Raising children

Hey all,
Hope you had a good weekend.

Mine was very eventful. We had a leadership thing at church. That is dinner and some stuff Friday night until about 9pm. Then up at 8:30am to get on a bus to go to a remote site to talk church stuff. This ended at about 10pm.
Then church the next morning at 9am.

Only one problem.

This Saturday was my long run day. We are getting up there in miles and scheduled to run 20 miles. That means wake-up call at 3:30am. Get to the meeting place at 4am. Then running for 3 hours and 45 minutes. Then I have to crawl back to my car and get home at 8:15, shower and get on the bus at 8:30.
So getting home at 10pm meant a very long day for yours truly.

As far as the weight loss thing...I think I am moving in the right direction but it is not that fast. I told you last weekend I was 192 on Sunday. Well, I was 196 by the end of the night.
So I was frustrated.
Saturday after the run I was 190. But of course it is all water weight. But this morning I was 194.5.
So a good trend but I don't know if it will be fast enough to win the money.
It might be time for some more guerrilla tactics.
The worst is that the weight loss is suppose to make it easier to run but it is not happening.
I am getting creamed out there.

Today's topic is about raising kids.
This is a tough one. What a special job the Lord has given parent.
It is by far the toughest job in the world.

You love this kid to death. I mean crazy love.
But as I speak this week don't ever think I know what I am talking about.
I kind of live by what Kevin James said on King of Queens, "I am just a stupid man just trying to do the best I can."
I am not an expert I am just a parent. A parent just trying to "raise up a child in the way he should go". (Proverbs)

I would never judge someone by the way their kids are.
This is kind of how some people parent, (present company included) we parent out of fear of the way our kids will act in public. Are you crazy? When I see a kid acting up in a store, I just think, 'been there, done that."
But the only time I will judge someone if they are not trying. If you are gone all the time you can't parent.
My wife and I have no idea on how to parent. You know what I mean. I mean we try. We take classes, we read books but we really are flying by the seat of our pants most of the time.

One thing we do try to do it study kids and see if there is a common trend between successful kids.
Things like...did the parent micro manage the kid?
Were they strict?
Did they have an open relationship with the kids?
Did they make the kids their "friend" and not their kid? (I don't recommend this one)

I have three awesome kids but I continue to pray that they turn out okay. I pray that they will grow up loving the Lord and being a productive member of society IN SPITE OF ME.
That they will see the stuff that will make them great and forget about all the crappy stuff I have unintentionally done to them.
Let me make something very clear...I don't care if they go to college. I don't care if they make a lot of money (although it would be nice it at least one of them will buy me a house or something like that).
I just want them to be happy. I want them to make others happy.
This means to me, not being in jail. Not being addicted to drugs and not having kids before they should. And I want them to have a job they love.
I don't care if they care if they are janitors as long as they love to do it and do it in a way that honors our King.
Pretty simple right? NOT

I have read a ton of books on raising kids (okay, maybe my wife has and she told me about them) but as you might imagine they all have different opinions on the way raising kids should be done.
Its like anything.
IN my opinion is it is all about time.
Spend time with them. Spend time loving them. Just being there.
But wait...the more time you spend with them the more opportunities you have to screw it up.
See what I am saying...it ain't easy.

My wife (and she will say it herself) she parents out of fear.
She has seen people in our family self destruct. She fears this happening to her kids.
So she will not allow this to happen to her kids. But we all know that even great families have some kids that self destruct.
And you know what you can do every thing perfect and they will self destruct. Sometimes it has something to do with the KID.
I mean if you ask anyone, "How was your family life growing up?" Most people will say it was moderately screwed up.
I am a pretty stable guy but I can say that we sit around the Christmas table and laugh about the dysfunction in our family as we were growing up.
"Remember the time you were chewing gum loud and dad told you to be quiet? You decided to not be quiet and then dad took your gum and squished in your hair? That was so funny."
"Remember the time dad made you eat ice cream with your hands because you put your fingers in the quart of ice cream?"
"Remember the time dad smacked me in the mouth for yelling the F-word at you when he had guests over? Yeah, that was classic"
We have five kids so the stories are endless.
Sometimes my dad gives it back to us but most of the time he just laughs along with us.
Now we all reacted differently to our up bringing. 5 kids, all the same parents and all very different.
I know what you are goin to say, "you shouldn't parent all your kids the same."
Yeah right, that is real easy to do (sarcastic tone).
You did something wrong and I am going to have to discipline you.
Let me go over to the discipline chart. Okay you did X offense, I discipline you this way. Wait you are a girl so I have to change it. Oh wait you are a second child so I can't do that so I have to do this. Wait you are my sensitive one so I will just do this.
Get it...NOT EASY.

I like my wife have many issues in my parenting skills.
Lets say my kid does something wrong. Yes, my little angel went and kicked over the older boys Lego building.
Now in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal. BBBUUUTTT it is.
But I just sat down from a hard day of work and I really don't give a crap about the Lego's.
Tonight the older one is going to have to put all the Legos away anyway so do I have to get up off this couch and beat the crap out of someone right now?

Well according to my wife, and all her books, I must act. Because it will reinforce bad behavior...blah, blah, blah.

But he is so cute.
Do I have to discipline (spank) him?
This is hard stuff. You have to take the spoon, tell him to meet you in the room.
"But Daddy, how many spankings is it going to be?" (he is four years old)
"Son, I will meet you in the room."
Now he is in the room and you are suppose to be calming down in the kitchen so you don't hit out of anger.
So I say to my wife, "You do it."
So said, "No, be a man, you do it."
"I promise not to ask you for sex for a whole week if you do it."
"No, you do it." (I have to discipline, but this allowed me to beg for loving all week).
Then it is into the room.
Man I hate doing this.
I tell him to pull his pants down and lean over the bed.
He has such a cute "tooshie" (this is what my mom called it so this is what we call it).
But don't forget you can't hit him to hard so that he is scarred for life and you have to hit him hard enough to make remember not to do this again.
Did I tell you I hate doing this?

Now I know there might be a bunch of non spanker blog readers.
Here is my thought process....
The Bible says to do it.
Simple as that.
One of the verses is, "Spare the rod, spoil the child."
Or in some translations
"Spare the rod, hate the child."
So when I have to discipline my child, I keep saying this verse over and over in my head. I love him or her and that is why I am doing this. I am being faithful.

I am going to stop here. I know I was rambling but I have all these thoughts and my fingers don't type fast enough.

I will tell you more stories on Wednesday.

Have a great Monday,
Don't forget How I Met Your Mother is on tonight. CBS 8:30 (I think).
john

I started another book...It is called Why They Hate. It is from a woman who was a Christian brought up in Lebanon. She escaped the violence in her country and now is writing an autobiography type book about her growing up and explaining to the reader about the fundamentalist Islamic person. It is about the fifth book I have read on this topic.