GFI 2009 National Leadership Conference, Cleveland, OH
(July 16-18, 2009)
Whether a first-time class facilitator or seasoned leader, this years con-ference offers a variety of work-shops designed to encourage and strengthen individuals at every level of ministry. In addition to person-al growth tracks and networking with families from across the country, attendees will join GFI's 25th ministry celebration of reaching the world one family at a time, with the message of God-centered parenting.
At this year's conference you will be:
1. equipped to offer parents within your local ministry, hope, direction and practical parenting wisdom;
2. receive practical parenting advice for strengthening your own family and
3. be introduced to the newest teaching resources from GFI.
For registration information and conference workshop descriptions click here.
The GFI Leadership symposium is a place where new education takes place and new ideas are shared. This year's conference has three key goals:
- Equip Growing Families leaders to offer parents hope, direction and practical parenting wisdom.
- Provide Growing Families alumni practical resources for strengthening their own parenting.
- Introduce and equip leaders with this summer's newest video releases prepared to help the GFI community to meet the ever changing challenges of our post-modern society.
For registration and conference workshops descriptions click here.
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Raising Emotionlly Healthy Children
When our landline phones ring, we rarely think about the complex network of wires, cables and satellite systems required to make the call happen. The lines coming to our homes and offices originate from the phone company’s “brain-center”. This is located down line where highly specialized circuitry and switches manage numerous signals carried on “trunk lines” that can send and receive electronic messages simultaneously.
In a similar way, neuroscientists found similar “trunk lines” that serve the emotional circuits of the brain. Analogous to home phone lines, the brain uses the same circuits for sending and receiving emotional messages. But unlike our phone lines, the messages themselves actually build and strengthen the lines ability to understand the message. Sound confusing? Let’s bring some clarity to this amazing aspect of building emotionally healthy children starting with pretoddlers. Your little one is playing with his See-N-Say. As he pulls the handle and the dial turns, it produces animal sounds. The child laughs with excitement. Hearing your words of affirmation and the clapping of your hands, he turns to see how excited you are on his behalf. What happened during this exchange? His emotion of joy is met with your emotion of joy. The electrical impulse that created the emotion of joy was reinforced by your response.
But what if you did not show any emotion or showed disapproval? What happens then? The impulse controlling the transmission of joy is countered with a completely unrelated impulse. Disapproval or indifference sends a competing signal in this case discouraging the joyful impulse. Research seems to indicate that if positive emotional signals are not met with similar positive signals, then the power of the first emotion can be suppressed or lost. That means, if your child is joyful, be joyful, if excited about a discovery, be excited with him. In this way, you are encouraging his joy and excitement which will show him the value of those emotions.
Neuroscientists are not telling us to remove the potentiality of all negative emotions from the child’s life but to make it a point when appropriate, to reflect back to our children positive emotions. But there is a necessary balance. Parents should reinforce right patterns that come from right behavior but do not reinforce negative patterns of wrong behavior. If your child shows anger, counter with gentle words which often mute anger. The angry child is often the result of the anger emotion reinforced over and over again.
Finally, to bring more balance to the concept of reinforcement, consider the following scenario. Two year old Andrew knocked over the tower of blocks his big brother masterfully created. While this brought forth squeals of glee from Andrew, big brother Matthew is about to seek revenge on the little destroyer. This is not the time for Mom to laugh along with Andrew. She needs to correct him instead. Do not make excuses for Andrew such as, “Oh he is just a baby and didn’t mean to do that.” Such statements only dismiss the legitimacy of Matthew’s feelings. If you laugh when you should be correcting you will really be sending confusing signals to both children. Emotionally healthy children go hand-in-hand with morally beautiful children. Both are the product of parenting. Have a safe and blessed spring and summer season.
What Dads Can Do
More than every, fathers today share a common responsibility with Mom for creating and maintaining a nurturing environment in the home. The effective father is first and foremost an effective husband and there are some wonderful things he can and should be doing to make his home a place of comfort and security. What might this look like? Here are a few suggestions for Dads that send the right message to Mom and your children.
Speak Words of Appreciation
Affirmation is a valued gift a mother never grows tired of receiving. These are words expressing Dad’s appreciation for the special little things that makes his home a sanctuary of love; the great meal he finds on the dinner table or the joy of his children which is often a reflection of what Mom has done during the day. Dad can start with “thank you” and build from there. Sincere words and daily encouragement are a gift every woman appreciates and they are not soon forgotten.
Show Honor
If we trace the breakdown in fatherhood, it tends to begin at the point when a husband fails to honor Mom as his wife and not just as the mother of his children. There is no substitute for a husband who routinely does things that demonstrate a loving commitment to his wife. This could be through acts of service, (doing something that you know she is going to appreciate), giving her undivided attention, or gracing her with words of encouragement. Equally important is making sure that going on a date night once a week happens. It may be a couple of hours over dinner or a visit to a local coffee shop. Such times have value because it is taking your wife out of her role of motherhood and celebrating her first role as a wife. The best gift any father can give his children is a visible demonstration that Mom is the most important woman in the world.
Like-Mindedness
No dad has the luxury of a single job. When he leaves his day-job he heads home for the most important vocation of his life, that being a husband and a father. This means more than just going home and changing a diaper now and then. It means sitting down with his wife and asking questions that can help him stay connected to what is going on in Mom’s day. Consider Dad as the “Why Manager” of the home. Rather than just accepting “This is what moms do,” a husband should routinely seek to understand how and why she came to her parenting decisions during the day. This is not an intrusion on Mom’s judgment, but a way that will help both Mom and Dad stay accountable to their goals and beliefs. Work on having a consistent time to discuss what is going on in the family, which keeps Dad informed and affords opportunity for Mom to hear a second opinion. Being like-minded provides a mutually agreed starting point. By that we mean, when parenting challenges do come your way, you are not left wondering in that moment, what you believe as a couple. Rather, like-mindedness has you working together towards solutions within the boundaries of what you already know and embrace.
Knowing Why
Remember, parenting is a team effort. A mom can’t do it alone nor does she really want to. This is one good reason why couples should continue to set aside a few minutes each day to talk through challenges or changes relating to the little person in the home. This will make for some great Couch-time conversation. Women appreciate a husband who is willing to participate in the ‘knowledge’ side of parenting. It would be helpful for Dad to know his son’s routine. Try taking your pretoddler for a day, starting at breakfast, through naps and into dinner time. This experience not only gives your wife the gift of time, but more importantly, it gives you the gift of understanding of what it is like to be ‘Mom’ every day. Husbands who care in the little things care in the big ones even more. But cultivating Dad’s support begins with Mom keeping him informed. We can tell you from experience that when a man thinks all is going well at home, he has a tendency and maybe a willingness to stay blissfully ignorant of any challenges. Mom, you need to keep Dad informed if you want his support. Dad will listen better to what you are trying to share with him if done so in a calm manner and not in the heat of a crisis or immediately as he walks through the door. Keeping Dad informed really is all part of a mutual partnership to manage your child’s positive behaviors and minimize the things that can lead to negative ones.
Seeking Understanding
True love does not default to judgment, but first seeks under-standing. Not every day will end up being the perfect day when Dad walks through the door. He may walk into a chaotic situation without knowing what has been going on earlier that day. He sees his toddler son pulling papers off his desk or maybe dinner is delayed tonight. The wise father will first seek understanding of Mom’s day before passing judgment on what he sees. All the more reason when you get home, make sure those first words spoken are uplifting, not condemning. They should be words that speak life and build up, not words that tear down or wound.
What is a husband’s reasonable duty towards his wife?
He is to stand behind his wife as a support to her
He is to stand next to his wife as a friend to her
He is to stand in front of his wife as a protector of her
A husband is to live with his wife in understanding . . . showing her honor as she is a coheir in the grace of life. (c.f. I Peter 3:7)
. . . to the Republic for which is stands . . .
In the Growing Kids God’s Way Epilogue, we put forth a belief that a fundamental relationship exist between parenting and the preservation or destruction of our society. The principles shared in Growing Kids and other places aim first and foremost to help parents glorify God through their families. Yet, the same principles governing family conduct are also investments in the preservation of our Nation.
The moral and political destiny of any society will always be in the hands of the present parenting generation. By that statement, I do not mean to imply that God is not in control, but rather that His sowing/reaping principles are at work (Matthew 7:17-20; Galatians 6:7). What children become in the future will largely be a reflection of what their parents believe today. So the Nation follows. The family is the values-generating institution of our society. Once it becomes philosophically humanistic, there is little likelihood that it will return to the values that once made our Republic strong.
Biblical ethics clarifies our purpose in life by defining who we are and our duty to prepare the next generation to morally influence society. There is little hope for our collective future without a biblical sense of otherness, fairness, compassion, honesty, and justice. Can a Republic survive without biblical ethics? Can biblical ethics influence a society without a strong Christian witness maintained by each parenting generation?
America at one time had a collective moral conscience and our citizenship lived within a moral consensus. Biblical values guided that accord. That does not mean we were a Christian Nation, but it does mean we allowed a God-centered world view to guide our morality by providing fundamental virtues and values that had their origin in life, not cosmic chance. The more we lose our moral consensus as a Nation, the more we splinter into subgroups, each vying for power or striving to form coalitions of power. To maintain social stability more and more external laws are needed to replace the vacuum created by the loss of common values–common values that were at one time, intrinsically part of our commonness.
Our country has one of the greatest legal instruments ever written by man–the United States Constitution. It guarantees individual freedom to live without government intrusion. As great as it is, the instrument quickly loses value if we remove the moral foundations on which our liberty is based. Alter any underlying principles on which the Constitution was constructed and you alter the meaning of the Constitution. If we redefine the moral basis on which our liberty is granted, we inevitably redefine liberty itself. As each generation redefines the values that forged the Constitution they change the public character of authority that represents the Constitution. When that happens, the very premise of what a “Republic” is gets lost or muted.
We believe any generation of children not giving a working under-standing behind the values that make a Republic what it is, is destined to lose the gift of true liberty. When it comes to parenting and values, we can help. When it comes to teaching your children the meaning of “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of American and to the Republic for which it stands. . .” here is a resource to consider: Our Republic
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