Taking A Good Hard Look!

Lately I have been taking a good hard look at my parenting. It has been on the for front of my mind of late. Let me just say I love all of my children very much. All for different reasons but we definitely have more struggles with some then we do with others. My family is a huge support to me even though I get tired of talking about my struggles with my children and tired of struggling with them! My sister sent me a link to look at a blog written by a mother with what she calls, "a difficult child." I happen to have one of those! This is what she says,

"Years ago a friend of mine asked me to tea and told me to bring my Bible along. When we sat down, she started going through all the scriptures where the Lord talked about children.
As the conversation went on, I realized that she was talking to me as if I did not love my children. I was shocked. Here I was homeschooling, and I had given up everything to be home with them. How could she think I did not love them?
Before I had a chance to speak and start telling her all of this she quietly stated: ”I know you love your children, but the way you talk about them does not speak the truth of that to them or others.”
“You say things like: My child did ________________ today, do you want her?” Or “I just need a day off from her.” Or, “I am so OVER her fit throwing.” And my voice and tone to my children could at times be harsh, particularly my one who always seemed to have an explanation point at the end of the name."

I read the above section of the blog and realized I am VERY guilty of this. I do not inspire my child to be good, I instead "beat" him down with my tone of voice and my quick reaction to his bad behavior. Today I worked hard at putting into work a suggestion made by the blogger. She said she started to smile whenever her "difficult" child walked into the room even if she didn't feel like it. This in just one day has changed my sons attitude. I am quite emotional as I write this. It amazes me how much damage we can do to our children while we are wrapped up in ourselves and thinking about how tired we are of how they are acting instead of looking at what my attitude is like towards my children.

The blogger goes on with some bible versus. They are:
Ephesians 5:4 tells us: Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

She then started to use and acronym, STOP. The first one being the S means,
Stop the sarcasm, joking, and belittling of my child.

I am now going to steal this acronym as my own. I know that this will be a hard thing to train myself to do because of my old man but if I keep praying about it and living more in my new man instead of my old man I will be successful. I am very thankful my sister sent this to me and just as a disclaimer I know my sister didn't send me this as a "I am a better mother then you, you need to work on this" type of thing it was sent with a good heart and a hey this helped me thought it would help you kind of thing. I have only read part one of the five parts. I want to read them slowly and really digest each portion and will be blogging about all five at different times as I read them. If you want to read this for yourself just leave a comment and I will forward you the link.
Ape