Merry Christmas
By mstrohm | December 24, 2007
May God’s love, so powerfully shown to us through sending His son to earth, be made real to you and your family this Christmas.
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| 
Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark | No Comments »
Protect Your Children From Porn
By mstrohm | December 21, 2007
CBN recently published an excellent article on protecting your children from Porn. I highly recommend you read the article. The article both warns you where to look for porn and gives steps to take to protect your children.
http://www.cbn.com/family/parenting/PornLookout.aspx
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Mark | 1 Comment »
Encourage Your Child To Reach For Great Hights
By mstrohm | November 24, 2007
My father loved baseball and due to complaining about a lack of something to do, at age nine I was required to play little league. Three years later I found myself on a competitive team with a coach who had something to prove. This coach yelled and belittled his players. For example, speaking so those of us on the bench could hear him he would mock the child who was up to bat.
That team made the playoffs but due to a family obligation I missed the first practice. Fearing certain ridicule I begged my father not to play anymore. My father agreed. Without my efforts the team went on to win the playoffs. A few weeks later that coach came to my home to pick up my uniform. He carried a small trophy given to each boy on the championship team. This coach handed me the trophy and thanked me for not coming to the playoff games. He clearly indicated that because I did not show up I allowed the best players to stay in the game and I helped win the trophy. He smiled and told me I deserved the trophy! I was so shocked and hurt it took me years to tell my parents what this coach had told me.
As a freshmen in high school I wanted to play a sport. When our school district put in new tennis courts I found myself playing with neighbors and developing an interest in tennis. So I decided to go out for tennis. Fortunately for me there was a shortage of students wanting to play tennis so a caring coach decided to take a chance on a skinny freshman. She told me which racket to buy and took me aside from the rest of the group and encouraged and taught me the basics of tennis. For weeks the tennis team practiced together but I was relegated to a side court or in the gym working on exercises and drills. Those first few games were ugly and leading me to doubt if I should have ever tried to take up a game as a high school freshman. Yet this special coach gave encouragement and stood behind me. By sophomore year I was JV first singles. To this day I have a love for and still play tennis.
Each of these coaches had a significant impact on my life. One discouraged and took away my love for baseball. Another encouraged and inspired me to reach unexpected heights.
As you come into contact with your children each day, I pray you will be an inspiration. May God bless you and use you to encourage and show love.
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark Strohm, Jr.
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, Parenting | No Comments »
Parenting Isn’t For Cowards
By mstrohm | November 4, 2007
As a school principal, I meet with parents weekly who talk to me about their difficulties in parenting. Boys getting into punching matches while dad is away on business, girls sneaking online to post swear words on their friend’s sites, children stealing items from stores, and the list goes on. I listen to parents of elementary schoolers who are ready to give up! Don’t ever give up on your child.
Truly, parenting is not for cowards! Children are a blessing, but that blessing is at times marred by the sin nature. Here is the advice I give to parents who are going through a difficult time due to a child’s poor choices:
1. Decide that you ARE a key to helping and training your child to make good choices. When a parent tells me “If only I could help” I realize that they are disconnected from the fact that parents are meant to disciple and protect their child. If your child was outside in a raging thunderstorm you would not say “If only I could help,” rather you would get them inside where it is safe.
2. Spend time with your child and clearly tell them what you expect. Talk to your child about God’s laws and why we need to follow them. God gave us His laws because He is a loving God and wants what is best for us. Tell your child that when he cannot make good choices you need to step in and help him avoid situations where he is tempted. The more he makes good choices, the more freedom he will receive.
3. Avoid any conversation about your being offended or personally hurt. If you are hurt, talk to God about it. Their actions are not about you or your reputation.
4. Don’t spend time blaming yourself for your child’s poor decision. Instead, examine what factors contributed to this poor decision. Was it: Failure to adequately address previous fighting? Unmonitored and unfiltered internet access? Shopping with an acquaintance who shoplifts? Whatever contributed to the problem - fix what you can!
Note: If your child was given an opportunity to make a wrong choice due to a poor choice on your part, then apologize to your child and to God and ask God for His grace.
5. Remind your child of God’s love. Nothing he can do can interfere with the love of God (and hopefully your love as well.) Remind him that every wrong action one does is actually done against God. Do not sidestep the importance of being broken before God. However, if your child appears to be broken before God, do not fail to protect and limit their ability to make wrong choices.
6. Do not allow arguing or excessive explanations. Help them understand why they are being punished, but don’t expect them to be happy about it. Remember, consequences will be a deterrent to future wrong choices.
As a parent, there are times your child’s actions will bring joy and sometimes they will bring difficulties you would rather forget! Remember, your parents went through the same trials and joys. May God use you in mighty ways during those difficult times! (Did I say don’t ever give up?)
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark, Parenting | 2 Comments »
School and Routines
By mstrohm | October 2, 2007
In counseling with parents whose families are suffering from lack of routines, I have observed that they often believe the circumstances that lead to the chaos are outside of their control. While life’s circumstances occasionally force us to put aside routines for a time, typically those circumstances are temporary. It is often within our power to make changes which will lead to less chaos. Here is how to start on the path to better routines and less chaos.
First, remember that effective routines are made up of smaller steps or decisions. Your family is not late to church because the kids did not get into the car in time. Getting upset that your children did not get in the car 30 minutes before church is silly if they were not set up to succeed. Examine what went wrong beginning the night before! Were expectations set? Were clothes set out? Were alarms set? Did everyone know their bathroom time? OK, you get the point.
Second, give yourself plenty of time to succeed. Will the routine take 30 minutes? Then don’t wait until just 30 minutes before the deadline to begin. Years ago I knew a teacher who was late for school at least once a week. She always had a “valid” excuse. “Would you believe all 4 lights were red this morning?” “I had to stop for gas this morning.” “The dog ran out to chase the neighbor cat and would not come back for several minutes.” Actually, had this teacher left 10 minutes earlier each day she would not have been late due to any of these delays.
Examine each routine you would like to establish, list all the small actions needed and plan for enough time to allow for success. Make sure your children know what you want and how each child can help keep the routine. Plan in a small reward when routines are accomplished. We allowed our children 30 minutes of reading in bed if they “brushed and flushed” and were in their night clothes by a set time. It was a daily, instant reward!
Honestly, routines come more easily for some families, and for others establishing routines will be a lifelong struggle. If you struggle, don’t be discouraged. Remember that the rewards of routines are worth the fight.
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark, Parenting | No Comments »
Non Punitive Parenting?
By mstrohm | September 8, 2007
I have noticed a rise in websites and discussion groups where it appears young parents are proclaiming they have come up with a superior way of raising their children. The difference between this group and a very similar group from the 60’s - this group is using a few Scriptures and the “grace” theology as the justification for their “superior” parenting style. What is their superior parenting? Something called Non-Punitive Parenting. No scolding, no punishments and definitely no spanking. From what I can gather these parenting techniques are taken from a “grace theology” though each person who contributes to these sites has their own twist.
As with many partial truths, this tends to be tricky to refute since part of what is being said is true. The problem with pointing out concerns with a partial truth argument is that those holding this view will acuse you of rejecting truth. Any show of concern brings an accusation of rejecting all of the argument - in this case rejecting the need to display “grace” in parenting. Obviously all of us need to show our children God’s grace!
In parenting seminars I have listed 4 steps to setting and keeping Loving Limits in a child’s life:
1. Teach
2. Expose both the correct and incorrect behavior
3. After exposing when wrong behavior occurs, correct and warn of coming punishment
4. When wrong behavior happens again punish and then restore with love
It is true that there are some “passive” children who rarely need the punishment step but, many children simply NEED the boundaries and will not respect parents or teachers who do not set and keep those boundaries. In an effort to remove any type of punitive actions (either punishments set by parents or natural consequences) one must remove most of the limits or boundaries. I have read about “grace filled” households allowing children to wear their dirty shoes in the house or not worrying about table manners.
How do we expect our children to be disciplined enough to enter school or the work world let alone have the discipline to treat others with respect? How can our children play sports and not accept the realities of life experiences that are “punitive” or negative?
This belief denies the reality of our sin nature. James 1:14,15
states, “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
If we love our children we will set limits to help them avoid the enticement of sin. Love asks the young man to not even pass by the house where the prostitute lives (Proverbs 5:8). Is it appropriate to issue punitive actions if your child is caught looking at pornography on the internet? Love would compel me to take the computer away for a season. Punitive - yes!
OK, it is true that our training alone cannot bring a child to salvation. Yet, God clearly states that the “law” is the schoolmaster. Because grace ultimately gets us to heaven and justifies us before a loving God does not mean that we can abandon discipline. Certainly God has not abandoned disciplining those He loves (Proverbs 3:12, Hebrews 12:6). Paul asks “shall we continue in sin that grace abounds? God forbid!” (Romans 6:1,14)
I agree that there are parents out there who are punitive because they lack sacrificial love. But because there are parents who slap their child who laugh too loud does not mean that we need to allow our children to run through our house with muddy shoes.
It is true that parenting will take loads and loads of grace! But this grace will not require an absence of discipline. Real love will require parents to discipline children.
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark, Parenting | 8 Comments »
Is This Important Work?
By mstrohm | August 12, 2007
When our children were very young, my wife would sometimes look deep into my eyes and say “I think I am losing it! I need to speak to adults and remember how to hold a normal adult conversation.”
No wonder she would question her sanity. She was in hand to hand combat all day with two toddlers and an infant. Just a few short years before she was working in operating rooms. Compared to her present day to day tasks her previous job seemed to be far more important. As a requested surgical technologist she was highly regarded by the doctors. Her ability to learn quickly, anticipate and discern individual doctor’s needs earned their respect and appreciation. But now she found herself “oohing” and “aahing” at pictures no one could decipher, praising a little human being for doing his “duty” in the potty and submitting to the demands of the feeding schedule of the baby. “What happened?” she would ask herself, “how did I fall so far?”
Moms, I know that when you compare your career with that of your daily mothering duties it seems like a demotion. Perhaps you were an educator, or in the service industry, in the corporate sector or some other segment of society highly respected and accomplished. Many of you are college educated and before children you thought picking up cheerios and wiping snot off of walls was beneath you. The present nature of many of your “mom” duties may lead you to believe you have been demoted. But nothing can be further from the truth.
Though it may not be apparent to the casual observer, motherhood is far more important than any other job you could ever do! The daily grind of tending the shrubs and flowers may cause a gardener to lose perspective and forget about the beauty of the garden. So moms can lose heart from time to time. Consider your tasks from a greater perspective. That little one was made in the image of God. He or she has a vast potential to be a great instrument in the hands of our Lord. You have been chosen to pour out your love, to shape and mold this little one’s mind and heart! Through the power of the Holy Spirit your daily example, your words, your actions, where you give praise, how you respond all come together to teach and train and bring your child closer to Christ and His ways. You have the joy and privilege to introduce your little one to the wonders and joys of Christ and the world He had given us, to teach him or her how to love and respect Christ and His world and others.
No, you have not “fallen” from an important position, you have not digressed in your career; rather you have been elevated to an even higher calling. I pray God’s grace and strength will help you to fulfill this great calling.
“Educate a man and you have done a good thing. Educate a mother and you have done a great thing!” (adapted from Fenelon)
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark, Parenting | No Comments »
More Important Than A Sale!
By mstrohm | August 6, 2007
My daughter Abby has been selling books on Amazon and every once and a while I grab a book and start reading it. Recently I have been reading a small book that sold several million copies back in the 1970’s called The Greatest Salesman In The World by OG Mandino. The following quote comes from the book:
I will persist until I succeed.
I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are the words of fools. I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows.
I will persist until I succeed.
As I read that passage I could not help but think how these words should be true of a parent! A salesman may or may not make his sale. But a parent DOES have to succeed in the all important job of parenting.
Here is another quote that reminded me of the endless job of teaching our children right from wrong:
Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today.
Sometimes we teach and teach and just as the words leave our mouth our children are fighting! Do not despair. Like the mighty oak that falls after countless blows, so our children will eventually “hear” the lessons that for now seem to fall on deaf ears. Keep striking at the oak.
Your job is far too important to give up. If a salesman can hang in there, how much more important for you as parent to keep up the good work and fight the good fight?
In the words of Winston Churchill “Never give up, never, never give up.”
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark and Ellen Strohm
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark | 1 Comment »
Your Child Can Do Chores!
By mstrohm | July 26, 2007
Hardly a month goes by where a parent will not comment to me that they find it very difficult to get their children to do chores. They know their child will reap many benefits from daily or weekly chores but they seem unable to make it happen. Here are a few thoughts to help make weekly chores a reality in your house.
First, you have to deal with a few assumptions that prevent you from doing the job needed to get your child to successfully complete his or her chores. Avoid the desire to find a quick and easy answer. Second, realize that just because your child knows or understands what you want, that is not to be mistaken for the discipline it will take to follow through on chores. Perhaps the biggest problem, especially with moms, is a belief that if our child loves us enough they will be motivated to complete chores. If you really want a long term solution, begin by dying to each of these assumptions! Instead roll up your sleeves and recognize it will be a chore for you to get your children to do their chores. Don’t despair, it can be done!
Follow these simple steps to get your child on his or her way to regularly doing chores.
1. Make your expectations clear first to yourself, then to your spouse and finally to your child. Answer these questions: What do you want done? How often do you want it done? When do you want it done? Let’s say you want your child to empty all the trash cans in the house once a week before he or she engages in any activities each Saturday. Now that is clear!
2. Next, mentally prepare a strategy to get your child to succeed. Is there soccer practice at 10:00 am this Saturday? Then talk to your child about how to get this done well before soccer. Follow up with a prompt on Saturday morning as well. Let your spouse know it must be done before soccer.
3. To help sustain success I recommend you put together a simple chart. When our children were little we had a chart with chores and daily expectations on it. We made this in a simple spreadsheet program and listed daily expectations along with periodic chores. Daily expectations included:
a. Get up first call.
b. Get dressed and come to table without being asked.
c. Be at breakfast table before 7:30
d. After coming home from school, put book bag, coats and shoes in proper place without being asked
e. Put away snack
f. Dinner chore (different for each child and rotated by month)
g. “Brush and Flush” on first request
h. Be in pajamas by 7:30 (or in bathtub, etc.)
i. Then we placed a different chore on each day except Wednesday, since we had church that evening (they would get to place the sticker on Wednesday for “free”.)
We purchased small stickers from the dollar store and allowed the child to place the sticker in the square when the chore or expectation was completed. When our children had a “perfect” day they were allowed to choose from a separate basket of after school snacks rather than the typical fruit or crackers. If they managed to get a perfect week (rather rare) then we did something special for them. If they were having a rough day we had a “conference” and strategized on how to do better. My wife and I would also think of ways to help with timely promptings or simple steps to make success easier.
Your children can do chores! It helps trains them for life and responsibility as well as help them be grateful and productive. Success with chores can happen if you adjust your expectations and set your children up for success. Even though it will not save time over doing the chores yourself, you will be training your children for years to come and one day you will join the Strohms in sadness over your favorite bathroom cleaner or lawn mower moving out!
UPDATE: You can download a free Microsoft Word Template that will help you print out a weekly Chart for chores! Click here: Word Chore Chart
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark, Parenting | No Comments »
Our Family’s Church Funding Effort
By mstrohm | July 25, 2007
As many of you know our family has been listing books on Amazon to help raise funds for our Church’s Legacy Project. Since we have many books that are hard to sell on Amazon due to the $3.99 per book shipping costs we have decided to try our hand at selling books on EBay! Here is one of our listings:
This listing has 5 hints to help your son become a better reader!
Enjoy,
Mark and Ellen
Email This Post
| Print This Post
Topics: From Ellen, From Mark | No Comments »
« Previous Entries Next Entries »