Why good values alone aren’t good enough in parenting

On June 1, 2016January 17, 2017 By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Ponderings2 Comments

My husband and I went to a really great parenting talk last week by educator Andrew Mullins from Australia… I liked it a lot, and not just because of his charming accent, which made everything sound so friendly and hopeful! It was very positive and practical, and focussed on 15 specific parenting tips or goals to consider in helping prepare your child for adult life.

One of the things that struck me was that he emphasized the need to help your children build specific good habits, or virtues, that put together would give them strength of character and the ability to live well as adults. Rather than focussing on trying to make them happy now, he encouraged parents to look ahead and help kids acquire the skills they will need to live as happy adults…things like honesty, courage, perseverance, generosity and a spirit of service.

These virtues aren’t aquired simply by parents having good values themselves, although of course that’s important, too. But values without specific expectations to live up to them are like good intentions…nice but not necessarily effective. “I meant to finish the dishes…but I got distracted…” So it’s important to let your kids know what you expect and to follow up and make sure it happens. Inspecting their work makes sure it gets done and also gives kids a chance to feel proud when they’ve done it well and impressed you. It can be a lot of work to get kids to do chores, but feeling useful actually makes them happier in the long run.

Habits, Mullins explained, are formed by repeated actions, so if you want your kids to acquire them, you need to help them practice those good actions (like making their beds, completing a task, helping others) over and over. It’s also good to explain to them why these things are important, so they can make their actions their own, and form their minds. So the key combination is a solid explanation and many opportunities to repeat the good action. Whether or not they like this action, for example helping with the dishes, doesn’t matter that much. What matters is that they get used to it, so that later, when they grow up, getting them done will be automatic.

Good parenting, explained Mullins, requires a balance between being affectionate (very important) and being sufficiently demanding. Usually we can lean more towards one or another, but a balance is important here. We want to help our kids grow and strive for greatness with a lot of affection and support, knowing how to help them do their best…without being either harsh or overly indulgent.

Mullins, who I believe did his thesis in neural development and virtue acquisition, described how mirror neurons in young children help them learn by copying or mirroring what they see. He joked that to see our kids worst defects, we had only to look in the mirror! But this goes for their virtues as well. Kids will copy what they see, therefor it’s of utmost importance that we strive to live well ourselves, and to do it with a smile!

I really encourage you to check out his book, which has many more helpful tips, written in short, straightforward chapters for busy parents! My husband and I have been reading this book a little at a time together, and then taking a few notes about a concrete way we could apply this advice in our family life. We even had a family meeting to talk about it and make a plan together.

Parenting for Character: Equipping your Child for Life

Perhaps some of you were also there at the talk…what did you find the most helpful? Or what is the best parenting advice you’ve been given…whether there or elsewhere?

Choosing Happiness

On February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 By Anna EastlandIn Ponderings7 Comments

Recently my dear friend Natalie from Chicago came for a quick visit, as she was back home for her grandmother’s funeral. Her presence was like a sweet breeze from the Windy City. She brought a little pot of cheerful daffodils to brighten my table. I got florally spoiled! It was a gift to be able to see her, and have a heart-to-heart talk while the kids played at the park. A moment of happiness I will cherish for a long time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately, and how necessary it is to choose it. Not just as a lifetime hope, but moment to moment. Choosing to embrace each good moment that comes, choosing to smile, to dance with the kids, to laugh when they tell me funny little things, to savour each time they hug or play together well. Tonight we had homemade pizza. “We’re having a nice lifetime,” said my four year old,”This is the best pizza ever!”

I have to see each of these moments as gifts, despite the underlying ache for my little lost daughter, who is busy painting Heaven’s clouds pink with her rosy cheeks. She would want me to be a happy mother who is present to her children, who is affectionate and fun, who is able to enjoy her children and to apologize when she loses her cool.

We can choose to see life as meaningful gift, painful but precious, or as a terrible burden, fraught with danger. But how would the latter help us? To be paralyzed by fear is to refuse to live. And we must live and love, even as the sun must rise, because that’s what we’re meant to do.

Who among us is without pain? We have all suffered in one way or another…
Yet we still have the ability to choose happiness. The longing in our hearts for truth, goodness and beauty is there because those things exist, and we are meant to possess them.

“The essence of greatness is having the heart of a child,” quoted James Stenson in a parenting talk. I think this is also a choice: to let sadness wither you up and go grey inside, letting yourself become even internally old, or to choose youth—hope, joy, simplicity, trust, laughter—for to embrace life is to be young.

This is not a choice we make only once, for we are so changeable, like the shadows of leaves dancing on a windy day…it is a choice we have to make again and again, every time an opportunity comes to enjoy life, to be silly, to dance, to relish a conversation with a dear friend, to bask in the sunlight that pours down on us.

If we refuse the joy of those moments, because the pain of deep old scars that still throb, we are being like the child who refuses to get over her tantrum because one toy broke, even when she is offered many others. It’s really easy to be that kind of child, but we have to remember the resilience of children who seek joy in each new day, who get excited about little things, who are easily pleased by small shows of affection.

All the daily blessings we receive, all of those good moments, are caresses from God’s hands, and a sign that He is with us, despite life’s struggles. Say yes to them. Say yes to Him. Say thank you. We are in bigger, better hands than our own, and only in them can we truly live as children who know how to trust and rejoice, despite the tears that also come.

As I’m trying to take my own advice, here’s some photo’s of me being a kid on my retreat at Loon Lake, climbing about in the woods and getting wet pulling a raft across the lake. Felt like I was 12 again. Was great!

Do we treat our husbands as well as our friends?

On January 13, 2015December 11, 2015 By Anna EastlandIn Friendship, Marriage9 Comments

Sometimes we wives and moms can be having a hard day, and are perhaps very tired or stressed, but when a friend calls we perk up and feel much better. And when a friend is in need emotionally, we find the time and strength to be present to them, offering a listening ear, encouraging words, and understanding heart…We are able to give the best of ourselves to friends, even when we are drained.

We wouldn’t imagine saying, “I’ve had a rough day, so I’m going to blast a heap of bitterness into the first available ear, even if it’s my dear friend.” Or “I think I’ll sting my friend with repeated sarcasm if she attempts to make me feel better. What does she know?”

Why then, do we women often do exactly that with our husband, as if our every struggle was his personal fault? As if he should cower under our mood, and be culpable if he doesn’t read our mind and fan us with palm branches before we mention being hot…

We’ve been taught to be very self-righteous as women, and very suspicious of men, but I ask you, is this prickly attitude making us happy? Does it not foster division in our marriages, and dissatisfaction in ourselves?

I grew up with three brothers, whom I love a lot, so I have a hard time buying the “evil men” stereotype. Personally I think we human beings are all fairly imperfect, but still kind of wonderful.

Ultimately we are the ones who have to make ourselves happy, who with the help of grace have to choose happiness despite life’s challenges. Blaming someone else for all our troubles only traps us in the cage of our own weakness. We wouldn’t blame all our challenges on our friends, so why would we choose (even subconsciously) to blame them on our husbands, who are supposed to be our best friends?

The role of a best friend is to love us no matter what and to walk with us through life, always by our side. It isn’t to carry us so we don’t even have to use our legs. It’s to support us in happy and sad times, but not to provide a godlike dose of happiness and protection from all sadness. You can be vulnerable and honest with your husband without expecting him to be able to fix everything. Don’t deify your spouse. Accept and love him as a human being who is worthy of your respect and tenderness, even if he’s not a superhero. Remember inside there is still a little boy who needs your love.

Perhaps you and I are never grumpy or sarcastic with our spouses (ahem!), but for those mortals who are, I think this is good advice: try to treat your husband with the same kindness and understanding you do your friends. And of course all this advice applies to men as well, in how lovingly they should treat their wives.

This year let’s take responsibility for our happiness by trying to be our best selves, not just with our friends, but with our spouse. In doing so we will become better people, and give him a chance to do the same. And it is in this striving to become the best version of ourselves that we will find peace and happiness.

On Writing

On January 10, 2015January 10, 2015 By Anna EastlandIn WritingLeave a comment

This post made me laugh so hard I had to share it, and I also completely agree that being at home with the kids is a perfect setting for being a writer. Love it. Hope Kate makes you smile as she does me..

Laptop on the Ironing Board

Disclaimer: I suspect this is going to be an insufferably self-indulgent and introspective post.

Suffer.

I love writing. I get such a rush from words tumbling out and jostling for position on the screen or in my ratty notebook. There is a delicious agony in searching for the right word or the perfect one-liner. I am filled with glee when I finish a piece and it’s done, it’s definitely done and I can totally publish it. And knowing that I have readers as lovely as you is pure bliss. I think I know now what I want to be when I grow up.

And here’s the funny part: I think that my job as a stay-at-home-mum fits perfectly with this plan.

I feel a little nervous saying this – in any other profession, it’s perfectly OK to say you love working and that your job is full of fun perks…

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Recipe for a Happy Birthday

On January 4, 2015January 4, 2015 By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Friendship12 Comments

Start with cookies made by a sweet friend:

Add people you love:

And a living room dance party with kids:

Have your cake, and eat it, too:

Open sweet and thoughtful gifts from people who know you well:

Go say a little prayer to give thanks for the year:

And take the kids out for sushi:

Walk home by the light of the moon, under the watch of angels:

Thank you to all my beautiful family and friends who made such an effort to cheer me up on my special day. I really did enjoy it! Love you all!

Everybody Needs Dear Friends

On November 14, 2014November 18, 2014 By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Friendship5 Comments

It’s a simple fact of life that we all need close friends. They are the ones who make life more bearable when it’s hard, and make it more joyful when there’s happiness to share. They are the ones we call on bad days when we need a laugh, or on dark nights when we need to cry.

For me, Jay and Laura Dear have always been these kind of friends. They are the first friends of my first boyfriend (now husband) that I met, and they embraced me—a skinny, nervous 19 year old—right from the start. For this I’ll forever be grateful. They made me feel like family.

James and I used to curl up on their couch watching movies with them and eating their yummy black bean burritos. Their house was always cosy and safe. It’s where I went all upset when I got fired from a café in university for getting swindled out of too much change. It’s where I watched in shock as the Twin Towers crashed down on 9/11. No matter what was happening in my life, laughter and hugs awaited me there.

So you can understand that when Laura, my confidant, my maid of honour, my loyal friend and kindred spirit, called asking for me help the other day, my answer was, “Of course!”

Her little nephew in Ontario, Kyram, a sweet-tempered little boy with major disabilities, is in need. He was born very early, just over half-way though the pregnancy. Amazingly, Kyram made it and is now almost 9 years old but he requires 24 hour care, even to make sure he keeps breathing at night. Sadly his mother Simone passed away a few years after Kyram’s birth. His loving father Myles, Jay’s brother, being a single working parent, has to have hired help for Kyram whenever he can’t be there himself. Naturally, this is very expensive but funds from Simone’s life insurance have run out. Please join us in praying for a financial solution for Kyram’s care.

Here is a link to Kyram’s YouCaring.com page where you can learn more about him and, if you feel called to do so, make a tax deductible donation that goes towards covering his medical expenses. Kyram’s family would also appreciate it if you could share his story and let others know about his fundraising campaign. The website has links for sharing through Facebook and other social media.

http://www.youcaring.com/helpKyram

Life is so much richer when we reach out and touch other hearts. May you be surrounded always by many dear friends, and never know the loneliness of struggling alone.

Here is a link to a recent news article about Kyram:

Kyram Dear

Just East Of Crazy Land

Tag: happiness

Why good values alone aren’t good enough in parenting

Choosing Happiness

Do we treat our husbands as well as our friends?

On Writing

Recipe for a Happy Birthday

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