Saturday, June 28, 2008

Parenting is HARD!

John and I were feeling like we were failing miserably with our kids! That statement is probably true. SuperNanny was on the forefront of my mind, but I don't think she comes to Costa Rica. And I know what the solution is - love, discipline, training quality time, encouragement and bribery (oops, did I say that). I'm pulled so many directions right now that my priorities have been off. Only 6 more weeks!

Well, I got my hands on the book Becoming Pre-teen wise: Parenting your child from eight to twelve years by Gary Ezzo. I have read 140 pages in the last 24 hours. My eyes have been open to so many mistakes we have been making and areas that needs to change. I even read 3 or 4 chapters to the little ones today and they totally loved it. We did some role playing based on topics in the books. I read some stuff tonight that I am definitely going to share with them tomorrow. Regardless of what people might think about the author, Gary Ezzo, this is a phenomenal book and I feel like the heaven's have opened. And now I have the tools I needed to parent my two older children. I'm good with ages 0-5 (because I've done it 4 times now) but anything past that, I am clueless.

Pick up this book and read it if you get a chance. What a blessing!

3 comments:

Texas Aggie in Florida said...

I read his book, Baby Wise, like 4 times and thought it was such good stuff. But I don't think any of it really worked for me! I tossed it after Lexi was about 6 months old! Maybe I should give this book a shot (well, I guess I have a few years!)

Amy Jo said...

Amen! Feeling your "pain!" I picked up a great book on the topic recently and I am in my 2nd read-through: Raising Godly Tomatoes (can be found on a website of the same name www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com). Truly a God-send of encouragment. To me, it is the best of Pearl and Tripp (Shepherding A Child's Heart)all rolled into one! And it is written by a Mom (10 kids to her name, but who is counting!). If you get a chance, it is well-worth the $$$. I'll be checking out Ezzo's take when mine hit that age, right now, I am just trying to work through TWO and 4 MONTHS!
Much love,
Amy

Pamela said...

I have Baby-Wise and Child-Wise. They are wonderful. I never read the Pre-teen book, but would love to. I guess because my kids were so perfect, you know, I didn't need it! (TOTALLY JOKING!!!)It was a lot smoother when I kept many of those principles in mind. Maybe in my "spare time" I'll read Child-Wise again and try to find the teen book........... I don't have much to do these days except learn 2 more languages and homeschool 5 kids. haha! There's always time to read! Hang in there and trust me on this one: the stress of language school and transition makes everything seem overwhelming and worse than it normally would be to you at times. I've been through language school twice and it's definitely challenging. You are almost out of there and THERE IS LIFE AFTER LANGUAGE SCHOOL!!!! You are doing super and you have terrific kids. Before you know it, you'll get to call the shots on your schedule again and homeschool and do fun stuff as a family as you minister together. It will feel good to get back to your "main role" again.

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