Author Archives: Jeremy Lee

Family Devotion

When Family Devotions Go Wrong

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When Family Devotions Go Wrong

A great way to grow spiritually as a family is to do family devotions.

If you don’t know what a family devotion is, it’s pretty simple. You just gather your family together, teach them a Scripture, and pray together.

But unfortunately, actually doing a family devotion isn’t all that simple.

Let’s start with the scheduling of a family devotional. In today’s busy world it is so hard to find a regular time to do anything as a family. Sometimes, it’s like jumping hurdles just to get everyone in the family in the same room for a family devotion.

The hard part comes when you finally get everyone together, and you share with them what you thought was a pretty great family devotional, and they are falling asleep or even worse bouncing off the walls.

It can get pretty discouraging when you finally find the courage to lead your family spiritually, and they don’t act like they really care at all.

Here’s some encouragement for you in your efforts to lead your family spiritually through family devotions…

First, Don’t Force It. You don’t have to fit every spiritual lesson into one family devotional. This is a marathon, not a sprint. There isn’t some magical time limit that you must hit. If your family devotional is only five minutes, that’s great. The bigger questions to ask is this. Did my kids see me as a parent attempt to show them that our faith is important to us as a family? Did my kids hear me read Scripture? Did they see me pray? Did I show them with my actions that these things are valuable to me. That’s the big win. If someone asks your child a week from now what your devotional was about they probably won’t remember. But if someone asks your child years from now, is faith important to your family? they’ll remember the times you gathered together to read Scripture and pray, and say Yes it was! That’s the win that your looking for as you’re spiritually leading your family.

Second, Let the Kids be Involved in the Family Devotion. It’s tempting to put together a sermon or lecture like you might hear in church and share it with your family. But you might try another approach to get more interaction from your kids. Let them be involved. Let them act out the story. Ask them lots of questions. You might even ask them to lead the devotional themselves. If your kids are involved, you have a much better shot of them being more interested.

Third, Intimacy always follows awkwardness. If you think about it, just about every intimate moment is preceded by a bit of awkwardness. Intimacy isn’t meant to happen instantly. You have to push through a bit of awkwardness to get there. That’s very true when it comes to family devotionals. As you are trying to get together as a family and do something very intimate like studying Scripture and prayer, it almost certainly will include some awkwardness. My advice is to embrace the awkwardness knowing that if you stick with it, you’ll get to experience some amazing and intimate moments where your kids open up their hearts and ask the questions that they’ve really been wondering about. Or maybe your kids will share their fears or hurts with you because they’ve learned to trust this family devotional time as a safe place where they can share their heart.

I wish I could say those moments happen all the time, but they don’t. As soon as you experience one, though, you’ll discover that all the struggles you go through to do a family devotional together was totally worth it.

Texts/Tweets

TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.

Tweet One: Your WORD is a lamp to my feet & a light to my path. #readtheBible

Tweet Two: You gotta read it to know it…the Bible #readtheBible

Tweet Three: The Bible = best bedtime stories ever! #readtheBible

Tweet Four: Family devotions keep families devoted to one another. #readtheBible

Tweet Five: Let’s read the Bible together. #readtheBible

Tweet Six: Families that read God’s Word together learn together. #readtheBible

Tweet Seven: Share God’s WORD with your kids. #readtheBible

Tweet Eight: It’s nice to share…especially God’s WORD. #readtheBible

Tweet Nine: Know the Bible…know God. #readtheBible

Tweet Ten: Family Bible time = family growth time. #readtheBible

Month 23

When You’re Frustrated with Your Child

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Preschool – When You’re Frustrated with Your Child

Have you ever heard that saying, “I love you, but I don’t really like you right now?”

That kind of stings to hear doesn’t it? But to be honest that’s a very real feeling we can have as parents. We spend so much time with our kids, and they spend a ton of time with us as well. We’re with each other so much it’s only a matter of time before we see each other at our “worst”.
Because we’re humans that means at some point we’re going to experience a very real frustration with the people we love the most. It’s one of the craziest parts of being a family.

Here are a few tips on how deal with frustration towards your child.

First, give yourself some grace. You’re only human, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling frustration. What’s wrong is allowing that frustration to turn into an unhealthy anger that leads to damaging conflict. You don’t have to beat yourself up for feeling frustration. Instead, you can recognize that your frustration is signaling you that “something needs to change”. So focus more on making a positive change than feeling guilty about feeling frustrated.

Second, it’s better to “respond” then to “react” when you feel frustrated. I know those words seem similar but there is a big difference. A reaction is quick and fueled with emotion. A reaction is slow, calm, and includes some thought. It’s so much easier to react, because that doesn’t require much discipline. To “respond” requires that we think before we speak.

This is the heart behind James 1:19, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry”

Finally, call a timeout when you need one. You might be saying to yourself, “I’d love to respond instead of react, but that doesn’t feel realistic.” The best way to respond is to give yourself a break from the intensity and emotion to take a breath and think about your response. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a timeout. Just make sure to let your child our your family member know when you’ll be able to return to the conversation. You can say something like “I need to take a quick break from our conversation to calm down a bit. I’ll be back in 5 minutes to finish our conversation.” This will set a great example for your kids to follow.

Frustration in a family setting is inevitable. But screaming, yelling, and destructive conflict doesn’t have to be. Instead of feeling bad about frustration, let it cue you to take a time out and have a healthy response. This has the potential to help your family face frustration in a healthy way.

Texts/Tweets

TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.

Tweet One: Don’t pull your hair out…take a time out #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Two: God made preschoolers for a reason…to love. #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Three: Time outs are for moms and dads too…they love them #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Four: What you say & how you say it are equally important #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Five: A home with a preschooler is a home where noise is inevitable #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Six: Everyone deserves a break now and then…including parents of preschoolers #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Seven: I love you all the time = what parents need to tell their preschooler #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Eight: In God’s eyes we often act like preschoolers. OUCH! #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Nine: YPray for parents of preschoolers you know…they want it, bad! #ParentsofaPreschooler

Tweet Ten: If you’re frustrated now, wait till your preschooler turns 12! #ParentsofaPreschooler

Character

Teaching Your Kids About Mercy

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Teaching Your Kids About Mercy

Do you remember that game we played as children called “Mercy”? It sounds like a really peaceful game, but it was actually pretty violent.

Two kids would clasp hands and then proceed to test their strength by trying to bend the other person’s wrist until they finally gave up and yelled, “MERCY!”

Unfortunately, for a lot of kids that’s about the extent of what they learn about the word, Mercy.

But, because your child lives in a faith-filled family they have the opportunity to learn so much more about what that word means.

Mercy, by definition, is to offer someone something that they don’t deserve. Just to be honest, Mercy doesn’t come very natural to us as humans. We tend to be pretty selfish by nature. It’s actually kind of hard for a lot of us to see someone get what they don’t deserve.

Micah 6:8 is a pretty great goal for the type of person you’d like your child to become. Just listen to this.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

So how do we help our kids to “love mercy”. Here are three ideas that might help…

First, Look for opportunities to show your child mercy. Actually, you don’t have to look that hard. Throughout the day there are plenty of opportunities to give your child something that they don’t deserve. Maybe instead of giving them a timeout during the day, you can say “Because of the choice you just made, you deserve a time out. But do you remember that word I taught you earlier today? The word was ‘mercy’ and it means that you get something that you don’t deserve. God shows mercy to us, and right now I want to show mercy to you. You don’t have a “time out” this time, but please make a better decision next time.”

Unfortunately, you can’t offer mercy every time. God himself, allows us to experience the consequences of our choices, but every once in a while it’s a great thing to let your child experience mercy in their every day life.

Second, Catch your kid offering mercy. Keep your eyes open for an opportunity to celebrate your child when they offer mercy to a sibling or a friend. If this ever happens, make it a big deal and celebrate your child. Say something like, “When you showed mercy to your friend, you reminded me of the way God shows mercy to us. I’m very proud of that!”

Third, Tell your story of how God showed you Mercy. The idea of God showing mercy is a hard concept for a child to understand. So tell your story of “God’s mercy” to your child whenever they will listen. Don’t just tell it once, tell it to them again and again. Make sure to say something like, “God choice to forgive me of my mistakes. He gave me His love when I didn’t deserve it. I’m so grateful for God’s mercy.” When your child hears your story of receiving God’s mercy on a regular basis, they’ll start to understand over time that God wants to offer them that very same Mercy. And that, is the greatest gift of all.

Texts/Tweets

TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.

Tweet One: Everybody has a bad day now and then-even your kids. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Two: Nobody’s perfect…not even you. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Three: Give mercy to get mercy #gracefulparenting

Tweet Four: Give your kids a break and show a little mercy #gracefulparenting

Tweet Five: Aren’t you glad God isn’t as unforgiving as we are? #gracefulparentiing

Tweet Six: Second chances are important. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Seven: Lord, give me the mercy I need to deal with my child. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Eight: Kids deserve mercy, too. No, really, they do. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Nine: I’m not a perfect parent so I won’t have perfect kids. #gracefulparenting

Tweet Ten: I know I can…I know I can…show mercy to my kids. #gracefulparenting

21 Family Prayer Adventures

What is It?

Prayer is such an important part of our lives as Christians.  It also should be an important part of our families, especially in the spiritual development of our children.  Often, however, during the childhood years, parents teach some short, cute prayers that our children repeat over and over again. Prayer can become something that children do before a meal or bedtime, maybe at church unfortunately without personal connection or meaning.

Why not during these very important years of mental, emotional, social and spiritual development make prayer an adventure or something that is remembered and connected to things both simple or special.  Here are 21 family prayer “adventures” for children.

How do I use it?

This is a pdf so you can:

  • distribute it to your parents how you normally do through email
  • download or print it and hand it out to them
  • distribute in a small group setting

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Month 22

Screen Time

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Preschool – Screen Time

Our children will grow up in a digital age. That means that they are know as “Digital Natives”. They’ve grown up in a world with digital technology, the internet, and social media.

Many of us parents are more like digital immigrants. We didn’t have as much of that as children and we’ve adjusted to new technology as we’ve grown up.

That’s the heart behind this discussion we’re hearing so much about how much “screen time” your child should have.

There is a healthy fear in our society today that in a world of “digital natives” we might lose the art of personal connection.

I know that you can connect online by sending a message or “liking” a post. But the type of connection I’m referring to can only happen face to face.

So, the way we’ve responded as parents is to limit our kid’s screen time. Making sure they only watch TV or play on an iPod for a certain amount of time each day.

That is extremely important and should be encouraged. Trust me, they will get plenty of time in their life to interact with a screen, so limiting it when they’re young can only be a good thing.

But in addition to that I have another suggestion. Instead of just limiting their “screen time”, let’s also increase their “face time”.

Let’s create regular rhythms in our family life when we are intentionally have face to face interactions.

It doesn’t do much good to stop looking at a screen unless we replace that time with looking at each other.

In fact, I believe that if we fought hard for fact time, then the whole screen time thing will take care of itself.

Fighting to make time to eat together as a family around the dinner table, scheduling regular family nights, and valuing family vacations are just a few ways that you can use your energy to create more connection in your family.

From a spiritual perspective, face to face time is priceless.

It’s in these moments where we discuss the things that matter most. Faith based conversations in the home are born from face to face moments.

And faith based conversations in the home are the greatest way to plant the seeds of faith in the heart of your child. When your child asks a questions, shares a fear they’re having, or presents a struggle their facing they are also giving you an opportunity to infuse faith into that conversation.

So yes, let’s limit screen time, but let’s also fight for face time. Let’s teach our little digital natives what it means to truly connect not just with our heads, but with our hearts as well.

Texts/Tweets

TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.

Tweet One: Limit screen time for the sake of your family #techsavvykids

Tweet Two: There’s more to life than a computer screen #techsavvykids

Tweet Three: Social kids aren’t glued to a screen #techsavvykids

Tweet Four: There’s more to life than screen time #KidsNeedPlaytime

Tweet Five: Your kids are online-do you know what they’re viewing? #techsavvykids

Tweet Six: Smartphones don’t make kids smart #KidsNeedPlaytime

Tweet Seven: Set screen time rules and stick with them #KidsNeedPlaytime

Tweet Eight: Computer screens don’t make good friends #KidsNeedPlaytime

Tweet Nine: You can’t get social skills online #KidsNeedPlaytime

Tweet Ten: Teach your kids to be tech savvy #techsavvykids

Month 21

Dealing with Picky Eaters

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Preschool – Dealing with Picky Eaters

Mealtime can be miserable at times if your child is a picky eater. Have you ever found yourself dreading dinner time in your home because you anticipating the “battle” over what your child will eat. In this video we’re going to work through some ideas to help your picky eater try new foods without making meal time stressful.

Let’s be honest, if your child is a picky eater, it can be annoying. When they don’t eat what we’ve prepared, it comes across as an act of rebellion. It’s like they are saying, “I’m in control here, and there’s nothing you can do to make me eat this.” That has the potential to make you as a parent feel pretty powerless.

Here are some strategies to help you bring back some of the joy of meal time in your home.

First of all, Make sure your kids are hungry at meal time. I’m not at all suggesting you starve your child. But one of the common reasons your child might be choosy about their food at meal time is because they are so full from snacking through out the day. Try making a little more space between snack time and dinner time. It might allow a natural hunger to motivate your child to try more food.

Here’s my second tip for making meal time a bit more manageable. Set yourself up for a win when you prepare their plate. In order to increase the types of foods that your child is willing to eat, you’ve got to regularly introduce to them new foods. One approach you can try is to prepare a food that you know your child likes and serve it right next to the new food you’re introducing. Then you can say “If you take a three bites of everything on your plate you can have dessert.” If there is something on their plate that they like, your child will not view this as much of an impossible task, and just might surprise you with what their willing to do for dessert.

Finally, let’s remember that meal time is about more than food. Yes, we want our child to grow their list of foods that they are willing to eat. In fact, some parents actually write out a list of foods their child will eat and encourage their child to add to the list. But the family meal time is really about connecting with one another. This is a priceless time to have faith based conversations in your home. Many parents just simply read a Scripture or two before the family begins eating. Just bringing your Bible to the table every night for dinner communicates to your kids the importance of God’s Word. You might also consider playing some games together at the table. I know we were taught as kids, “Don’t play with your food.” But one of the best things you can do with kids is speak their language, which is the language of FUN. So maybe you don’t play with your food, but you can enjoy a quick game together at the table after everyone is done eating.

The point is that you can choose to make dinner less about a power struggle, and more about making a connection. When you do that, your picky eater might just surprise you with their willingness to try something new.

Texts/Tweets

TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.

Tweet One: Food is for eating not turning your nose up at #Pickyeaters

Tweet Two: Just one bite—that’s all you have to take #Pickyeaters

Tweet Three: Preschoolers declare mutiny against vegetables #Pickyeaters

Tweet Four: You can overcome a picky preschooler #Pickyeaters

Tweet Five: Vegetables won’t kill preschoolers…I promise #Pickyeaters

Tweet Six: Make food fun #Pickyeaters

Tweet Seven: Replace junk with fruits and veggies #Pickyeaters

Tweet Eight: It’s okay to not clean your plate #Pickyeaters

Tweet Nine: One veggie is better than none #Pickyeaters

Tweet Ten: The LORD made everything good…even peas #Pickyeaters

Family Memory Verse Challenge

What is It?

The “family scripture challenge” is an 8 week challenge for parents and children.  This scripture challenge is about getting to know the “Fruits of the Spirit” found in Galatians 5:22-23.

How do I use it?

This is a pdf so you can:

  • distribute it to your parents how you normally do through email
  • download or print it and hand it out to them
  • distribute in a small group setting

Download Now