I have had several mothers of toddler-age children ask me recently how is it that my children are so polite, well mannered, and well behaved. They say I make it look so easy (if they only knew!!! -- they weren't here ten years ago when I was in that phase of life with three under three!)...

The truth is, every child is different and each family's circumstances, environment, and needs are different so what worked for me may not work for you. 
There are, however, a few basic, universal principles that we applied to our lives that I believe have blessed us so much.

I remember being a brand new Christian mom with twin  2 year olds and a newborn and just about pulling my hair out. I frequently lost patience and no matter how hard I tried, I went to bed most nights filled with regret of how I mishandled my time with the babies. I remember sitting on the floor crying with my arms outstretched in opposite directions holding my toddlers in their toddler beds begging them to take a nap...I was exhausted and frazzled and so alone. We had just moved 6 hours away from everyone we ever knew to live in a tiny two bedroom apartment we now affectionately refer to as the Meadow Ghetto. It was a dump and this new land we were living in seemed unfriendly, cold, and unfamiliar. Tony was working second shift at his new job so most of the day with the kids was up to me. 

Yep, I was the mom who yelled, belittled, yanked, begged, and berated her toddlers daily....then, when I was all worn out, I let them do whatever they wanted because I was too tired to care. Then I would check on them while they were sleeping and they looked like little cherubs and pangs of guilt and sadness overtook me. We barely had enough money to survive, our marriage was growing worse by the day, I was failing horribly as a mom, we had one car, and I felt like an alien in this new, strange land we'd moved to. We couldn't quit and go back. Something had to change. 

Well, what do you do if you want something to change? It definitely isn't going to happen by itself. YOU have to change something. 

Not even knowing how to pray, I started opening my Bible and read through verses I had heard referred to here and there as well as some books recommended by different acquaintances along the way....I read books like Personality Plus and Hung by the Tongue, Battlefield of the Mind, and  Creative Counterpart. I got a hold of an old school Kenneth Copeland tape which totally lit my fire and then, over time, started studying his broadcasts. I loved listening to their daily broadcasts and watching their marriage and their children and their grandchildren. I so wanted what they had......not the money and the big house and all that, but the joy and the peace, and the laughter, and the boldness, and the kindness....I learned that Kenneth and Gloria started out quite similarly to Tony and I which gave me so much hope.

Through Kenneth and Gloria I learned about authority and the power of the spoken word. That means, I had to quit talking about all the junk and circumstances in my life -- I had to quit saying how bad my kids were -- I had to quit talking about what we didn't have -- I had to quit confessing fear and lack  -- I had to quit saying what I saw in my kids and in my husband and START confessing instead what I wanted to see -- what God saw in them....I changed my words from words of defeat, sickness, destruction, lack, and hopelessness to words of victory, peace, joy, abundance, health, and life. I began framing our lives with the word of God. I picked up Power of a Praying Parent and learned how to intercede for my children and cover every area of their life in prayer. I prayed through their rooms and their nightmares stopped. I prayed over their health and used the authority Jesus had given me and saw them miraculously healed numerous times. I spoke and prayed for obedience, for peace among them, for their joy.....and little by little strongholds were broken, generational curses we didn't know we had were destroyed,  and God began to knit our fractured lives back together. 

It's not quite as simple as all that but if there is one major thing we did right which unlocked everything else it was obedience to Matthew 6:23:
 Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you.
That is my life verse without question. 
If you are willing to do what Proverbs 1,2, and 3 lay out for you -- to seek Him with your whole heart, to seek Him as for treasure, to put the Word first, to get up in the wee hours to have quiet time with Him...this is all part of Matthew 6:23 -- 

See, by seeking Him with all your heart, He will lead you into pleasant pastures, alongside quiet streams, and down straight, well lit paths. He is the way to life and His Word is His instructions. Everything we have and are today is a result and testimony to faithfulness to His word and to diligently seeking Him, then diligently obeying Him as best as we knew how at any time. Seeking Him 1st has taught us obedience, love, patience, joy, discretion, justice, parenting, marriage, association, character, and all we are. He has led us to the right books at the right time, the right people for help, the right mentors to coach us through, the right church family to associate with, and so on.

 I cannot make any promises over your future because we have not met and because life happens, but I can absolutely promise if you apply Matthew 6:23 to your life, life as you know it will never be the same again, for the better!

It's so easy to get so caught up in housework, getting meals on the table, staying organized, working our jobs, keeping the kids clean.....checking the tasks off the list, day in and day out. I call it "doing". So easy to get up doing for our husbands and children that we forget the "being" part of it. But it is our being that leaves the greatest impact of all.
We have been discovering lately that this concept of being is important in our relationship and intimacy with God but from that intimacy through being, our whole life flows. We need to serve our families....someone needs to care for the home, the meals, the physical needs of those we love. However, the emotional and spiritual needs are just as, if not more, important than the physical needs. The time we spend communicating love in the ways that each of our family members can perceive....
        ...taking the time to read together, to play ponies or Polly's, to do a craft together, to take a walk, to talk abou things on their hearts, to help out with homework.
The Word teaches us to take time for our little ones, to cherish them, to instruct them, to worship together.....to care for our husbands, to honor them, to be devoted to them, to build them up...

All of this flows from a proper alignment in our lives beginning with the intimacy we have with our Papa in heaven, keeping Him at the center of our day, in our thoughts and in our deciisions...this time and love we devote to Him will strengthen us and empower us and flow from us into our families. 

Next in keeping our lives properly aligned is our spouse. We have made a covenant with him before God to honor him, love him, and care for him and God put us in his life to meet these needs. How does your husband need you to love him? We all need to be loved (to feel or perceive love) in certain ways specific to us and we tend to communicate love to others in this same way. God knows what we need and He meets that need for us. Our spouses, however, may not know or understand what that need is and we may feel unloved or rejected and our spouse is likely feeling that same way if we are communicating love in the way the we ourselves need it. There is a wonderful, simple book, The 5 Love Languages, that is almost like a miracle when it comes to communicating love in ways that others can perceive. And, as we being to speak to others in their love language, often they will begin to communicate love back to us in ways we can perceive.I cannot imagine how our marriage or our relationships with our children would have ever thrived without studying and frequently referring back to this book. 

Communicating love in ways others can perceive can be a self sacrifice and starts the process of our "being" with them. Being is not doing, it is a matter of the heart. As we learn to be with God, we will learn how to be with others. The more time we spend this way with Him, the more we will have to give to others. When this tank runs dry, our ability to be or give to others will also dry up and become more of a task to be checked off, draining and unfulfilling. 

So, at least for me, in our home and family, when things are running askew, or people become needy, or I being to feel overwhelmed and under pressure, it usually means that I've gotten out of alignment and need to get things first right with God and then I am able to see where else I'm missing it. For example, my time with God has been very fulfilling lately and things have been running smoothly with our children, but I wasn't placing my husband high enough on my priority list and so things got a little stressful until I adjusted. When he and I are flowing right, our children are also less needy because they are not picking up on negative vibes stirring in our home, they are far more secure.

It is a constant work in progress but it becomes a way of life that is fulfilling and satidfying. It is so much easier to be organized and accomplish more because the demands at home being placed on you mentally, spiritually and emotionally are less since each family member feels loved and secure in their relationship with you and God, they are being loved in a way they can perceive and they can perceive His love through you reaching into their hearts because the goal is love, not accomplishment of a task.

I've been thinking a lot about some of "tricks of the trade" so to speak when it comes to raising toddlers without ripping your hair out, feeling like you have completely failed at the end of each day, and wondering how long it's going to be before you no longer feel exasperated, exhausted, impatient, and just plain worn out. You want to be consistent but you're just too tired or worn down....so, after the 10th request for cookies or pretzels or chips at 9 AM, you give in and move onto something else...some other battle.

What happened to all the warm fuzzy moments you enjoyed preparing for your baby, hours putting the nursery together, fixing all the bookshelves, organizing the toys just right, folding all the cute little outfits imagining yourself holding the snuggly little bundle of love that was on his or her way? Where did those days of peace go and are you ever going to find them again?  

I call these years bootcamp...bootcamp for you and bootcamp for your little ones. The beauty of it is that if you take this opportunity for training in the midst of the chaos, bootcamp will provide you so much peace and ease in parenting down the road! Believe it or not this is another opportunity to sow into the creation of a blessed and amazing family experience...the opportunity to lay the foundation of your family legacy... you are in the process of building and creating your family's future through the time, prayer, love, words, and discipline you sow right now.

The inspiration for this article didn't come from me at all. Tony and I have just been approached multiple times recently from parents of toddlers -- especially of multiple toddlers -- of how we survived, and why we seem to have it pretty together as a family today (believe me, though we do have our moments -- especially as the teen years are creeping in....yikes, brace!!!)....

It's funny, although Jessie is only four, I feel like we've been out of the toddler stage for years...and I guess we have. The toddler stage for us took place years before Jessie was ever born -- back when our first three were all toddlers together. With Jessie, although obviously a toddler at one point, it was simply a whole different ballgame having three older children to model after and help out. I also think that through the wild ride first round (and making billions of mistakes), we have been able to create the family atmosphere we wanted and pictured  -- it's almost .  

#1: Bulletproofing Yourself and Critical Tools
BOOKS:
There are so many parenting books out there to choose from and so many different parenting ideas and styles, all claiming to be the "right" one.....and I never would have made it through without so much of what I learned from different parenting books. two critical lessons I learned early on, though, which were such beneficial guides that I still follow today were:

1. Choose parenting books recommended by those whose parenting styles, children's behavior, and family environments I most admire and wish to model after.

2. Take what I need from the books -- what best works for my family and me -- and leave the rest behind. Every child is different and we, as parents, all have different personalities and different backgrounds and what works for some might be totally stressful for another.
For example, I am pretty laid back today but I still need to be somewhat organized to function well and to think clearly...clutter just doesn't work for me. However, I have also had to learn that cleaning cannot take priority over quality time with my children and somewhere in between I have to strike a balance. A friend of mine, however, who is a wonderful mother and has wonderful children, functions fine in the midst of clutter,  laundry baskets, dishes in the sink, etc. and I love her that way because it's who she is. It's just a matter of knowing what our priorities are and what our needs are so that we can focus on what matters and create the world we want for our families and our future.

The book, Power of a Praying Parent, was critical for me in this stage. It helped me continually give daily stresses over to the Lord...I cannot imagine getting through this phase without it. A couple others hat really helped me, personally, are  Personality Plus for Kids, The Five Love Languages for Kids, and Shepherding a Child's Heart...these tools brought so much peace into our home and cut way back on the battles we were fighting with what I had thought were strong willed children (Julia and Caleb)...what I actually discovered was that we had different love languages and some of their utmost needs were not being met. I also discovered that once I learned how to work with their different personalities, life began to flow so much smoother.

For example, Caleb was a melancholy-choleric and would act up every time we went to leave or went through various changes. After reading the book, we learned how to prepare him in advance for outings, changes, adjustments, babysitters coming, that sort of thing -- taught him what to expect so he had time to adjust. We still do this with him today.

Julia's primary love language is quality time. Waaayy not mine. However, if I gave her time with my undivided attention -- even just a short period of time, doing something she wanted to do,  she was no longer needy or acting out for attention (doing things like cutting her hair, coloring the walls, biting her siblings, so on and so forth).

2. Tithing time to the Lord
This is the most valuable lesson I have ever learned in life. I cannot even imagine where my life would be without having implemented and commited to this. God's faithfulness, in return, has been overwhelming. I am so thankful for Gloria Copeland (the mother I admire most in this world -- and the fruit is on the tree) and her willingness to share what most affected her life as a wife, mother, and minister of the Gospel.
During a dark time in my life, early in my oldest children's childhood -- a time when finances were so tight, I was so busy growing our business, our marriage was nasty, and we were living in a horrible place, I was at my wits'end. I was stretched so thin between business people needing and wanting my time and training and my children needing my time, and trying to grow myself in leadership, to constantly be scheduling sitters who left the house a disaster (I remember coming home and literally sticking to the floor -- yep, scrubbing floors at 2, 3, or 4 AM was common practice for me) and I was just being torn apart......which I then projected onto my husband and kids making everything 1000 x's worse.
The twins were 3-4 and Julia was 2-3 during this time and all three were just into everything......from coloring on the walls and furniture with permanent markers, to lighting the tablecloth on fire with matches they found who knows where, to cutting each others hair, to dumping food out of the fridge, to needing me to provide everything....I thought I was going to go crazy.
Then, one AM I stumbled onto an article in the Believers Voice of Victory magazine I received from Kenneth Copeland Ministries....which I rarely read.....by Gloria Copeland. In that article she described herself in my life and how within just a few short weeks, their entire family had changed forever. She said that God taught her to wake up before everyone else in the house, before she had to pour out of herself for anyone, and take time with God -- tithe her time to Him just as she tithed her income.....and that if she would do so, He would see to it that all her time needs would be met in abundance. That month, not only did she spend that extra time in the word, prayer, and meditation, but she mananged her ministry, her household, and even refinished some furniture peices as well. So, I tried it...and God has been so faithful. It was as though I supernaturally had enough time for my children, my housework, my business, God, and myself.....
and, to this day, most days, I get up before dark, before the household is stirring, and take that time with God....
    time to pray and mediatate
    time to read the Bible and other growth books
    time to organize my thoughts and tasks for the day
    time to organize the kids' tasks and schedules for the day
and I sow it all to Him, and He blesses me with the ability to accomplish what needs to be done. There is so much Biblical reference for this, as well....it's definitely not a new concept. Simply study the Proverbs 31 woman or the many scriptures where He tells us to seek 1st the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to us....seek me and you will find me whe you seek me with all of your heart......seek, ask, knock......it's all in there....keep Me your priority....from Genesis through Revelation, it's in there over and over. There is no shortcut to the blessing...when we seek Him, we will always have everything we need....including wisdom, guidance, understanding, patience, enough love, time, money, all our needs met, etc. 

3. Consistency
This is critical...and probably the hardest step. Decide what rules your children need to abide by, what is important for the family you want to build. I encourage you to pray about them and follow Biblical principles when creating them. What are the core values you want most in your children as they grow up? Of course, when your children are little not sticking fingers or items into sockets, touching hot stoves, and not running into the road need to be enforced....but they all still fall under the category of "children, obey your parents in the Lord, that all may be well with you", "honor your mother and your father", "spare the rod, spoil the child" (you may need to spank or not, the "rod" can be anything -- witholding some priveledge, etc., too....we spanked but tried to reserve them for the most important points, like not climbing onto the roof of the house, etc.). Studying the Message version of Proverbs will reveal why instilling obedience and respect and honor into your children, lovingly, is one of the greatest services you will ever do for your children. Being afraid to discipline them, being too tired or too worn down to follow through and be consistent is one of the greatest diservices we can ever do to them.....and the results will haunt yo and them all their days. a two year old can learn responsibility and consequences, free of guilt and full of love very easily....and this will provide you years of peace, joy, and simplicity in your home for years to come. It will set up the foundation you can build your future upon and instill in them values that will bring God's favor upon them all their lives through. 
(to be continued)