• for children, love is spelled T.I.M.E.
• children need quantity time as well as quality time
• significance of first eighteen months of a child's life
• who will be our child's main caregiver?
It can be hard to work out balance of parenting and employment
• working at home/from home
• full-time/part-time
• the time we spend with our children is more powerful in communicating our love than anything we say
We need to prioritize our time
• learning when to said "yes" to our children and "no" to other people and things
• the only place we are indispensable is at home
• we need to plan our time
• time with the people who are most precious to us doesn't just happen
• if married, plan marriage time" each week
• as a parent, plan "family time" each week
• plan some one-to-one time with each child (we will look at this in detail later in the course)
We need to protect our time from:
• the TV
• the telephone
• other people
• our work
Question: What demands on your time stop you from spending time with your children?
Children learn to relate through experiencing, observing, and practicing various relationships within the family:
parent-child
mother-father
sibling-sibling
grandparent-grandchild
uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.
Experiencing: parent-child relationship
children learn to love through experiencing their parents. unconditional love
important for children to feel accepted for who they are
our love and acceptance give our children confidence through building in them:
security (knowing they are loved not for what they do, but for who they are)
self-worth (knowing they are of value – their self-worth is based on what they think we, their parents, think of them)
significance (knowing there is a purpose to their lives, and that they have a worthwhile contribution to make)
ultimately security, self-worth and Significance come from God
we model God’s parenthood of us
parents are in loco dei (in His place to represent Him)
Observing: mother-father (and other adult) relationships
children learn to relate through observing adult relationships
how we, their parents, speak and listen to each other
the physical affection we show
whether and how we resolve conflicts
children need to see firsthand the modeling of an intimate, committed adult relationship
if parenting together, consider doing The Marriage Course to invest in your relationship
if not parenting together, work at having thebest possible relationship with your child’s other parent (resolving conflict, forgiveness, consistency, etc.)
Where is your child learning most about how to build healthy relationships?
