What is your parenting teaching style? (Ponder question)
Until we see what we do and determine it’s effectiveness it’s hard for us to change.
My daughter played volleyball in high school. She was good, but she hadn’t mastered the overhand jump serve. She would practice serve after serve. The coach came over to her and said you are not doing this right. You need to keep practicing and he left. She knew she wasn’t doing it right. She could see it wasn’t going over the net. He didn’t give her specifics/techniques on how to make it better. He didn’t say that to her.
If I say I’m going to give you new tools, but if you don’t know where you are you won’t know what exactly you need to change to get that parenting right on. You have to understand what you parenting style is.
I was raised by a military Dad. He would bark orders and I would say “Yes sir!” I was very compliant, but I carry a lot of baggage into adulthood. You begin parenting like you were parented. A lot of times that doesn’t work.
We tend to do what we know with greater intensity. If it didn’t work before it’s not going to work now. Because society is changing we have to change parenting. The Lord is teaching us how to do it if we can read his handbook. We are going to learn how to read his handbook.
What are some parenting styles?
You can be a different style with every child and you should be. We tend to pick a style and then do it. It will work with one, but it won’t work another one. We have to parent according to the child.
Class member: What are some positive ones?
Write down on your ponder pad what you think your parenting style is. What is the method you use to teach your children? Generically what is your method of teaching?
I think many of you do what’s called reactive parenting meaning the child misbehaves, you engage & correct the misbehavior, and go on. It’s their misbehavior that causes you to engage to teach. Your primary way of teaching right and wrong is engage when they are misbehaving on a daily basis and FHE once a week. That is the view of what we have that makes good parents.
I’m a child. I want that truck. I grab it and take it away. Mom sees me and says “We don’t do that. We share. We are going to take turns.” I’m mad because I want the truck. She makes me give it back. As an angry child how much of that sinks in? It doesn’t sink in and it doesn’t register. That isn’t a good teaching moment. You must parent to it, but is that when you teach the principle? No. Principle is not being learned then.
Are you really teaching at moments when principles can be internalized?
Write down 3 things that you are worried about in society for your children. Fearful things you are concerned with.
Class members:
Sometimes we parent from a point of fear. It’s a fear of losing our children. A fear of them not liking us. A fear that we as a parent are doing it wrong. When we parent out of fear we become a helicopter mom. That is a hovering Mom. You are afraid they are going to get hurt. You solve all their problems for them. We give them the answer. We are forever telling them what to do. We think by doing that we are helping them grow. We are actually handicapping them and making them dependent on them.
The biggest problem in the MTC is that they don’t know how to think.
A young person went over to college and her Dad asked her if she had been to church. She said no. He asked why and she said because no one had come and gotten her.
The lawn mower mom….is someone who goes before the child to mow the lawn and make it smooth and clean so they don’t have to do anything hard. We do it to them. We teach them to be incapable of saying no to drugs, sex, and pornography. We make them so week they can’t stand up for truth. The intent is good, but we handicap our children when we do it.
We have to understand what it is that we are doing in our lives and how we parent.
Alma 50:23 But behold there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges.
We think entitlement make our children happy, but the scriptures say in the middle of war and turbulence there ‘never was a happier people’.
Alma 49:8
But behold, to their uttermost astonishment, they were prepared for them, in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi. Now they were prepared for the Lamanites, to battle after the manner of the instructions of Moroni.
“They” are the Lamanites.
2 keys….They were prepared after the manner that had never been known before. Following the prophet.
It usually takes 10 years for the church to incorporate a new teaching (Elder Boyd K. Packer)
We have to parent “in a manner that has never been known before”. Not the way we were parented and not the way the world parents.
There may be a lot of members in the church who may criticize you for how you are parenting your children. I want to help you parent in a different way.
Principles we are going to teach may be new.
Class member: We are reading this as a family. We just read this chapter this morning. Moroni had spent the time to fortify and protect.
Our handbook for parenting comes from the prophet. That is who we need to look to. Always the prophet!
Alma 50:1
And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites.
Are we only going to teach it once and expect it to stay with them?
What does it mean to have ‘intention, righteous’ parenting?
Class member: I think it means being a proactive parent. I think you need to teach it before they encounter it.
Class member: You are having constant talk about those same things all the time.
Class member: It’s studying those patterns. We had FHE and scripture study. It’s setting those patterns so you do it at those times.
Class member: I think it’s working backwards. You know what you want and then work backwards from that. With that goal in mind.
How many of you when you were pregnant didn’t think about being pregnant the whole time you are pregnant? You are aware of it all the time. That’s what intentional is. It is always there.
How intentional is your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you go to church because that’s what we do? Do you have a calling because that’s just what we do? Do you keep the commandments because that’s what we do? OR do you have a testimony of those things? Is it exciting to do it? It’s based on how much we have the Savior in our lives every day. Those things we do in the gospel are joyful.
We want our children to have that testimony. Can they be there if we are not on fire with it? Does it govern choices? We used to be able to parent the gospel as a set of rules, but we have to do it differently now.
Alma 50:1-7
1 And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites.
2 And upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers, yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities.
3 And he caused that upon those works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high.
4 And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them.
5 And they were prepared that they could cast stones from the top thereof, according to their pleasure and their strength, and slay him who should attempt to approach near the walls of the city.
6 Thus Moroni did prepare strongholds against the coming of their enemies, round about every city in all the land.
7 And it came to pass that Moroni caused that his armies should go forth into the east wilderness; yea, and they went forth and drove all the Lamanites who were in the east wilderness into their own lands, which were south of the land of Zarahemla.
Fortifications…..trench, dirt, timbers, pickets, towers, stones/arrows, drove out the Lamanites
In the battle there was a bunch of Lamanites killed to the point that they filled the trench with the bodies of the Lamanites. Not one Nephite was killed. The power in fortifying our children is in the preparation we do. The Stripling Warriors had to be fortified before they went to war. Their mothers knew it. Their dads had been killed instead of breaking the covenants they made.
Those young men worked in the fields to raise crops to feed the armies that would protect their families. Now there is a need they know how to work hard. They are not self-entitled. They have been giving their lives in service and gratitude. Their preparation was solid.
Are you driving out things that may be harmful in your home? Media, movies, music
My son gave a lesson on fortifying our kids against pornography from a bishops point of view. He said 100% of the youth had been involved in someway in his ward. This is the young men and the young women. Boys get hooked from devices…phones, iPads, in your home or out of it….it’s creating problems with masturbation. Girls have a problem with masturbation, but it comes from the romance novels they are reading. He is in a good ward in the middle of Utah. The parents in the ward do not know.
You will learn to read your children so well that you will be able to search out what it is.
If a novel entices those feelings in people it is wrong.
5 Defenses that are the Fortifications for our Families:
These things are done in times of peace. He was ready and prepared. Your children will still be tempted and wounded, but they won’t be killed. The battle with sin is real.
“Too many of our Father in Heaven’s children are being overcome by worldly desires. The onslaught of wickedness against our children is at once more subtle and more brazen than it has ever been. Teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in the home adds another layer of insulation to protect our children from worldly influences.” L. Tom Perry “Mothers Teaching In the Home”
1. Teach Principles.
(This is the ‘what to teach’)
The other nine doctrinal points include:
Come Follow Me is (‘how to teach’)
Teaching is a full time job. This isn’t just for FHE. This is an every day event. This is mini moments in the car going somewhere.
Class member: Come Follow Me….Curriculum is what you are teaching, but also ‘how you are teaching’. It talks about asking questions.
If you have this then you have intentional FHE. They are focused on this. We need to work carefully to teach doctrine. Not to teach practices…that’s how you implement them in your home.
2. Find Safety in the Temple
3. Study and Follow the Prophet AND Local Leaders
4. Bear and Live Your Testimony
5. Sabbath Day Observance & Partaking of the Sacrament with Real Intent
D&C 59:9
And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspottedfrom the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;
If we build these fortifications with peace you will be able to withstand. You may be scarred, but you will win. These 5 areas are critical to our defense system. As we go through the semester we will get really specific with them.
I know that if you will keep your covenants and keep your foundation strong He will walk before you and send angels to go before you. Elder Holland says Mothers will have angels to walk with you. If you fortify them and live worthy.
“My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. “[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.”13 On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.” Jeffrey R. Holland The Ministry of Angels
Until we see what we do and determine it’s effectiveness it’s hard for us to change.
My daughter played volleyball in high school. She was good, but she hadn’t mastered the overhand jump serve. She would practice serve after serve. The coach came over to her and said you are not doing this right. You need to keep practicing and he left. She knew she wasn’t doing it right. She could see it wasn’t going over the net. He didn’t give her specifics/techniques on how to make it better. He didn’t say that to her.
If I say I’m going to give you new tools, but if you don’t know where you are you won’t know what exactly you need to change to get that parenting right on. You have to understand what you parenting style is.
I was raised by a military Dad. He would bark orders and I would say “Yes sir!” I was very compliant, but I carry a lot of baggage into adulthood. You begin parenting like you were parented. A lot of times that doesn’t work.
We tend to do what we know with greater intensity. If it didn’t work before it’s not going to work now. Because society is changing we have to change parenting. The Lord is teaching us how to do it if we can read his handbook. We are going to learn how to read his handbook.
What are some parenting styles?
- Control
- Lecture
- Guilt
- Fear
- Permissive
- Helicopter
- Referee
You can be a different style with every child and you should be. We tend to pick a style and then do it. It will work with one, but it won’t work another one. We have to parent according to the child.
Class member: What are some positive ones?
Write down on your ponder pad what you think your parenting style is. What is the method you use to teach your children? Generically what is your method of teaching?
I think many of you do what’s called reactive parenting meaning the child misbehaves, you engage & correct the misbehavior, and go on. It’s their misbehavior that causes you to engage to teach. Your primary way of teaching right and wrong is engage when they are misbehaving on a daily basis and FHE once a week. That is the view of what we have that makes good parents.
I’m a child. I want that truck. I grab it and take it away. Mom sees me and says “We don’t do that. We share. We are going to take turns.” I’m mad because I want the truck. She makes me give it back. As an angry child how much of that sinks in? It doesn’t sink in and it doesn’t register. That isn’t a good teaching moment. You must parent to it, but is that when you teach the principle? No. Principle is not being learned then.
Are you really teaching at moments when principles can be internalized?
Write down 3 things that you are worried about in society for your children. Fearful things you are concerned with.
Class members:
- Media
- Peer Pressure
- Testimony or lack of
- Entitlement
- Morality
- Not being respectful
- Feeling worthless
- Drugs
- Pornography
Sometimes we parent from a point of fear. It’s a fear of losing our children. A fear of them not liking us. A fear that we as a parent are doing it wrong. When we parent out of fear we become a helicopter mom. That is a hovering Mom. You are afraid they are going to get hurt. You solve all their problems for them. We give them the answer. We are forever telling them what to do. We think by doing that we are helping them grow. We are actually handicapping them and making them dependent on them.
The biggest problem in the MTC is that they don’t know how to think.
A young person went over to college and her Dad asked her if she had been to church. She said no. He asked why and she said because no one had come and gotten her.
The lawn mower mom….is someone who goes before the child to mow the lawn and make it smooth and clean so they don’t have to do anything hard. We do it to them. We teach them to be incapable of saying no to drugs, sex, and pornography. We make them so week they can’t stand up for truth. The intent is good, but we handicap our children when we do it.
We have to understand what it is that we are doing in our lives and how we parent.
Alma 50:23 But behold there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges.
We think entitlement make our children happy, but the scriptures say in the middle of war and turbulence there ‘never was a happier people’.
Alma 49:8
But behold, to their uttermost astonishment, they were prepared for them, in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi. Now they were prepared for the Lamanites, to battle after the manner of the instructions of Moroni.
“They” are the Lamanites.
2 keys….They were prepared after the manner that had never been known before. Following the prophet.
It usually takes 10 years for the church to incorporate a new teaching (Elder Boyd K. Packer)
We have to parent “in a manner that has never been known before”. Not the way we were parented and not the way the world parents.
There may be a lot of members in the church who may criticize you for how you are parenting your children. I want to help you parent in a different way.
Principles we are going to teach may be new.
Class member: We are reading this as a family. We just read this chapter this morning. Moroni had spent the time to fortify and protect.
Our handbook for parenting comes from the prophet. That is who we need to look to. Always the prophet!
Alma 50:1
And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites.
Are we only going to teach it once and expect it to stay with them?
What does it mean to have ‘intention, righteous’ parenting?
Class member: I think it means being a proactive parent. I think you need to teach it before they encounter it.
Class member: You are having constant talk about those same things all the time.
Class member: It’s studying those patterns. We had FHE and scripture study. It’s setting those patterns so you do it at those times.
Class member: I think it’s working backwards. You know what you want and then work backwards from that. With that goal in mind.
How many of you when you were pregnant didn’t think about being pregnant the whole time you are pregnant? You are aware of it all the time. That’s what intentional is. It is always there.
How intentional is your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you go to church because that’s what we do? Do you have a calling because that’s just what we do? Do you keep the commandments because that’s what we do? OR do you have a testimony of those things? Is it exciting to do it? It’s based on how much we have the Savior in our lives every day. Those things we do in the gospel are joyful.
We want our children to have that testimony. Can they be there if we are not on fire with it? Does it govern choices? We used to be able to parent the gospel as a set of rules, but we have to do it differently now.
Alma 50:1-7
1 And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites.
2 And upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers, yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities.
3 And he caused that upon those works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high.
4 And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them.
5 And they were prepared that they could cast stones from the top thereof, according to their pleasure and their strength, and slay him who should attempt to approach near the walls of the city.
6 Thus Moroni did prepare strongholds against the coming of their enemies, round about every city in all the land.
7 And it came to pass that Moroni caused that his armies should go forth into the east wilderness; yea, and they went forth and drove all the Lamanites who were in the east wilderness into their own lands, which were south of the land of Zarahemla.
Fortifications…..trench, dirt, timbers, pickets, towers, stones/arrows, drove out the Lamanites
In the battle there was a bunch of Lamanites killed to the point that they filled the trench with the bodies of the Lamanites. Not one Nephite was killed. The power in fortifying our children is in the preparation we do. The Stripling Warriors had to be fortified before they went to war. Their mothers knew it. Their dads had been killed instead of breaking the covenants they made.
Those young men worked in the fields to raise crops to feed the armies that would protect their families. Now there is a need they know how to work hard. They are not self-entitled. They have been giving their lives in service and gratitude. Their preparation was solid.
Are you driving out things that may be harmful in your home? Media, movies, music
My son gave a lesson on fortifying our kids against pornography from a bishops point of view. He said 100% of the youth had been involved in someway in his ward. This is the young men and the young women. Boys get hooked from devices…phones, iPads, in your home or out of it….it’s creating problems with masturbation. Girls have a problem with masturbation, but it comes from the romance novels they are reading. He is in a good ward in the middle of Utah. The parents in the ward do not know.
You will learn to read your children so well that you will be able to search out what it is.
If a novel entices those feelings in people it is wrong.
5 Defenses that are the Fortifications for our Families:
These things are done in times of peace. He was ready and prepared. Your children will still be tempted and wounded, but they won’t be killed. The battle with sin is real.
“Too many of our Father in Heaven’s children are being overcome by worldly desires. The onslaught of wickedness against our children is at once more subtle and more brazen than it has ever been. Teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in the home adds another layer of insulation to protect our children from worldly influences.” L. Tom Perry “Mothers Teaching In the Home”
1. Teach Principles.
- Stop teaching as a set of rules. The Lord gives you a handbook. It’s online. You go to lds.org and you pull up the Come Follow Me Program I ask questions and you respond and teach yourself.
- There is a new seminary program that they are doing this year. They now have “Doctrinal Mastery” They will be able to quote verses that testify of the doctrine.
- Example….Modesty and dating…the doctrine on “Marriage & Family”.
(This is the ‘what to teach’)
The other nine doctrinal points include:
- The Godhead
- The plan of salvation
- The Atonement of Jesus Christ
- The Restoration
- Prophets
- Priesthood and priesthood keys
- Ordinances and covenants
- Marriage and family
- Commandments
Come Follow Me is (‘how to teach’)
Teaching is a full time job. This isn’t just for FHE. This is an every day event. This is mini moments in the car going somewhere.
Class member: Come Follow Me….Curriculum is what you are teaching, but also ‘how you are teaching’. It talks about asking questions.
If you have this then you have intentional FHE. They are focused on this. We need to work carefully to teach doctrine. Not to teach practices…that’s how you implement them in your home.
2. Find Safety in the Temple
- That doesn’t just mean us. Your children can do indexing, baptisms. When I get there at 5:15am there are youth lined up ready to do baptisms. 5:15-7:15pm they did over 400 ordinances. We had that many youth in the temple doing baptisms. The Spirit is amazing!
- Elder Bednar says that will be the safety net for our children. He also said don’t force them to do it, but if you are converted and excited about it that will reach down to them. They will get excited too.
- As they experience the temple from 12 years on up they want to get married in the temple.
- Take your children to the temple and sit on the temple grounds. There should be a temple picture in your home and in each of their bedrooms. You can do so much without saying “the rule is…get married in the temple”.
- You need to involve them and bring them in.
3. Study and Follow the Prophet AND Local Leaders
- No one should be finding fault with your bishop. Don’t allow them to call the bishop by their first name. You are teaching children respect for the calling. During the period that they serve as bishop they need to be called “Bishop”.
- What message are you saying to your child when you are complaining about your calling?
- We commit ourselves to consecrate our lives to the Lord in the temple. You have already made it in the temple. Sometimes we need to say yes and then pray that the Lord will change our heart.
- We need to be careful in how we teach our children to sustain their leaders.
- We teach them that they can choose which commandments they want to follow.
- Our influence permeates to our children and then we wonder why they aren’t converted.
- Class member: Criticism is the first step to apostasy.
4. Bear and Live Your Testimony
- I challenge you to bear your testimony at the pulpit this next fast Sunday.
- Bear your testimony often in conversation to your children.
- You will find this in making statements of truth.
- Class member: A Statement of Truth---is doctrine. Example: I know that I can be forgiven of my sins because Jesus Christ atoned for my sins. They are trying to teach them that they can pick our doctrinal truths and make those statements. Ask the youth to put into a Statement of Truth.
- Example: I’m so grateful for the colors on the trees. I love fall and the trees. Connect that to the gifts of the Savior…I am so grateful for the happiness I feel in me because that’s the Holy Ghost telling me to be happy.
- Example: Some of the things to start the conversation with is “I know…” or “I testify…”
- FHE, family & personal scriptures, family & personal prayer, and regular temple attendance….you have to have the foundation laid. If those 4 things are strong you can handle it. If you are lacking in one of those there is a void. It has nothing to do with what is going on in your home.
5. Sabbath Day Observance & Partaking of the Sacrament with Real Intent
- Teach your children the meaning and purpose of the sacrament. By the time they are 4 they can get it. They may need some prompts and a picture to look at, but they can begin that process of having a holy experience.
D&C 59:9
And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspottedfrom the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;
If we build these fortifications with peace you will be able to withstand. You may be scarred, but you will win. These 5 areas are critical to our defense system. As we go through the semester we will get really specific with them.
I know that if you will keep your covenants and keep your foundation strong He will walk before you and send angels to go before you. Elder Holland says Mothers will have angels to walk with you. If you fortify them and live worthy.
“My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. “[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.”13 On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.” Jeffrey R. Holland The Ministry of Angels
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