sometimes YouTube videos (particularly ET's TGIM series). While improving my parenting and home making skills is not my goal in this, I find them deeply intertwined. As we learn to create our own successful lives, we can better help our children become their own unique brand of successful.

At the moment I'm listening to Effortless Success by Michael Neill courtesy of the amazing King County online library. I love it because it's easy to listen to in bits and pieces, a baby feeding here, a flossing my teeth there. It doesn't require a pen an pencil to jot down your current plan to change you life in 3 minutes, and I typically walk away with one or two interesting thoughts that I can share with my husband or chew on for a couple of hours or a couple of days.

The current thought I've been digesting is "What do you want? No. What do you really want?" This is a difficult question for me to answer because I'm not a particularly driven, passionate, this is my destiny I'm going to change the world type of person. I don't have an "I was born to do this."

After much thought I've decided there are a couple of things that I really, really want. I want to live my beliefs. I want raise a wonderful family. And I want to express myself as the creative, artistic person that I am. Nothing brilliant or earth shattering, but right now this what make me whole and complete.

This caused me to reflect on the thought that a woman's (or a man's :) song has many verses, and we are not intended to sing them all at once. Success seems to be less of an end goal and more of an constantly evolving, never perfect juggle where our physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual needs are mostly met. Sometimes one takes preeminence, sometimes one takes a backseat for a while, but none are denied. Yes I would like more sleep. No I don't get to be an artist nearly as much as I would like. But I've come to the conclusion that if you ask me "Are you living a successful life?" my answer is yes and I thank God daily for the ability to live such a life.

Confident Parents Remarkable Kids by Bonnie Harris M.S.Ed.

I recently started reading the book Confident Parents Remarkable Kids by Bonnie Harris M.S.Ed. Based on just the introduction and the first chapter it seems ok and has some good ideas.

There are two things that keep this book being amazing. First, I have to figure out what she's trying to convey instead of it being completely clear. For example she mentions several times that punishments are an inappropriate way of dealing with misbehavior but there should still be good discipline. The key to this is understanding that your children want to be "successful" and be good people and treat them that way. Ummm . . . so what you mean is that you treat them like they are essentially good kids trying as hard as they can, and although there should be consequences for bad behavior, your first step should be to try to discover how their situation is causing them to act out of character but you should never punish them. . . .

I agree with their desire to do good and inappropriate punishment having negative results, I do. But here's my second issue with her book: I think there's nothing wrong when kids sometimes act out of a desire to achieve rewards or avoid negative consequences. (Dallin H. Oaks explained motivations well in his article "Why do we serve?") I believe that our primary motivating factor should be love. Our children should treat their siblings kindly because they care about one another. They should study because they enjoy learning and growing. They should take care of their rooms and toys because they appreciate them and love their home. However, this perspective is a challenge for most full grown adults. This is the ideal. There's nothing wrong with using other motivating factors as we work towards the ideal.

Desire for reward, social approval, and avoiding punishment are arguably the most self centered reasons and not what we want our kids to ultimately seek, but they're kids. They're learning. At birth they are naturally completely self-centered. Babies don't even understand that there are persons besides themselves. So my toddler can choose between walking into the house or being carried into the house, and she'll often choose walking for perfectly selfish reasons. I'm ok with that. As they get older we encourage them to move towards better motivators such as a sense of duty, loyalty, and to obtain long term goals and benefits. We do chores because being part of a family means having responsibilities. We're not going to spend money on fancy shoes because we want to go to Disney Land next year. And woven throughout all of that is the message that because of love we want what's best for you and what's best for our family. Love motivates us to do what's best and what's right. But if in the not to distant future Hana 's chooses to sit in her chair because otherwise Daddy will pin her to the chair, well, that's life.

Simplicity Parenting Applied, Part 3: The Rhythm of Routine

In my mind routines and schedules have often meant a twisted combination of boring predictability and uncomfortable constraint. Simplicity Parenting has changed my perspective. I loved Dr. Payne's description of life as a tune with the rhythm of routine and the  melody of schedule being played out in infinite variations. Without the background melody the symphony of life tends to descend into cacophony. A beautiful metaphor, but when it came to application I found myself struggling. We have routines, we do, but there was (and still is) room for improvement. So I do what I do when faced with any problem requiring pondering. I pulled out a post it note (or several notes), made a list, and tweaked it over a period of almost a month. I confess I'm still tweaking, but I doubt a polished, finished schedule and routine list is what Dr. Payne had in mind anyway.

Rhythms for infants and young children are like magic. The first time my daughter smiled was actually during her bedtime routine. It felt like she "got it" and was thrilled to know what was happening. (She wasn't much for smiles when she was an infant so this was a BIG deal.) When there's a routine you don't have to explain everything anew, "going through the motions" requires less energy, and shifting gears moves more smoothly. Almost like driving. In the beginning there seem to be a million different things to keep track of and then after a while you begin to do things automatically.

First there's the day. What happens when we wake up? What happens after breakfast? When we walk out the door? What happens before we take a nap? If it's repeated it can become more rhythmic. My goal is consistency. Now after breakfast there's a potty break, teeth brushing, hair tying, a 5 minute clean up, and book reading. Hana argues less about brushing her teeth and even 5 month old Branden understands that he's going to be playing in his rocker for a set amount of time.

Next there's the week. My goal was to distinguish each day from the next. Of course the kids don't have the days sorted out in their heads, but when I say Tuesday Hana says story time. That makes Tuesday Tuesday. We're still learning the other days. Sunday is church. Monday is Walker Family Home Evening. Wednesday Mommy has Tai Chi. Thursday brings the garbage truck. Friday is Zumba (sometimes). Saturday is pancakes (also sometimes). Our very imperfect song of the week is starting to come together. It's strangely comforting. Predictable.

Then there's the months and seasons. I'm still working on extending rhythm concept throughout the year with traditions for holidays, birthdays, and changes in seasons. I think the most memorable, favorite aspects of holidays are the ones lived over and over and over. Carving pumpkins. Hanging ornaments on the tree. Coloring rocks at the start of spring. Barbeques on the Fourth of July. Beautiful. (Btw, Meg Cox wrote a wonderful book on this entitled The Book of New Family Traditions.)

There are of course exceptions, changes, and unplanned spit-ups, but with a little bit of transparency and flexibility we seem to able to jump most of the hurdles with ease and often a smile. Dr. Payne emphasized the need to help children create visual images of what will happen and this is definitely essential for young children.

There also needs to be balance. Moments of release to talk, play, and relax. Calm days to detox after busy ones. The messiness of free play along side the order of organized activities. With all of the emphasis on organized athletics at younger and younger ages I thought Dr. Payne gave a timely reminder. He stated that the "messiness of free play, with its many changes and possibilities mirrors life and builds an inner flexibility." Truly in life there are no referees, team uniforms, and clear cut rules of play. There are few things that can better prepare us for the game of life than the spur of the moment, made up children's games.

Having a "melody" for the family protects the family. Routines and rituals help us bounce back more quickly from life's unexpected storms. Traditions tie us together. Weekly patterns help us recognize more quickly what stresses threaten to overwhelm us. Having a plan helps us cope with the unplanned. I've come to realize that far from restraining us routines and rhythms seem to loosen the stress that often ties us down, provide comfort, and give us the predictability necessary to enjoy the new and unexpected.