It's been a while with work, school, and an awesome distracting spouse. Luckily, enough though I've been given the opportunity for one of my classes to write on my blog. Therefore as fair warning this blog post will be directed toward my class and hopefully for my future children. I was given the assignment to choose 7 different principles in Parenting and incorporate that with a doctrine from the standard works. It's a great tool to use and hopefully something that I can look back on when I need it.
My first principle is: "Adjusting your parenting style to your child's temperament" (Steinberg, 69). Being able to adjust your parenting style to the how your child's temperament will be less of a hassle then constantly trying to conform your child. The doctrine of repentance helps create this connection with adjusting. It's not easy to change habits and to change especially to someone who can be needy and cranky but through repentance we are going to be able to see the goodness in the child and not get so irritated and expect so much of the child. In Doctrine and Covenants 19: 15-20, shares the story of Christ's infinite atonement and says "For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent" This is the ultimate gift and that God suffered so that we don't have to. By not allowing to change for your child is not healthy for you or for your child. We must use this gift and allow that child of God develop the way our Father in Heaven wanted him or her to develop.
My second principle is "hearing your child's point of view" (Steinberg, 170). In order to incorporate this principle there needs to be a great amount of humility. In Mosiah 4: 11-12, "... I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel. And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true"
I love this scripture. It clearly represents the joys of humility will bring. Applying this to the principle of "hearing your child's point of view" you are allowing your child to be heard and you are going to recognize the divine gift that your child is and be willing to listen more often. Not only that but your child will hopefully recognize that great example that you are representing and willing to listen to your perspective.
The third principle I have chosen: "Deciding Together"(Kohn, 171). One of the greatest gifts that our Heavenly Father has given us is the opportunity and blessing of the power of Agency. In Helaman 14: 30-31 it states "... ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and hath made you fee. He hath given unto you that he might know good from evil..." By allowing your child to experience this great blessing you are teaching your child the loving gift of agency and you can teach how to use it. You are also becoming more and more like our Heavenly Father who has given us the blessing of making choices. We, as parents, should not try to control every decision for our child but work with them and allow them to make their own decisions.
The fourth principle: is to "Talk less, Ask More" ( Kohn 127). Kohn taught the importance of just simply asking questions. Most of the time parents just assume what their child is thinking and feeling but if we give the time and attention to our child and truly ask what they are thinking and feeling. You can discover so much more than what we probably could have anticipated. Throughout the scriptures we hear about the importance of personal revelation. It is when we take the time to truly figure out things out in our mind, ponder, pray, and study things out through the scripture we are then able to realize that if we didn't just preach what we think is right or what we assume something is but actually take the time to study and to learn from our Heavenly Father and from Prophets and Apostles. This is when we can gain personal revelation and help our children obtain answers to their prayers through careful study. In 1st Nephi 11: 1 tells the story of Nephi who after hearing about Lehi's revelation of the Tree of Life. Nephi went out and wanted to know what his father had seen. He began to ponder and pray unto the Lord when the Holy Ghost spoke unto him. It was through careful consideration and time before Nephi was able to get that gift of personal revelation in order to know for himself.
The fifth principle I have chosen is: "Change how you see, not just how you act" (Kohn 124). It's important to apply the principles of parenting as well as the principles of the doctrine. In order to change the way we act AND the way we see is through having a change heart. The best thing that we can start to do is with keeping the principles of Keeping the commandments. In Doctrine and Covenants 78: 7 states that we wish to have a spot in the celestial kingdom then we need to take the time to keeping the commandments. If we are willing to apply the doctrine of keeping the commandments we are much more likely to change our behavior and how we see our life. We will treat our child with love and respect.
My sixth principle is to "Be involved" (Steinberg, 47). Staying involved with your child's life and knowing where he or she is and what they are interesting in and what they love to do. This will teach the child that you are there for them and that you are always going to be interested in their life. This to me, is a sign of charity. Charity is defined as the pure love of Christ. We are demonstrating love towards the child and that will speak volumes and teach the importance of giving time to you child. In Moroni 7: 45-48 talks about how we need to pray for this love. Once we get this love into our hearts is when we are going to start demonstrating to our child, the amount of love we give to them, especially through our involvement.
My last principle I have is "Keep your eye on your long-term goals" (Kohn, 122). Alma 34: 32-34 speaks about how there will be a time to meet our Heavenly Father and talks about the importance of procrastinating. We do not want to waste the time that we do have with our children on something less importance. By looking at the doctrine of enduring to the end we can think of all the hard time and work we can do for helping our children study and learn the own doctrines and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Below is a Mormon Message that goes along with this principle:
I hope that you enjoyed this! Hopefully gave you some insights but more importantly I'm pretty happy that I did this assignment for future reference. I hope my professor, Brother Rarick had a good time at my little blog as well! :)
