Be Quick to Forgive

Forgiveness was brought to may attention first thing this past Monday morning. A person I pray with every morning on a conference call prayer line experienced a drive by shooting this past week end. His van was hit by two bullets while at a cook out in a near by neighborhood. He was grateful that no one was hurt. As he was praying, he prayed about forgiving those who did the shooting. As I thought about this, I wasn’t sure I could get to that point as quickly as he did. He took action, knowing what he needed to do whether he waned to or not. Forgiveness takes action on our part. Read more in Love in Action, September, 2011 Newsletter. http://bit.ly/nNyPn6

Rejection by Our Children

When our chidlren do not do what we want them to, our unconscious gets triggered. It may be fear that our child will get hurt or that something bad may happen to them. This is a fairly normal, common reaction. I ask parents to explore is how much their child’s disobedience felt like a rejection. Many parents are willing to go to that deeper level. Rejection carriers a tremendous amount of fear with it. That is because fear of rejection is usually a core issue with most people. As much as we don’t want to admit it, it truly is. Wednesday’s blog talked about a mother who medicated her hurt by giving a consequence. Consequences keep us out of relationship with our children. I understand why she did this. She didn’t want to be rejected again. However, she was allowing her fear of what would happen create a negative neurological feed back loop of mutual rejection. We do this so many times. Our fear of what happens creates dys-regulation. What we fear the most happens. As parents, we want our children to love us. We expect that, when in fact much of the time our children are not capable of loving themselves and therefore cannot love us. As parents, we have to feel good enough about ourselves to handle rejection from our children so that we can love them into a place of loving themselves and loving us back. Children experience consequences as a rejection of themselves. This causes them to be dys-regulated and reject us out of their fear of being hurt again. The challenge of parenting is to love yourself enough to be able to handle what ever your child brings to you. Isn’t that the way God does it? We are never rejected by God, even when we don’t or can’t love him. Remember, he loved us first and sought after us. Read my article “The Power of Relationship” for more on this at http://bit.ly/pBwc85.

Rejectio by Our Children

When our chidlren do not do what we want them to, our unconscious gets triggered. It may be fear that our child will get hurt or that something bad may happen to them. This is a fairly normal, common reaction. I ask parents to explore is how much their child’s disobedience felt like a rejection. Many parents are willing to go to that deeper level. Rejection carriers a tremendous amount of fear with it. That is because fear of rejection is usually a core issue with most people. As much as we don’t want to admit it, it truly is. Wednesday’s blog talked about a mother who medicated her hurt by giving a consequence. Consequences keep us out of relationship with our children. I understand why she did this. She didn’t want to be rejected again. However, she was allowing her fear of what would happen create a negative neurological feed back loop of mutual rejection. We do this so many times. Our fear of what happens creates dys-regulation. What we fear the most happens. As parents, we want our children to love us. We expect that, when in fact much of the time our children are not capable of loving themselves and therefore cannot love us. As parents, we have to feel good enough about ourselves to handle rejection from our children so that we can love them into a place of loving themselves and loving us back. Children experience consequences as a rejection of themselves. This causes them to be dys-regulated and reject us out of their fear of being hurt again. The challenge of parenting is to love yourself enough to be able to handle what ever your child brings to you. Isn’t that the way God does it? We are never rejected by God, even when we don’t or can’t love him. Remember, he loved us first and sought after us. Read my article “The Power of Relationship” for more on this at http://bit.ly/pBwc85.

Consequences - a Parent’s Elixir for Fear

I just had to write about this experience. A mother had given her son a consequence of writing three pages front and back for a negative behavior. If you are familiar with the stress model, you know this is not an effective solution to this or any behavior problem. As we were discussing this, I could tell that initially, she was on the defensive side. Her first comment was that she was going to keep the consequence even though she knew it wouldn’t work. I broke out in a little chuckle. So did she. This broke her defensiveness. Normally, I wouldn’t have chuckled at a parent. However, I have a good relationship with this parent. She usually knows where I’m going when I ask her to talk about a parenting situation. She then followed it up with saying that she wanted help to find a solution for the problem. We discussed what she needed to do to get re-connected with her son. Then she could help him resolve the stress that was causing the negative behavior. She was very aware that her and her son had become disconnected in their relationship lately. Bottom line, she was feeling rejected and was medicating her pain by giving her son a consequence to make her feel better. Read my article “Consequences” for more on this at http://bit.ly/pBwc85 Saturday’s blog will talk more about her “rejection”.

Be a Sensory Detective for Your Child at School

Secure environments in the school have more to do with emotional safety verses physical safety. Most children easily feel physically safe in school. Emotional safety may be much more difficult to obtain, especially for children with trauma histories. It is imperative to understand that the brains of children with trauma histories operate differently. They are susceptible to any number of external stimuli that can trigger fear. These triggers can be connected to traumatic events that date as far back as birth. Normal, everyday stimuli in the environment may not be normal for traumatized children. Noises, lights, movements, temperature, smells and transitions can easily be over looked and then your child gets punished for an emotional reaction they have no control over. Remember that stress causes confused and distorted thinking and suppresses short term memory. This interferes with learning and contributes to negative behaviors and attitudes. Be an advocate for your child in the school. More resources available at http://bit.ly/pBwc85

Hearing From God

I find it interesting how God affirms what we do in our lives. This month I have been writing about forgiveness. October’s Love in Action Newsletter will have more on forgiveness. Sunday was the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. That whole event and how it has affected our country speaks to the need for forgiveness. At church this morning the sermon focused on Philippians 1:1-6. The Apostle Paul talks about thanksgiving and prayer. These are important if w are to ever get to a place of forgiveness. We watched a testimony of the wife of a pilot whose plane crashed into one of the twin towers. Out entire congregation was in tears. She took what was meant for evil and has turned it into good for her life. Find out more about forgiveness in my August, 2011 Love in Action Newsletter http://bit.ly/njHTGd

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