A Net in Time

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Parenting

Art Series: Mom & Me

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Do you have a desire to connect with your child in a fun, non-threatening way?  A desire to go beyond the “nothing” and “stuff” when you ask what your child did at school or an event?  Lacy Mucklow has  produced a book intended to help you out.  Draw out the conversation as you do an art journal together.

 I opened this lovely art journal and it immediately brought me back to the days when my son and I were having fun doing art with an art prompt book.

We’d search out an art prompt … such as  “tree house” and we’d sit down and draw whatever popped into our brain about what a tree house would be like.   We had so much fun coming up with ideas, drawing and just talking to each other. Each doing our own thing, but spending time together talking and laughing as we did an art project together.

THAT is exactly what this mom and me art journal is supposed to.   Instead of looking up art prompts in a book and then using our own art papers. we can just use this journal.  A perfect time for a mom and child to chatter away with each other.

You have to check out some of these pages.  They are really quite nice.

The pages follow different styles: from shapes to fill out, to large blocky shapes, to full pages.   Each two page sets is unique from all others in this book. Printed on a nice thick paper so you can colour or draw in whatever way the prompt moves you to do so. 

Author Lacy Mucklow (MA. ATR-BC, LPAT, LCPAT) is a registered, board
certified, and licensed art therapist who has been practicing art
therapy in the Washington, DC area since 1999. She has experience
working with a variety of mental health populations and settings,
including schools, home-based counseling, and hospitals with
adolescents, families, and adults. Lacy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree
in Psychology with a minor in Studio Art from Oklahoma State University,
and a Master of Arts degree in Art Therapy from The George Washington
University.

She wants moms and their children to connect with each other in a meaningful way. So she has intentionally included feelings like happy, sad, angry.  She covers topics like family and friends, heros, and imagination.   Hopes and dreams are always fun to discuss together.. drawing whatever you feel inspired to do, knowing that there is no right or wrong, just a responding to a prompt and chatting as you do so.   It is good yes?

One of the things I like in this book is the word prompts aren’t just single words or ideas.

Do you see how this would be different for every person?   How it could provide excellent talking points?  The scene is set…how will you respond?   What is your happiness point?

128 pages of colouring, drawing, filling in fun while having a grand ‘ole time with each other.  It would be great to display them as works of art, but also good to just keep as a keepsake to look back upon.

Illustrator Bethany Robertson has done an excellent job of bringing details into each page while allowing room for creative expression.

Bethany Robertson is an illustrator and designer
based in Brooklyn, New York. She has a Master’s of Fine Arts from
Rutgers University and a Master’s of Science in Art Education from the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Bethany enjoys drawing, pizza,
flowers, ice cream, and the beach.

The only concern I have is this:
My son and I like elbow room when we draw.  Trying to share a book and both draw a picture at the same time would drive us batty.  🙂  Therefore I wish the pages were perforated and one sided so I could pull them out and work with lots of space around me.  That way the lad and I could do what we like.  Sit side by side with a good foot between us, or sit opposite each other so we can surprise each other when we’re done (after all the hints and clues we give .. guessing with clues is fun.. especially with art). 

Mom and Me – An art Journal to Share.
Author: Lacy Mucklow
Illustrator: Bethany Robertson
Pages: 128
Publisher: Race Point Publishing
Format: Trade Paperback
Reviewed for: The Quarto Group
Series: A Side-by-side book

Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca – Mom and Me: An Art Journal to Share: Create and Connect Side by Side

Amazon.com – Mom and Me: An Art Journal to Share: Create and Connect Side by Side (A Side-by-Side Book)

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Parenting book series: Law

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Fact
Our children need God’s Law.   They do.  The law teaches us what sin is.   It’s an important part of our lives as believers.   There is wisdom and conviction in the Law of God. 

BUT
The law isn’t the whole answer.

The law can tell us what sin is and can be a tool of conviction BUT it cannot ever deliver us from the sin that it points out to us.  It just can’t.

Which shows us the essential nature of grace. Oh how we need grace, grace that shows us our need for the law is just as great as that of our children.

The answer:
Show the gospel to your children.  Preach it to them.  Talk about it with them.  Show them God in action in their every day lives.  Show them how much YOU need to be parented by God even as you parent them.   

My thoughts
Ah… I read these words and they resonate in my being.   It’s how I’ve been trying HARD to parent, but oh man.. it’s hard to help a lad see both sides of the picture.  But then again it’s hard for me to do that as well.  To see God’s grace in equal measure to my need for his law.  So I suppose that is something I can work on with my boy as well.  To not be frivolous with the understanding grace and how it works with law.

What do you think?  How do you balance the need for the law with the essentials of grace?

Want to follow along in the book?   Here’s where you can find it.

Amazon.com – Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

 Amazon.ca – Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you! ©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Review: Quick Tips for Busy Families

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 Okay… I have rather neat parenting book for you.  It’s not a “normal” parenting book with do this, do that, this is how you parent effectively, but like a “try this neat idea to add some fun”, or “try this idea to make your children think” or “how about this thing to create a smile or some lasting memories.”.   So let me tell you about “Quick Tips for Busy Families: Sneaky Strategies for Raising Great Kids”.

All kinds of ideas are waiting for you in the pages of this Busy Families Tips book.  144 of them to be precise.  

 

Each parenting hack is only 1-2 pages long and is written with a touch of humour, a good deal of humility and drop of seriousness depending on the topic at hand.   I appreciated the real life situations given, and the light touch.   I never felt like I was being talked down, rather like I was being encouraged to think outside the box in regards to how to parent.   I quickly came to the conclusion that he was used to parents with multiple children as I didn’t come across many situations dealing with a singleton child. 

All 144 chapters are listed.   I found topics listed that normally you don’t find in parenting books, like how to deal with difficult teachers, setting a high bar for your children, the benefits of adding art to your family and more.

God was frequently brought into the conversation, not in every hack, but frequently enough to know that faith is part of the equation.

Is it worth getting?
 I don’t know honestly.  It was a fun quick read but I don’t know that I would refer back to it or tell people they had to get it, but it wasn’t a waste of my time either. 

Some of the tips sent me into a “I have to ponder that a while” mood…and that’s not a bad thing eh?

I would definitely say that if you find it in a library, or or able to do a quick read at Chapters (or another book store), avail yourself of the opportunity. 
 

Quick Tips for Busy Families: Sneaky Strategies for Raising Great Kids
Author: Jay Payleitner
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
237 Pages
Type: Parenting   

Reviewed for: Nutsaboutbooks. 

Where to find:
Amazon.ca: Quick Tips for Busy Families: Sneaky Strategies for Raising GreatKids

Amazon.com: Quick Tips for Busy Families: Sneaky Strategies for Raising Great Kids

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Parenting: Grace

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 Every three weeks or so I will be working through Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles. I hope you will join me. You can find the rest of the series here.   This week the chapter is Grace. 

Principle: God never calls you to a task without giving you what you need to do it. He never sends you without going with you. 

I am convicted by this statement
“There is nothing more important to consistent, faithful, patient, loving, and effective parenting than to understand what God has given you in the grace of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” p. 34

One needs to understand that we not only need past grace and future grace, but we need the present grace that God offers us in the here and now.  The grace to see God in our temper, in our wanting a break, in our dealing with a rebellious child and more.   God’s grace is right there minding us.  We need to know that God gives us what we need to parent the children that he has given us.

The feeling of inadequacy that we have as parents is there because we are supposed to feel that way.  It helps us to do what we are supposed to… RELY on God for help. 

God wants us to rely on him, NOT to feel able and like we don’t need him.  This is one way he shows his grace and goodness to us. It’s how his glory is made manisfest.

Eph. 3:20-21 
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

See the truth there?   GOD is able to do it far more abundantly than we ever give him credit for.   Think on it eh?   Why don’t we do that?  Why don’t we talk to him more often when we are struggling in our parenting duties?  Why don’t we remember God’s grace and help and his hope more often?  

I think it would make our job of parenting easier if we turned to God more often eh?  If we remembered he is our ever present help in times of trouble.

Consider this fact, “My children don’t cause me to do and say what I do and say.  No, the cause of my actions is found inside my own heart.  My children are simply the occasion where my heart reveals itself in words and actions”.  (p 41).  We are not better than our children, just older with more experience, but still fighting the sin within us. 

I have found it to be true… that God’s grace changes you as a parent.  It has forced me to grow and become more reliant upon him.   It is like God is parenting me as I parent my son.   He parents all parents as they guide, lead, discipline, show the way to their own children.  He is our father.  Let him be your father as you parent your children.  Yes, mistakes will happen, regrets will be there, but through God you will learn tenderness and compassion, you will learn to give grace and receive it all the more.

If you’d like to follow along, amazon affiliate links:
Amazon.ca: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

Amazon.com: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Parenting: Calling

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Every three weeks or so I will be working through Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles. I hope you will join me. You can find the rest of the series here. 

This second chapter is entitled Calling. 

This chapter starts with this statement “Nothing is more important in your life than being one of God’s tools to form a human soul.”

I had to think about that a spell.  

That’s what Christian parenting is all about.  Being used of God in the formation of a new human soul that follows after him.

In this chapter he spoke to the issues of parents not actually doing the job of parenting because their work gets in the way.   They sent their young off to school or to day care or to whatever because they are unwilling or perhaps not aware of the need to be around for their children.  This work can be a paying job or a ministry focus.

Gods’ call to leaders is this “lead your family well”. 

We are asked to look to our lives and see what calls us away from this duty to parent our children well. 

Our primary purpose is to instill God-consciousness and God-submission in our children.   To make them aware of who God is, and he has a calling for each of us.    Rules for us to live by.

I found this statement interesting 
“Children who don’t acknowledge God will act as if they are God and will resist the help and rescue that God has provide for them through their parents.”  (p 31)

I have seen this with my lad.  The more aware he becomes of God and who he is, the more he is willing to accede that maybe we, his parents, have something of value to add to the discussion.  Things to make him think and ponder upon.   It’s part of our job you know?   To say “child of mine…this is God.   This God of ours is a God filled with grace and wonder and might”.   To show him/her where you catch glimpses of God.

Most recently for us this has taken place with our study on Otters.   God gave them a little flap that goes over their nose, and another in their inner ear that automatically work when they go diving.  Not only that, he’s given sea otters a patch of loose skin under their armpit so they can carry a useful rock when they going hunting.   Isn’t that simply amazing how God did this for a critter?

 

Book Series: Parenting – be an ambassador parent

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Paul David Tripp wrote an interesting parenting book called Parenting: 14 Gospel Principals.  I thought it might be interesting to read through this book.  Join in if you would like.

I decided to start with the introduction rather than digging into the first of 14 chapters.

In the introduction Mr. Tripp talks about how as he has travelled the world helping parents learn to do this job better, he has discovered that what they need help with is “big picture parenting worldview”.   Having this worldview will give us grounding in what God calls to do as parents.. it explains, guides and motivates all that we do.   Ergo as he writes this book he wants parents to understand the gospel behind good parenting practices.

To start with, we have to know who we are in relation to God, to what life is all about and to who your children are.  This knowledge is of paramount importance.

Mr. Tripp wants us to move away from the ownership idea of parenting to the idea that we are ambassadors.   We need to remember, these children aren’t ours.  They belong to God and we need to parent them with that idea in the forefront of our minds.

As we parent, we need to be aware of something.   As much as we desire to be ambassadorial parents….. we will fail.  We will want to do things our way, to meet our needs, to just want the short run satisfaction.  We’ll fail.  But that’s not the point.  The point is to keep striving to do God’s will.

Questions we could ask ourselves.
1. Identity – where do we get our identity from. 
2. Work – working to turn your children into something?  or helping them develop into something more?
3. Success – which is more important the end product or what you are doing?
4. Reputation – Living with the craziness that children can bring… does it affect who you are or does it reflect your children?

An ambassador is called to represent the message, methods, and character of the Owner to their children.  (p.20)

The next 14 chapters will introduce different principles to reflect upon to help us do the job of ambassador of God to your children effectively.

….

I read the thought of “you will fail” and it made me smile.  I so often feel like I am failing in what I am doing as a parent.   But it strikes me that seeing oneself as an ambassador of God before the eyes of my son… strikes me as a grave responsibility, as well as taking a load off.  It’s not my job to make my son into anything…it’s God’s job.  Mine is simply to show God to him.  That’s it. 

Raising Boys with Purpose

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I have a son. He’s my joy and delight.
And I don’t know about you, but having a plan, a long term view, an end vision of what I hope to instill in him is part of how I raise him.

I want to raise a boy who knows how to think, to reason, to work, to care for those around him, to be called after God’s own heart. That’s what I want in my son when he’s grown up and not needing his mother so much.

BUT how do I plan for that? What types of things should I be considering?

To that end, I read two books. Raising Real Men by Hal and Melanie Young, and Raising Boys by Design by Gregory L Jantz and Michael Gurian.

The approach is this, how do you use God’s word and God’s principles to raise up your boys to be men?

 Raising Real Men by the Young’s is a book with a ton of personal examples from life, showing how a principle could be put into action.

14 chapters, divided into two parts.   Talking about the joys and the challenges of raising boys, and the way we need to talk to them, shape them, work with who they are.   Boys are meant to be leaders in their households, to hold down a job, to learn to how cherish their loved ones and to rely on the strength of God.

When talking about how to deal with temptation, we were told of the fist principle.

Dealing with temptation
1. Leave the situation
2. Pray, ask the Lord’s forgiveness and help
3. Read your bible
4. Sing praises or Hymns to God
5. Go to your authority and ask for help

These are five ways to make a fist to knock away temptation.

Doesn’t that sound so doable?   Easy lessons to teach your son and to apply to your own life!

At 255 pages it is not an overly long book, the text is easy to read and quite personable.   
Recommended reading.  🙂

Raising boys by Design.
This is a more scholarly type book, with the science behind how men and boys think explained.     12 chapters, divided into two sections.

The first section is mostly the brain stuff.   The science behind the workings of the male brain and body. In this section you will find chapters such as “what a boy learns from mom”, “what a boy learns from dad” “how boys develop differently than girls” etc.

The second section deals with helping boys develop good heroes, to do their best in work and school, to the building of character and self-discipline.    We also learn the importance of marking off stages in a lad’s life… giving them good markers to show that they are maturing and not a young child any more.  To the importance of giving a vision of what a strong Christian man looks like.

I appreciated this section “Making Faith Work for Boys”
1. faith must be individual, not merely institutional
2. faith must be flexible
3. faith must be interactive
4. faith must be relevant
5. faith must be muscular
6. faith must include room for questions
7. faith must include room for doubt
8. faith must be active
9. faith must be intergenerational
10. faith must cost something
11. faith must be relational.

It’s a meaty book with a less personal touch, but a very good book none-the-less.   It has good examples and stories of how to help a boy become a man scattered throughout it’s pages.

I Love the combination of these two books.

The end result they have is the same, the turning of boys into men called after God’s own heart.
The approach is different, but the result the same.  They compliment each other very nicely.

I am so pleased that I chose to read them and be able to take the truths contained within it’s pages to help me in the raising of my son.

I hope that you will find them useful to you as well.  🙂