Tyler is Sister Tanner's son. He lives in Blackfoot and is a seminary teacher there. They were having their 10 year wedding anniversary so Sister Tanner went down there to stay with the kids. They have 5 kids ages 9 months to 8 years old. The 2 year old is potty training. They also have a new puppy they have only had for 6 days. The puppy's name is Ollie. She was up several times a night with the kids. The 2 year old would stick her hand into the dogs mouth and then say, "no bite". While she was fixing dinner one night all the kids and the dog were on the floor in the kitchen. She noticed that everyone was saying, "no" or "don't". How did the poor dog learn what he was supposed to do? It was chaos.
Think about your relationship with your children. What are you teaching them when you say, "no, don't touch." or "You can't have that." Do you see the confusion that comes across in the learner? Do they know exactly what they are supposed to do or just what they aren't supposed to do?
They stop listening because there is no order. When they can't find order they are confused.
Another example:
Sister Tanner loves Christmas. She carries around a small notebook that she keeps a list of the ages of her grandkids for the upcoming Christmas. When she buys a gift for them she writes down what she got and where she put it. She has begun wrapping Christmas gifts already this year. She saw this quilted tote purse and decided that it would be great to make them for the girls this year for Christmas. She has finished 4 of them. She has already bought stuff to go in them. She decided she would finish cutting out the remaining 6 so that in the evening she could just spend the time sewing them. They have a room that is a combination sewing room & study. It's about 10x10. In there is Mike's chair, bookshelves, an ironing board, as well as cabinets, a computer, and bookcase. She started looking for her pattern. She knew that she had it, but she couldn't find it. She looked and looked. She unloaded cupboards full of fabric and her pattern cabinets. She decided she would pray about it. The Lord said, "I'm not telling you where it is. Take better care of your stuff." :) She started to get more and more frustrated the longer she looked. She never did find it. She finally had to go buy another new pattern for $8. It was from lack of order.
What did it create in her? All the emotion was filled with negativity.
Think about this with our children. We keep coming down a level until we are so mad we send them to their rooms until their next birthday. We become angry when things don't go our way and then we react.
- Heavenly Father's kingdom was created with order.
- There is order in his plan. We were in his kingdom until we progressed to the point we needed to be sent to earth to continue on. We live here and progress and when we die we continue on. In this order in his kingdom we know his plan.
- There is order in the church. They don't give the boys the Melchizedek Priesthood at the age of 8. We get to be baptized at 8yrs. We go to Young Men/Young Women at 12yrs. Boys go on missions at 19yrs.
- We know what we can expect from the Lord. It's a fact. There is no guess where we are at or what is coming next.
When you build a house it has to be in order and approved before you can begin. Your plans have to include a plot plan (where the house sits on the lot), an elevation plan (what the house looks like from all angles), foundation & joists plan (where they will be placed), and a floor plan (where you are going to put the walls). Everything has to be in order before you can begin building a house. Mike (her husband) has built houses before, but he didn't just start and say, "Just trust me. We'll do the plans later." Also a blueprint of the plan has to be on site all the time. That way anyone that comes on the site will have access to the plan and know what is going on.
- As you look at your family...do you have a plan? We usually have a general plan....kids go on missions, go to college, get to the Celestial kingdom....but our plans need to be more specific. you can't teach them how to build their lives from those "general" goals.
- Do your children have access to the family plan?
- Do they know the order the family plan goes in and how to progress at it?
- Do we know the order?
- We have this vision (mission, Eagle scout, college), but daily we react to the day without referring to the plan.
Principle is: There must be order.
- Order in our homes, our lives, and in the lives of our children.
- Order has a priority and sequence.
- You have to have a blueprint for your family.
- What is it for your family? Do you know what you want for your family (in specifics)?
- All plans won't be the same, but they will be similar because they are based on gospel truths.
- Your plan will change over time. It is not the same for preschoolers as it is for teenagers. Some things remain constant, but how you do them changes.
- We have to parent with a purpose and stop being reactive to what the moment and our emotions bring.
- If we parent with a purpose and principles then those are what will govern the moment, not our emotions.
How do we go about getting that vision?
1. Create a family mission statement with your children
- Something you can refer to constantly
- Something you will use to discipline or set the values of your children.
- It says what we want our family to be.
- It creates a picture of what we want it to look like
- What can you put in it? Use the "My Gospel Standards" that the primary has.
Here is an example...
- Notice the kids signed it with their thumbprint.
- They are very simple items in a list.
- Your children need to find their value and magnify them by serving others.
- They should be able to say...."I am a 'Tanner' and this is what I stand for."
- They had a vision of what it was like to be in our family.
- As a family you need to create a blueprint with what your family stands for.
President Cobb (seminary director) said he wanted to add his testimony to that of Sister Tanner's about creating a family mission statement & motto. He said, "We measure what is happening by that statement. When they had a problem with respect we looked at our family mission statement. It blessed our home. It took awhile to put it together. It was not done overnight. When his daughter was a freshman at BYU she struggled with her identity, but she used their family mission statement to ground her."
President Cobb gave us a copy of his family mission statement & motto to put on the blog as an example....(Thank you President Cobb!)
Mission Statement:
"Our home will be founded upon the principles of faith, prayer, order, respect, love and gratitude. As a family we will go to church together, have family home evening together, eat together, read scriptures together, work together, pray together, and play together. As we do these things, we will have a Christ-centered home where the Spirit is present."
Motto:
"Be there!"
It is a list of "to be's" then he added in the "to do's" to create how it is to happen.
2. Create a family cheer.
- Keep it simple, but memorable.
We need order in it's SEASON, in it's PLACE, and in it's TIME.
We need order in it's SEASON:
"I am impressed by countless mothers who have learned how important it is to focus on the things that can only be done in a particular season of life. If a child lives with parents for 18 or 19 years, that span is only one-fourth of a parent’s life. And the most formative time of all, the early years in a child’s life, represents less than one-tenth of a parent’s normal life. It is crucial to focus on our children for the short time we have them with us and to seek, with the help of the Lord, to teach them all we can before they leave our homes." "Daughters of God" by Elder M. Russell Ballard (Ensign May 2008) - We forget to focus on them. This is our season to be with them.
"I have realized, perhaps more than ever before, how critical the formative years of my life were.
- this is the season to parent. Make it the highest priority when you do.
- If you miss your season it's not that you can't help your children, but those lessons will be harder to impact your children.
"Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” (Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11)." "Daughters of God" by M. Russell Ballard (Ensign May 2008)
EXAMPLE:
Last night Sister Tanner talked to her daughter Jana on the phone in San Diego. There has been a power outage from Mexico all the way up the coast. They cancelled school and the stores were giving away ice cream. They live in a subdivision where all the garages open into an alley. That evening all the neighbors were outside playing with their kids in the alley with flashlights. The kids were up late, everyone was out chatting. Jana's neighbor Joe said, "It's too bad we don't have a power outage every night." Jana's response was, "You could turn off the TV every night and do it."
We need order in it's PLACE:
Principle: Cleanliness.
- This does not be perfect, but it does mean our homes need to be clean so we can have the Spirit there.
- Things need to have a place. We need to put things away.
- It is not an obsession, but a good balance.
- It need to be comfortable.
We need order in it's TIME:
When you read scriptures they are in lists. They are in the correct order of importance.
"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"
- This is a list of "be's" and they motivate the "do's"
- Organize yourself. How? Get the vision, make the plan
- Prepare. What? You need to accomplish in the organization of you to prepare the family
- Establish. Make it happen.
Here is the order....
- House of Prayer
- House of Fasting
- House of Faith
- House of Learning
- House of Glory
- House of Order
- House of God
"Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated."
- Cease to be idle
- We are busy, but we are busy doing unessential things.
- We are content to be mediocre
- We think that if we are better than someone else then it is adequate and we don't need to try harder.
- We do need to do something more. We need to strive a little harder.
- Example: We are doing Family Home Evening (FHE) each week, but are we doing it with a purpose or are we putting in our "hour" because we have to.
- Pick 1 think & focus on that. The energy comes from ceasing the "I can't" and changing it to an "I want to."
- Cease to be unclean
- We don't have a chastity problem, but what about the movies you watch? Could you watch them with Jesus Christ in the room with you?
- What do you do in your leisure time? We should have leisure time, but what do you do with it?
- What about the music you listen to? Is it uplifting.
- Sister Tanner's children used to tease her about having 'elevator' music going in their home all the time. She likes classical music. Now her children have 'elevator' music going on in their home as well.
- Cease to find fault one with another
- We need to stop criticizing
- Cease to sleep longer than is needful
- The teaching in the scripture is what is critical
- Commandment: Retire to your bed early......Promise: Ye may not be weary.
- Commandment: Rise early....Promise: Your bodies & minds might be invigorated.
- When Harold B. Lee was called as an apostle he was told that if he got up early every morning to read his scriptures that his mind would be invigorated and he would get the most out of it.
- If you think you are a 'night owl' use Alma's 'experiment' about growing a seed. To know it is to try it.
- When your alarm goes off at 4:30 or 5am we won't be 'excited/invigorated'. You won't wake up charged and ready to go, but if you (STOP, TURN, ACT) get up and get moving you will find that promise is true.
- If you as a mother will get up and be dressed and read scriptures and say your prayers before the kids get up you will get more things done in your day.
- Example: Sister Tanner has a friend that takes her kids to school every day. They could ride the bus, but it has all the ages of the kids from K-12 on the same bus. She doesn't like to get up early so she waits until the last minute and then rushes her kids to school. Her daughter was called into the principles office for all her tardies because when she gets to school she still wants time to visit with her friends before school starts. However, because her Mom waits until the last minute to get up she ends up talking to her friends anyway and ends up tardy for her classes. Instead of the Mom deciding to get up 20 minutes early and get them to school earlier she has decided to put them on the bus. She went for the comfort of the moment over the principle of her kids riding the bus with older children.
Daily Routines:- Kids feel more secure because they know what is coming.
- They are self starters because they already know what is next.
- If you read scriptures every morning as a family when your kids are small, they will still not want to when they are teens, but they will do it anyway, because it's part of the routine.
- You need set times for meals, FHE, Family prayers, Family scriptures
- Dinner together is CRITICAL!!!
- Watch the friend time carefully. They still need to have friend time, but you can't teach them if they are not with you.
Rites of Passage:
- There shouldn't be many, but they should be in concrete!
- These are privledges the kids earn because you turn a certain age.
- When you are 8 you are baptized.
- We have nothing in our society that teaches children that they are growing up. Nothing defines that. We need to create that.
- Practices: (May vary from family to family)
- Stop taking naps or having quiet time (6 yrs old)
- Ears pierced for girls (15th birthday--lunch & mother/daughter day)
- When to wear makeup
- Priesthood-12 yrs old
- Activity days-8 yrs old
- Some of them are natural rites of passage like baptism, priesthood, YM/YW others are ones we create.
- You have to make sure it's in concrete though. If you have a 5 yr old and a 6 yr old. The 5 yr old still has to have quiet time/take a nap but the 6 yr old can stay up. If you let the 5 yr old stay up so the 6 yr old has something to do (buy yourself peace) then you have invalidated the 6 yr old. Because being 6 means nothing if the 5 yr old can stay up too.
Lifetime:
- What will you do at 'once in a life-time' events....baptism, mission, college, marriage
- Make having father's blessings before each of those events a habit in your home.
- Father's blessing before school starts each year.
HOMEWORK:
- Write a family mission statement. At least think about it. It won't be in stone. Write it in pencil. Have your family help you. Organize yourself first before you present the idea to your family.
- Look at your daily & weekly schedule. We you create order daily & weekly, it will reduce the stress & contention in your home.
- Study, read, & pray about the The Family: A Proclamation to the World That is the doctrine on what the family is based. It's not just something to look good on your wall.
- Before the end of the semester (November 2011) have a FHE lesson on the Proclamation.
- Study "Life's Lessons Learned" by Elder Joseph B. Wirthin (Ensign May 2007)
- Whoever is brave enough post an experience to the blog that could help others. It could something from last week's homework (post under the comments for that lesson please) or it could be an example of your family mission statement, family cheer, or family motto.
Cherish this season where you can have your children to yourselves. It won't last very long.
