A big CONGRATULATIONS to Jenny Lee Sulpizio, the winner of Fed Up with Flat Faith by Kathy Howard! You’ll be receiving an email today! CONGRATS Jenny!
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Hey there mommas! Steph here.
Have you ever felt like you were blowing it as a mom? Like every thing they did wrong was your fault?
Today, we have our special guests, Melinda Means and Kathy Helgemo, from Mothering From Scratch here with us, sharing about something that is common to almost every mom in the planet. Feeling like everything our kids do wrong and everything they don’t do right is OUR FAULT.
Melinda is a precious friend of mine from over at Moms Together and her and Kathy Helgemo have a wonderful website that ministers to moms.
Grab a cup of coffee and be encouraged by Melinda’s and Kathy’s post… And then share your comments…have you ever felt that?
It’s All Our Fault!…OR IS IT?
My son is failing math.
My teenage daughter can never make it to school on time.
My child won’t touch a green vegetable.
My kids don’t get enough exercise.
And it’s all our faults, Mom, right?
We’ve both had sleepless nights, tossing, turning and fretting about our role in one or more of our children’s choices, preferences and eating habits. We’ve agonized over the things we did or didn’t do that we fear will now doom our children to a bleak future of dismal dysfunction.
Here’s the scary and freeing thought, Moms. We absolutely have a God-given responsibility to do our best to guide and direct them, drawing on the Holy Spirit’s power. But we might all get a lot more sleep if we truly understood that our children emerge from the womb with a complex and divinely imparted personality. And we often don’t have a lot of control over their struggles and preferences.
Still, as we see their tendencies and weaknesses emerge, we truly may have played some role in enabling an unhealthy behavior. And usually we know when this is true. But even if we have played a part, we have a choice to make. We can either lament and wallow in guilt or we can tackle addressing the situation we are presented with as it is now.
The temptation can be to continue taking blame because, after all, it’s at least partly our fault. We want to give our child a “pass” based on our guilt.
Perhaps we didn’t provide enough discipline to our child when he/she was younger. And now they’re getting in trouble at school. We’re tempted to make excuses for their behavior, because, after all, we had a part to play.
Nagging guilt over our perceived or real shortcomings in mothering can cause us to enable. However, Christ-given conviction has the power to reveal true issues that we need to address in ourselves. You know, those unwelcome traits that are not helping our children overcome theirs. Then we need to ask the Holy Spirit for the courage to act on His conviction.
Here’s some ways to stop wallowing and start acting:
- Ask for advice and strategies — and accountability. Try finding someone who is perhaps a stage or two beyond you in the mothering game. Just verbalizing the issue you want to address with your child can be really powerful. It sparks a feeling of accountability and can be a catalyst for action.
- Start small. Pick one behavior or one problem to focus on for one week. Being overwhelmed by trying to tackle too many problems is a sure-fire way to stay in a place of perpetual guilt and paralysis. We speak from experience here.
- Pray for a teachable heart. That place of guilt can become comfortable. It’s certainly less scary than confronting bad habits and behaviors — in both us and our children. But it is what produces health and freedom in our families. God is used to dealing with scared people. Nearly everyone He used powerfully in the Bible was a fraidy-cat.
Moms, we are going to feel guilty. Our choices will influence our children in both positive and negative ways. Be assured, however, our godly response to that guilt will always be met with love and guidance from our heavenly Father.
What about you? Have you ever felt like it was all your fault? Has this post helped you?
Kathy and Melinda met on a Little League baseball field. The coach — Melinda’s kids’ pediatrician — also happened to be Kathy’s husband. They discovered their shared passion for writing, as well as a common desire to serve and encourage other mothers.
Kathy (the redhead) mothers four kids ranging in age from late teens to early elementary years. Melinda (the brunette) is mother to an adorable middle-school-aged son and a beautiful and entertaining teenage daughter. They blog at http://motheringfromscratch.com. You can find them on Facebook at http://facebook.com/motheringfromscratch.com.
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We’re linked up at:
- Ch…ch…ch…CHANGES Are Coming in 2017 for TMI - December 27, 2016
- What New Thing Are You Ready to See God Do in Your Life in 2017? - December 26, 2016
- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
