This week the last of the free summer fun days are gone and by now most kids have gone back to school.
I don’t know about you but during the summer I start off with big plans to work on teaching my kids chores at home that they don’t have time to focus on during the school year. My kids did learn how to become more responsible by doing their own laundry, pulling weeds and mowing the grass but by the end of the summer I slacked off a little and allowed a lot of free fun time.
As the kids head back to school we Moms begin to refocus on routines and behaviors. No matter how old my kids get certain behaviors seem to pop up as struggles. I am convinced that no matter how hard I try to teach my kids the importance of obedience and respect there will still be days when both are severely lacking.
After having a particularly bad morning one day last week I sat in carline talking with my children about obedience and respect when right in front of me I saw an obvious reason why so often, we as parents struggle with obedience and respect from our kids.
We expect and sometimes demand obedience and respect from our kids but how often do we break the rules and show disrespect to someone in authority right in front of our kids?
I watched as a Mom blatantly broke the guidelines and rules set by the school for carline which not only put her child in danger but also told her child and any child watching that as adults we may expect you to follow our rules but we don’t have to follow the rules set for us.
Moms please hear my heart in this.
Teaching our kids obedience and respect starts with us first. If we aren’t taking responsibility to model obedience and respect for our kids how do we expect them to do it?
As I thought long and hard about the behavior I witnessed I began to think about my own behavior. Am I any better than this mom I was ready to give a piece of my mind? Do I always obey the rules or do I think, “No one’s around, it’s ok if I run the stop sign this one time.”
How about respect? Do I always show respect to my children, my husband, my own Mom?
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 says, “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your house and your gates.”
Sweet Moms, we have been given an incredible gift and responsibility to raise our kids. As we strive to teach our kids obedience and respect may we live & model this behavior ourselves.
But how do we do this? How do we model obedience & respect for our kids? Like Deuteronomy 6 tells us, we live them out in our daily lives modeling them for our kids in our actions and our words.
- We show respect to our kids by using kind, loving words.
- We show respect to our husband by listening to him and following his lead in our family.
- We model respect for our children by saying “Yes Ma’am” and “No Ma’am” to our own Mom.
- We follow the rules set for us in carline and while driving.
- We listen to & obey those in authority over us.
- We speak kind uplifting words about others in front of our kids.
And when we mess up? What do we do then? We model admitting we were wrong and apologizing.
Being a Mom is not easy. The responsibility to raise our kids to be obedient and respectful starts with our own behaviors, after all actions speak louder than words.
Sweet Moms how can I pray for you as you seek to teach your children obedience and respect?
In His Calm,
