Quick post about something I recently read in a church magazine. It had to do with children and how as parents, we need to use positive reinforcement, encouragement, and support with them. We need to put our feelings into action and “walk the talk” of love, not just mouth the words or worse yet, just assume that they know of our love and therefore say nothing.
I’m referring to our earthly relationships with our mortal children, of course, but this article pointed out that even Christ got verbal affirmation from His (and our) Father. When Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, Matthew 3:17 tells us that a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” I can’t believe I never really perceived that statement in quite this way before, but now I’m thinking that we need to emulate Our Father’s example. We need to tell our children how proud we are of them and encourage them to do their best.
If God saw fit to praise His Son, shouldn’t we praise our sons and daughters? In fact, shouldn’t we be a little more vocal about our positive feelings for all those we love? Hmm, it’s time to make three phone calls just to remind my children of how “well pleased” I am with their maturity and wise choices (for starters).
mom's musings 
Thanks for the great reminder. I have 3 great kids that I need to praise this week. P.S. I loved meeting you this week and getting connected to you through our blogs.
Thanks for visiting my blog and writing a little something. I found yours Saturday evening and left a message. Yes, it was great to meet you and Jan as well. I hope they do well in their new enterprise. The shop is so cute, and I love the atmosphere or ambience or whatever it’s called.
Let me know how your kids react when you praise them. I was just now thinking that literally until the day they died, both of my parents could say something that would really affect me.
Marlene, did you change your blog? When I went to it, some other person’s blog was there. Also, I can’t link back to your blog. Do you know how to fix this?
Yes, so true. I’ve heard that it takes 10 positive comments or compliments to make up for just one negative thing. I think it’s probably much more than that, but it’s amazing how much a little positive praise works. Our children need that and it is our duty as parents to build them up as much as we can. If we don’t who will? Great blog!
We were discussing spiritual maturity at Bible study and I couldn’t help thinking about the difference in how much better I understand scripture compared to ten years ago, a result of studying and praying more earnestly. Don’t think we ever reach full potential, but the effort is worth it to feel closer to Jesus!
I used to tell my students that when someone says something to you, whether it’s a praise or correction, that’s a good sign. If nothing is being said, that could mean they’ve decided the effort is not getting thru and they have focused on those who want to grow and learn! (Silence is not condonement) After that, most of them were constantly trying to get me to say something! ;-)) Some of them were very creative in ways of gaining attention/favor and I pray that continues (for the right reasons)…
Something my son loves for me to do is write him a letter. He gets emotional to feel so loved and so important and he has it in writing!
I bet you can tell me where I read about that, Marla Jayne, cuz it’s been so many words ago that I forgot! You have a much better retention ability! 😉
You’ve got the formula for better understanding the scriptures down pat: read, ponder, and pray. Plus, I think maturity and life experiences help us look at things differently. One of the men that I work with came over the other afternoon to help me put the book cover in my sidebar, and as we were talking, he said he’d been thinking of writing a blog about what Jesus said. He talked about how the WWJD trend was so popular for a while, and he wondered if WDJS (What Did Jesus Say?) would take off as well. Then we talked about some of the specific references that interested both of us. I could tell from our conversation that although he’s a young man, he has a spiritual depth that I didn’t have at his age.
Looks like I’ve gone overboard with this long post. About your son, maybe you could write him a Christmas letter.
WDJS is great!! It’s encouraging to meet young folk like him who have such depth…Somewhere, I saw, What Did Jesus Do, too! So much to look aat and read! 🙂 Yes, I believe it’s about time to give Tom some special attention and a Christmas letter is excellent!
(almost got my new office set up…hope it will be a very long time before that needs to be done again!;-))
God Bless You, Marla Jayne!
I’ve been away for a couple of days (from blogging), and it sure was nice to log on and read a comment from someone whom I consider a kindred spirit. Yes, it’s especially encouraging and gratifying to find a young person such as Chris (I told him I was going to use his real name) with such depth. Now if I could only persuade him to start his own blog, we would all benefit from his wisdom.
Have you ever read The Five Languages of Love? I truly don’t read all the time; it’s just that I’m older and have had more time to dip into lots of different books. Anyway, one of the “languages” is words of affirmation, and for people who see that as the number one language or way of showing love, nothing could be better than a letter or just some kind, true, and loving words. Other people like quality time (one of my daughters), others like gifts (my other daughter and my son), still others like physical affection or touch (my DH), and finally there are those who appreciate acts of service most. My husband likes that one too. We all like all of them, but some get to us more than others, and when someone shows love to us in one of our favorite ways, it’s like magic. All that to say, it sounds like Tom likes words of affirmation.
Glad you got your new office set up. Is it in the same location or another one?