Category Archives: Family Relationships

Building Loving Relationships Within Your Family- Part 4

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Encourage Communication 

When we talk about building loving relationships in our family- it’s not just the relationship between siblings that need nurturing. The relationship between parent and child is so important, as well as easily damaged. It takes careful attention to cultivate it so it will grow.

 

When we experience problems within the family, our natural tendency is to shove it under the rug, so to speak, and hope it’s just a stage someone is going through and it will go away. Instead, we need to train ourselves to run toward our problems, not away from them.

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Building Loving Relationships Within Your Family- Part 3

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Spend time together

The way society tends to do things is everyone participates in activities with kids his own age and although a family lives together in the same house, their social spheres are totally separate from one another. I remember this as a child. My sister, who was eight years older than I was, lived in our house, but our paths often never crossed.

One day I asked each of my children why they were glad they were homeschooled. I love what my son Matt said. “I got to really know my family, instead of just meeting up with them in the evening.”

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Building Loving Relationships in Your Family – Part 2

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Did you miss part 1? Read it here

Appreciate each other’s differences

One thing that promotes close relationships within families is to teach your children to appreciate each other’s differences.

In a family, there should be a spirit of cooperation fostered rather than a spirit of competition. God has uniquely shaped each individual within your family as a special part of his creation. We’re not all supposed to be alike or do things at the same time or the same way.

Point out each other’s strengths and tell your children how God created each one of them to fulfill purposes that only they can accomplish. God took precise care in all the specific details of personality, talents, desires, that uniquely make up who each of your children is, and God makes no mistakes. Even in homeschooling, you will find one child learns certain subjects more easily and struggles with something else. This is normal.

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Building Loving Relationships Within Your Family- Part 1

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Laying a Strong Foundation

Everyone desires a home that is filled with healthy, loving relationships. Indeed, one of the biggest advantages I’ve seen from homeschooling my family has been the lasting relationships that have been built over the years. My kids are each other’s best friends. But getting to this point is easier said than done, right?

What can we, as parents, do to nurture good and loving relationships in our homes? Well, that’s what this series is about. So, let’s start at the beginning.

You may wonder what some of these first points have to do with building loving relationships within your family, but notice I titled this section “Laying a Strong Foundation”  That’s because there is some groundwork to be laid- foundational principles and concepts that will help grow godly relationships. A good verse to remember is Psalm 127: 1, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it:”

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12 Ways to Communicate Love to Your Kids

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How can we show love to our children?

First, let’s look at what God says love will look like:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;

What might that look like on a daily basis?

Here are 12 practical ways we can communicate love to our children- whether they be toddlers or teens:

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The Irritation List (or Keeping Your Sanity)

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Here’s a little project that really helped me focus years ago.

I remember Rick coming home one evening. I had several kids at the time- probably 5 or 6. He asked how my day had been and I told him not so good.  It seemed like a thousand things went wrong. When he asked me what they were, I couldn’t really focus on what they had actually been– there were just a lot of them.

So he told me the following day, whenever I was irritated by something, to write it down in a notebook. I thought, “ok, but I’ll be writing all day long!”  What I actually discovered the next day was that it was only a few things that were frustrating me, but they kept happening again and again.

These were some of my irritations:

1-One of my sons, not intending to cause problems at all, would fling the door open and holler, “MOM” so he could discern where I was. It was not only irritating to be hollered at, but sometimes it woke the baby who had been difficult to get to sleep in the first place.

2- Also, when putting the laundry away, I reached up to put jeans on the stack on the closet shelf and the whole tippy stack came falling down on my face.

3- After school I told the kids to put their books away. Everyone seemed to need help because the bookcase was crammed with books and they wouldn’t just go in easily. The pages were getting bent, too.

4- Another of my sons seemed to think it was his place in life to irritate the others, and he was good at it. I’d hear his name whined out loudly by the toddler multiple times during the day.

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My House is Quiet Now

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Rick and I used to joke whenever we’d sing the hymn Blessed Quietness, saying, “hey, what is that?!” Quietness was not something you often experienced in our home. I remember times when the noise was so overpowering that I’d call a quiet time. That meant everyone had to sit quietly, read or play a quiet game for a specified period of time just to give mom a time to collect her thoughts.  It wasn’t always chaos but when you have 16 people living in the same house, it’s just not quiet. It’s busy. It’s active. There’s always something going on.

Well, things have changed now. I only have 2 kids living at home. Those 2 kids have jobs and interests and commitments and more often than not, my house is REALLY quiet. I’ve had a couple of occasions lately when a friend has stopped by and comments, “Wow, it just seems weird that your house is so quiet now.”  It is weird ,and I’m not sure I like it. It has it’s advantages sometimes,(it’s easier to concentrate when I write for instance)  but I LOVED experiencing life with my growing kiddos. I am proud of every one of them for the people they’ve turned out to be, but I do miss being mommy to little people.

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10 Tips for Teaching High Schoolers at Home

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We home schooled all of our children (14 of them) all the way through high school. And I am so glad that we did.

Here are 10 tips that I have learned through the years of homeschooling highschoolers that can help to make these years more enjoyable, effective, and productive for you and your kids.

1.Don’t be afraid to substitute creative subjects for what is usually taught in high school. Public schools don’t have the one best plan for education. Every young person is unique. One of my daughters wanted to do biology, advanced biology, first aid and advanced first aid for her science credits. That’s fine. Don’t feel like you have to follow a public school plan.

2. Ask for input from your student. Ask them how they learn best, what they would like to learn, what curriculum looks good to them. The more input they have into what they learn, the more they will invest themselves in learning.

3. Be sure you have an outlet for your high schooler to invest in the lives of others. Teaching them to have a servant’s heart and not be self-focused is key. Teach them to look for needs in others and extend themselves in meeting those needs. If you instill that in them, you’ve been a success. Life is about serving others, not pleasing self.

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Helping Your Kids Deal with Grief

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A few weeks ago, I posted about our journey with Josh and his battle with leukemia. I got quite a bit of feedback, so felt it might be helpful to tell how we helped our kids deal with their grief when Josh was promoted to heaven.

I’ve found that everyone deals with grief differently and it wasn’t easy with 12 other children to predict how they would respond or to have the wisdom to help each one. God provides the grace and wisdom when you need it- how that truth has been shown clearly to me so many times! When you need it, God will be there to pour out His wisdom to you.

First of all, expect the kids to have different responses. Some want to talk, some don’t want to talk about it, some just need time, some have questions, and some, usually the younger ones seem to have an incredible acceptance, trust and peace. Realize it’s okay and actually normal for there to be different ways in handling it.

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Thanks, Mom and Dad (a note from our son)

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Moms and Dads- do you ever find yourself wondering if you are doing anything right as a parent?  Have you ever wondered if your kids would ever understand WHY you made certain choices and if they would ever appreciate the sacrifices you have made?

Those are common thoughts and feelings that we experience as parents in our weary times. Life is hard, isn’t it? Parenting is not easy. Relationships are not always want we want them to be.

No, we don’t parent to have our children agree with what we do. And we don’t parent with the expectation of appreciation. But sometimes, we long for that encouraging word, don’t we?

Recently, our sons Tim and Nate wrote two loving, grateful posts on facebook for me and Rick. I’ve posted these not to brag about our sons or to say “look at us, we did it all right!” Because we certainly did not. We relied on God’s help all along the way, and still do! (Guess what? You never quit being a parent, no matter the age of your children! We’re still learning!)

But, I’m sharing these posts with you in hopes that these will offer some encouragement to the mom or dad of young children or teenagers who feel like the journey is just too hard and there is not fruit….yet!

Keep hope, and keep doing the right thing! One day, you will see and reap the fruit.  Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

(if you missed Nate’s post- here it is)

From Tim (Age: 40)

“Too often we only say nice things about people after they die and we are often the most guilty of this with our own family members.

In a conversation today I was reminded just what fine people my parents are and it made me think to take a moment and just compliment them for the Facebook world to see.

My parents, Rick and Marilyn Boyer, for those of you who do not know, successfully raised 14 children and managed to avoid killing any of us in the process! And all of this while homeschooling, no less!

As I have gotten older and married and have 4 children of my own, I could not have asked for any greater role model than my own parents. Though I am certain I made them angry more than my fair share of the time, I can honestly say I can never remember either of my parents ever once yelling or screaming at any of their kids, and I deserved it more than most!

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