Monthly Archives: January 2021

Children Need Help Making Friends

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, patlambchristianauthor.com

Train up a child…

Children Need Help Choosing Friends

         Most children are very concerned about whether or not they have friends.  They not only want to have friends, but they want to have many friends.  There are some things that children need to understand early about friendship. They need to know the definition of a friend, how to choose a friend, and that no matter how hard they try, they will never have everyone as a friend.

         It is too bad that so many children get confused as to what a good friend really is.  They often think that just because someone plays with them or pays attention to them, that that person is a friend.  A true friend is someone who wants what is best for a person.  A true friend is someone that you don’t have to worry about pleasing all the time because you know that the friend will stick with you even when you make a mistake.  

         Since children worry about being liked, they often tend to do whatever they think another person will like.  Most children tend to think that friends just happen.  It is important to develop an attitude in a child that friends can be chosen.  It isn’t necessary to just accept anyone who comes along as a friend.  The Bible tells us that in order to have friends, we must be friendly to others.  The best way to make friends is to choose someone the child would like to have as a friend and show that person kindness and understanding. Often that person is someone who may be rejected by others.  Since that person may have experienced rejection, he/she knows how it hurts to be rejected.  This instills a quality of faithfulness to others to prevent hurting someone as he/she has experienced. 

         On Valentine’s Day, children tend to count valentines to see who got the most.  Those who get very few go home from school feeling sad.  Those who get many go home feeling elated.  True love and friendship is much more than giving a valentine, although it is nice to have a day set aside to think about love and friendship.  Valentine’s Day provides a good opportunity to teach children that true love and friendship puts the other person first. It isn’t a matter of how many valentines someone got, but rather whether the child is doing what is right to be a friend to others. Children need to know that most people are very blessed to have even a few good friends.  

         The Bible also says that there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  A person who has true friends- the kind that stick with you-is rich indeed.  The story of David and Jonathan in the Bible is a good story to read to children about friends to give an understanding of true friends.  

         There is no way that anyone can ever be liked by everyone.  We waste time trying to please everyone.  Children can learn that sticking to principles is more important than trying to please everyone.  They need not feel badly when someone does not like them or want to be a friend to them.  Understanding this at a young age will prevent some of the peer pressure problems that often come in the teens.  After all, even Jesus was not liked by everyone.  Why should any of us think that we will be liked by everyone? 

Encouraging Young Readers

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and patlambchristianauthor.com)

Train up a child…

Encouraging Young Readers

         Getting a child interested in reading at an early age is imperative to producing good readers for a lifetime.  Most children are eager to learn to read unless something has happened to discourage them. It makes them feel “big” and like older sisters and brothers or their mom and dad.  When this eagerness is present, teaching reading is easy. Some children, however, need some extra “oomph” to get them started reading or to stimulate them to want to read more and more.

         Of course, the first thing for any reader is to learn the alphabet and the sounds of the letters.  I remember teaching kindergarten near the Navajo reservation when I had the children say the letters of the alphabet each morning as I pointed to them.  We also said sounds for the letters.  Then, each day during rest time, I allowed the children to take books to their mats.  By the end of the school year, children were popping up like popcorn and excitedly exclaiming, “Teacher, I can read!”  I had also had group times with the children and put together words in the word families such as “cat, hat, sat, mat, pat, rat, bat, fat, rat, tat, and vat”.  I was careful to put no pressure on them to force them to learn to read. Had I tried to force them to read, they would not have enjoyed it so much.  I was privileged to have this same group of children to teach in second grade and they tested well above the national average in spelling.  One little Navajo boy always kept a book on the corner of his desk. As soon as he finished his math or other work, he would grab his book and start reading. Two years before, when he started kindergarten, he did not know how to speak English.  Reading helped him speak English as he learned about the things written in the books. 

         One way to stimulate interest in reading is to sit with the child and write a story that the child dictates and make it into a book.  It should be a real life story.  I did this with my three-yr.-old granddaughter about picking raspberries.  She illustrated the book with crude pictures.  We read the book together several times.  She soon had it memorized.  She would sit on the couch with her legs crossed under her and read the book aloud over and over by herself.  

         For children who have learned to read and like to read a great deal, it is important to see that the correct reading material is provided.  In my opinion, many children’s books have little or no value other that saying words.  There are many good books that can help shape the character of a child.  

         A good rule of thumb for any reading material selected for children is to have the child read one page of the selected book.  If five words are missed on that page, the book is too difficult and an easier book should be selected.  It is important that children have books on an easy enough level to enjoy reading.  It is human nature to want to repeat those things that are enjoyable.  It is also human nature to want to avoid those things that are difficult or unpleasant.  

         A child who can read fluently discovers a whole new world.  It is easy to teach a child to read if we are patient and reflect the joy of reading through our own actions.

A Child’s Choices Have Consequences

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble; www.patlambchristianauthor.com

Train up a child…

A Child’s Choices Have Consequences

         Unfortunately, many people go through life thinking they can do whatever they want without thinking about the effects their actions may have on themselves or others.  Children need to learn early in life that all choices have consequences.  Good choices have good consequences, bad choices have bad consequences.  Knowing this fact motivates a child to make choices carefully.  Realizing this fact will motivate parents to make sure that children experience consequences of their actions and not be enablers.  

         The younger a child is, the more impulsive is that child.  As the child grows older, s/he should act less on impulse and more on consideration of choices.  Young children tend to think only of self and do not consider the effect their actions may have on others. Unfortunately, many seem to never develop past this stage. 

         My dad told my sisters and me that when he was young, his dad had him drive a nail in a tree whenever he did something unacceptable.  He could remove the nails only by doing a good deed for each nail.  He worked and worked until one day all the nails had been removed.  When he showed his father, my grandfather said, “I’m proud of you son, for getting all the nails removed, but just remember, the scars are still there.” This activity drove the point home that actions have outcomes that can last a long time. It does away with the idea that a child can quip “I’m sorry” and run away thinking all is taken care of only to repeat the action again.  

         When parents are helping children with decision-making, it is a good thing to question the child as to the feelings and effects  on others. Doing so, helps the child to think beyond self. Another thing that parents can do is to point out consequences that might be imposed by law for certain actions. This is especially needed for teens. It is unfair to wait until a child does something wrong and then punish the child if s/he hasn’t been informed ahead of time that the action is unacceptable. We need to do more to teach children about family rules and society rules and point out specific consequences for disobeying those rules.  After doing so, follow-through with the consequences is a necessity.

         A director of a facility that houses troubled teen boys once told me that some of the boys had stolen a vehicle and the law did nothing to them.  There was no punishment; therefore, the boys thought they could get by with doing it again.  It is important that children know ahead of time, if possible, what the consequences of their behavior will be and then it is the responsibility of adults to follow through with those consequences.  When we allow children to get by with things they should not do, we become enablers to their inappropriate behavior. We are doing the child no favors! Often parents are prone to intercede and rescue a child from a consequence.  When parents keep doing that, the child does not learn about consequences of behavior.

         Perhaps if more adults had been taught when they were young that choices affect others, and that all choices have consequences, we would have many less heartaches in our society. People would be more careful with choice of words and actions, and the world would be a much nicer place in which to live. 

Checklists: Real Voice Savers

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, www.patlambchristianauthor.com.

Train up a child…

Checklists:  Real Voice Savers

         Have you ever found yourself yelling at the kids?  Dr. James Dobson says that trying to direct children by yelling is like trying to drive a car by honking the horn.  Have you ever thought about how tired you get telling the kids things over and over?  There is a better way.

         Now, at the beginning of the new year, is a good time to make sure everyone understands individual responsibilities.  If responsibilities, consequences, and rewards are discussed now, things will go smoothly during the year.  Consequences and rewards need to be clarified so there is no misunderstanding later.  Then, when children face consequences, it is by their own choice, not the parents, because they clearly understood ahead of time what would happen according to the choices they made.  No heated discussions need occur.  Parents can simply say, “I’m sorry that you made that choice.  You knew what the consequences were when you made your decision.”

         Making checklists can not only save your voice, but they can save much time and effort.  You may say, “But I don’t have time to make a checklist!”  Believe me, it takes less time to make a list than to repeat the same thing over and over and then backtrack to see that things have been done.

         Start with making a list of chores that children need to do.  It helps to have the children actually do the list themselves with your input.  Children have a pretty good sense of what they can and can’t do. Our daughter, a single mom, used to have her children sit at the dinner table while she cooked the evening meal and do their homework and make out a list of what they needed to do the next day.  It worked beautifully.  The next day, she simply looked at the list to see what had been checked off.  If something had not yet been done, they discussed that evening how it could be accomplished.  They worked as a team.  The children fixed their own lunches in the morning before school and were able to do so because they had discussed ahead of time what they would have and listed those items.  After a few times, the list was not needed.  They knew what to do without the list.

         When our daughter’s children were in upper elementary and high school, a color-coded chart was put on the refrigerator.  It could be told at a glance what had or had not been accomplished.  When something was not done, our daughter simply said, “Dylan, I noticed that you haven’t checked off ________.  When do you plan to do it?”  The children were responsible for the task but were permitted to “trade off” with each other if soccer practice or something else interfered.  If they wanted to go to a friend’s house, they knew that they could not go unless chores were done, and they didn’t even bother to ask.  

         I’ve never heard our daughter yell at her children.  When Dylan was in college and LeAndra was a senior in high school, they both were very responsible individuals and made good grades. LeAndra actually took her senior year online and was salutatorian of her online class. She now has a Master’s degree in civil engineering and is doing very well with her job at an engineering firm in Denver.  Dylan is doing well working at Trader Joe’s in California.

         If you haven’t tried checklists, I encourage you to do so.  They really work!