What’s in a name? You could call it leaving a legacy or building a heritage, but are you casting a vision to your kids for what you want your family to be? Are you building a family name that has lasting meaning to your kids? What do you want your kids to say about your family after they’ve left the nest? You can start making changes now and cast that vision to your kids of who you want your family to be.
When you think of the name of Jesus, what comes to mind? Some things that come to my mind are:
Hope
Salvation
Comfort
Truth
Refuge
Guide
Provider
Protector
There’s a lot in a name!
What’s in a Family Name?
What about your family name? I thought about this a lot before we started having children. Some people now refer to this as your legacy or heritage. My husband and I wanted to break some generational dysfunction and be a witness to our extended families. What did we want the Albers name to mean? We knew our family name didn’t mean perfection. We knew we didn’t have it all together. A kid can throw you a curveball at any second and shatter that perception!
Building Your Family Name
You and your children represent your family. It’s not the way a brand would build its reputation with a tagline. Sure, maybe you’ll get labeled from time to time, but this is not about what others have to say about your family. This is about what your kids say about your family.
What does your family name mean to your children?
Have you communicated that to your kids?
When my kids were younger I’d say things like: “We are the Albers. This is how we live life. We’re honest. We don’t steal. We help people. We care for others. We serve each other. We walk with the Lord. We pray for one another. We take care of each other.”
I’d regularly made lists of these things. The beginning of a new year is a great time to think through this and make your own list. Start by writing down your family name. What are the things you want your kids to know or say about your family when they no longer live with you any longer? Think about things like:
What does your family name represent?
What does your family name represent to your kids?
Who do you stand for?
What do you stand for?
What do you believe?
What character traits do you want your family to have and display?
Who are The Albers?
I talk more about family identity in Parenting Beyond the Rules, but to help you with an example, here are the three things that were important to our family name:
We wanted our children to love the Lord and understand the difference between relationship and religion.
We wanted our kids to do life with us when they didn’t have to any longer.
We wanted our kids as siblings to know they could lean on and count on each other.
Cast the Vision
I encourage you to cast a vision of what your family is and stands for to your kids. Talk about it often. Let your kids see where they fit in your family. They are in your family by design and not by accident. God uniquely placed them right where they are on purpose. They are valued, loved, and celebrated! Through this, you are building a family name that your children will be proud to be a part of as they grow into adulthood.
A new year always brings some kind of change that must be embraced. And there have been so many changes in these last couple of years of disruption! Maybe you’re homeschooling or distance learning now, but you weren’t last year. Maybe you’re still working from home or maybe you’re transitioning back to the office. How do you adapt to these changes? Are you holding on to the One who can help you be stable in the midst of disruptions? Are you confident in the One who can help you with embracing change?
The rules of life seem to be constantly changing. How do you adapt without losing your focus or losing your why? To thrive and not just survive in 2022, it’s time to take a look at our thinking patterns of why we do what we do. Let’s walk through how you can embrace change this year.
List the Rules
Start by listing the rules that you have in your life and that of your home and family.
Why do you work the way you do?
Why do you have the curfew set that you do?
Why do you have the rules for your household that you do?
Other rules?
What is Not Working?
Make a list of things that you are struggling with in your family:
Are you struggling with sibling squabbles?
Is there a broken relationship?
Rules and practices that aren’t working?
Something else?
What Could Change?
Allow yourself to think outside of the box to make the relationships in your home better. Think about these kinds of things:
Why do you have the rules established the way that you do?
Do you need to pivot and adjust anything because of how the world has changed?
What if you had different thinking that still fit the narrative of what your family values are?
What if you tried something different?
Could you…
Listen more
Set new boundaries
Talk more as a family
As a parent, you set a lot of the rules and habits in the family. You control the zip code you live in, the shopping day, the cleaning day, the bedtimes, etc. Your kids are often left out of these decisions. How can you involve your kids in the changes and new rules?
Challenging Times
The reality of this new year is that your faith is being challenged in the midst of this culture shift. There’s pressure for you to change how you think, feel, and behave in relationship to God’s Word. Your kids are caught up in this too.
How are you teaching and protecting your kids in the midst of this change? Depending on your family and the area in which you live, your kids will have a different awareness level of what is going on in the world. Are you teaching them to be kind? Are you teaching them to be mindful of what others think or feel and how they process the world around them? Are you teaching them to be respectful without bending to the whims of what everybody else is saying or doing?
There’s a cost to standing up and being different. You have to be careful that you don’t become bitter or angry. Maybe you’ve had hard times or lost friends in standing up for your family or convictions. Remember that God is not absent. He is your refuge and gives you wisdom. You have to figure out what standing up looks like for you and your family. For some of you that will mean speaking out more. For others of you that will mean more time spent on your knees in prayer.
May God bless and lead you as you are embracing change in 2022!
Mentors are important and play a special role in our lives. Unfortunately, it is far too easy for mentors to replace mothers, or fathers, in a child’s life. God has given parents a special calling and responsibility that mentors cannot replace in the life of a teen or young adult. What do you do when the mentor-mentee relationship lines have been blurred to the point that the mentee sees the mentor as an authority above the parent?
The Mentor
When I was first starting to mentor teens, I quickly found times where a teen was listening to me more than they were listening to their moms. She’d say something like, “I can’t talk to my mom like I can talk to you.” Red flag! Warning! Be sure to explore issues like this with your mentees when they arise. As a mentor, you have the responsibility to go deeper and get to the heart of the matter. The ultimate goal is for the mentee to live life with their parents.
Here are two important things to keep in mind as a mentor:
Always be mindful of the parent behind the child.
Remember that you’re not getting the full picture of the dynamics within the home.
If you’re a mentor, be mindful of your influence. Always direct the mentee back to their parents. It’s an honor to be used by God to mentor others, but don’t ever allow yourself to replace the parent. That is a sacred God-given place reserved for the mother and father. Help the mentee see that you don’t have the final authority that their parent has. It can also be helpful to show the mentee how they might be contributing to the angst in the relationship. Give her tools to help rebuild the relationship with the parents.
“Don’t allow yourself to be a mentor that replaces a mother.”
Connie Albers
The Mother
Are you a mother who has been replaced by a mentor in the life of a child? First, you have to avoid mocking, marginalizing, ridiculing, or besmirching. It is difficult to hear your child say, “Coach says I need to do this…” when you’ve been saying the same thing for years! If you are not kind towards the person who has influence in your child’s life, they will put up more of a wall between the two of you.
If you’re been replaced by a mentor, pursue the heart of your child! Your next best steps are:
Listen
Pray
Interject where you can when asked
Sometimes mentors are just around for a season. A coach can push your child in a way that you can’t. So, get to know that person. Keep your heart from becoming resentful towards the person trying to help your child navigate life. Mentors have their place in the lives of your children. At the same time, don’t go to the mentor and “out” your child either. Instead, pray that the mentor would see the situation clearly.
Mentors, please remember that there is a parent on the other end behind that child you’re mentoring. If you’re the mom who has been pushed out, ask God to heal the relationship, keep your heart tender, and be thankful that someone is pouring truth into your child.
How can you learn to love struggles and trials? We are conditioned to ignore and suppress struggles and trials in order to not appear weak or vulnerable. But, God can use struggles and trials to grow and change you if follow His leading.
It is important that you know that God has equipped you to walk through struggles, and you should not be consumed by them!
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
Lamentations 3:22 NKJV
Struggles and trials are common to everyone. I’ve been in difficult situations many times in my life. I’ve learned that these struggles and trials are teaching you something you wouldn’t learn without them. God can teach you things like:
Patience
Perseverance
Perspective
and more!
These struggles and trials are making you stronger! My husband and daughter recently went on a cross-country motorcycle trip. From the outside, it looked like an amazing trip. The reality is that they faced all kinds of storms and winds along the way. In pursuit of their dream, they endured incredible trials and struggles. God took them on unexpected detours that allowed them to experience the most beautiful places, but it wasn’t easy.
Struggles and trials force you to your knees, not to crush you, but to make you look to the Lord. In your weakness, God’s strength is made known. Struggles and trials change you. You will come through a struggle or trial differently than when you entered. Your faith will grow. Your resilience will increase. Your attitude will improve. Think about grandparents. Why are grandparents typically easier on grandkids than they were on you? They learned everything isn’t the battle we think.
How will you look at your next difficult circumstance? Will you learn to love struggles and trials?
Grief is part of life. Death, loss, separation, trials, unmet needs, or unfulfilled expectations are a few things we find ourselves grieving over. How can you walk wisely through seasons of grief?
How we deal with grief can depend on our age, temperament, the ages of our children, faith or lack thereof, and the circumstances surrounding the situation. With all these factors to consider, walking through seasons of grief is a rather personal matter. How you process what you are feeling is unique to you.
Planning for Grief
By the time I had hit my late teens, I had survived a boat explosion, my parent’s divorce, abuse, abandonment, and betrayal. That is quite a lot for a child to endure, but I learned lessons through these events that would serve me well throughout my life. I learned that:
God had a plan.
Life will still go on.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, if you choose not to get bitter.
We can’t plan for accidents or losses. Oh, I wish we could. We can’t count on friends to walk with us — though some will. We can’t expect our spouse to know what to do — though many do try. People won’t fully understand what you are going through — so don’t expect them to. That isn’t fair to others.
While we can’t plan what will come our way, but God does. He knows precisely what is coming and how He will make a way if you lean on Him. His ability to help you overcome and walk through dark times is unmatched! You can’t do it on your own. And you were never meant to either.
I’ve learned people don’t get to the other side of grief in the same way. How will you choose to walk through grief?
How to Walk Wisely Through Seasons of Grief
These are some things to hold onto as you walk through seasons of grief:
Discover the joy within the stop and go of life.
Remember that the grieving process takes time.
Keep in mind that seasons of grief shape you.
Have patience. Transformation happens slowly. It’s doubtful you’ll see the change happening until you reflect back at a later time. But, if you walk through your season of grief well, you will be refined.
See how God gives you a greater capacity to walk with others in their seasons of grief.
We all will suffer. Suffering is as much a part of life as joy and happiness. What you do with that grief and how you allow God to refine you during those seasons of grief are what will define you.
You know that your kids are watching you, right? They are watching and learning from you how to communicate from the time they are little and well past the teen years into young adulthood.
Last week we finished up the series Knowing Your Strengths. We spent four episodes talking about what strengths are, how to discover your strengths, understanding your strengths, and how to use your strengths. You can listen to that conversation in episodes 71, 73, 73, and 74. That series then made me think a little more about how strengths tie into my life now and a recent situation. I needed to talk with one of my daughters and we needed to be able to speak face to face, eye to eye. So I sent a text to set up the meeting.
Your Kids Are Watching You
Before I tell you the whole story, you need to know that your kids are watching you. Maybe your child is two years old and pointing at everything while listening to you play the label game. As they get older they are watching how you handle the difficult situations and how you treat people. They pick up on even the little inconsistencies in your life. Your teens then think that what you allow for yourself is also ok for them.
The key observation here is that the words you choose are critical. How are your words going into the ears of the listener? Knowing your strengths helps you figure out how to navigate these circumstances. They are tools that give you the ability to communicate better.
See, I know my daughter and how she is best communicated with. I sent a text asking to get together to do something active and have a talk. I needed to have this conversation with my daughter. It was a hard conversation about heart issues. My heart issues!
Say It Like It Is… Or Not?
Maybe you think: I just say it like it is. In the mind, out the mouth. Well, that’s not always wise. We need to have some filters on our mouths. Some people need to warm up to what we have to say. Some people like to get right to the heart of the matter without all the chit-chat. You need to know which kind of person you’re talking to.
Would my words draw conversation out of her or put up a wall? Inflection, tone, and directness all play into how the conversation could go. In the end, the conversation with my daughter was great, but that was because I was aware of the words I was using.
Shore Up the Relationship with Your Teen
If you have a teen, now is the perfect time to shore up your relationship with them. The dynamics and influence you have will change as they grow up and move out into the world. Set the foundation now! Your kids are watching how you respond to the daily challenges of your life. How do you handle conflict? How do you handle disruptions? Will your teen choose to model what they see in you? Will they invite you into their lives as young adults?
In our conversation, my daughter made the observation that I always need to be productive. That’s one of the strengths that I have in the striving domain. I am very productive. I don’t sit well and do nothing. She said to me that sometimes she just needed me to sit and be present with her. That hit me hard. She was watching. She picked up on a place in my life that I still wrestle with.
Productive But Present
A few things to ponder:
It’s ok to be productive, but you have to be present.
It’s ok to be out leading a group or a business, but you have to make sure you’re present for your kids.
Make sure that you’re spending time in your purpose. Is this thing you’re doing the purpose to which God has called you?
Be mindful.
Watch your body language.
Are you responding with kindness, love, and unconditionality?
Are you encouraging others?
Every day brings new challenges and opportunities. As your children grow, so do you. Things are always changing and you may feel like you’re running out of time. My conversation with my daughter showed me the fruit of all of the all work and prayers I put in over the years.
In your productivity, stay present and actively engaged. Take time to speak in a way that your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, and others can hear.
