Recently Adia and I went away for a little Passport 2 Purity weekend. She has given me permission to share how it went so that other moms and daughters (or fathers/sons) could learn from our experience and hopefully do something similar. Many have asked me to share more details and so with her permission that is what I am going to do. We had a great time, learned a lot and had some really good conversations to help her prepare for the tough years ahead of her. Passport 2 Purity is a kit that comes with 5 CD sessions, a parent manual and a student manual. It is meant for a father/son or mother/daughter to do together during a child’s 6th grade year. It covers topics like peer pressure, puberty, sex, dating and PURITY from a Christ-centered perspective! I doubted the timing many times but found out as we went through it together how perfect this age actually is for the retreat. Here is our Passport story… Before I tell you about the journey we took I have to tell you about the prep work. The parent is meant to listen to all of the session ahead of time as well as prepare a little hands on experiment to help reinforce the point of each one. Weeks before I started listening to the CD’s, planned when and where we would go, gathered the needed supplies for the activities and PRAYED hard that God would meet us when we finally went away together. One more thing before I go into the details is that going over this information with Kyle (my hubby) ahead of time was such a good experience. I wasn't for sure we would be on the same page with all of this and to be honest I was nervous that we were going to have to come to her with shared convictions and thought they might have to be forced. The truth is though that when Kyle and I spend a day preparing for this God totally met us. We had some great conversations in regards to the standards we want to hold in our home and also about some of the pain that came from our past mistakes. I know a few others who felt the same. The gift this program was to our whole family caught me completely off guard. Okay, back to the point - Monday morning we headed out. Her dad and I had both written her a letter telling her how much we love her, appreciate her and look forward to watching her grow up. We told her we believe in her and that we know with God (and our) help she will be able to look back at her teen years as ones she can be proud of. After she read the letters we put the first CD on. Adia had a little guide book that it has her fill in the blanks to be sure she is following along. Each session ends with a memory verse and they are all put to music. The songs are cheesy but we had fun singing them and trying to memorize them. We stopped and got some lunch as well as a couple treats to take back to the hotel with us. Once we got to the hotel we got busy listening to the lessons, having great conversations and doing the suggested activities. I had kind of doubted this part of the program. I thought she was a bit old for some of them but once we got into the lessons I found them to be a great way to visualize the point and we enjoyed every one. Here we are all setup at the hotel and ready to dive in. I actually laid the stuff all out like that and we both thought it looked staged so we decided to take a picture of her in the middle of it. Enjoying her chocolate teacup. Day 2 - Filling in her journal as she listened to the CD session. And here is an example of the project we did on gaurding relationships. If you double click this to see it bigger you will see the lessons learned. Heart #1 represents a guy/girl friendship that has all the necessary safe guards in place to keep it totally pure and God honorhing. #2 is more of a guy/girl friendship that went too far. And I don't mean sexually - more of just getting exclusive/attached and the pain that might follow that. Then #3 was a long term exclusive relationship. Not even necessarily sexually speaking but more just major attachments made and the damage that can cause when the 2 weren't mature enough to begin with. Adia, pretending to cry over the loss of innocence.After breakfast, we finished our last lesson and got ready to go out and have some fun. I had planned to have one of her best friends and her mom meet us at the mall where they could get their ears pierced together. Both of the girls have wanted to do this for years but both of their dads have been saying NO. It was so cute to see them do this together. They had to wait in line behind some 6 year olds but hey - no big deal! After a fun visit with them Adia and I enjoyed a bit more one on one time. She knew we would be going out to a nice dinner that night. What she didn’t know is that her dad would be there also. Kyle had spent much of his last couple days searching for the perfect promise ring to give her. He had also worked hard coming up with a Purity Covenant for them to sign together. That dinner was such a precious time. I got to watch Adia squirm a bit as her dad shared his love for her and desire to always be there for her. Then they both entered into a purity covenant together. To top off the evening she was given a ring to wear that symbolizes our promise to her, her promise to us and all of our promises to God in regards to her staying pure and our role in helping her in that. She was pretty excited and so were we. Here is our Purity Covenant (actually we revised this a little but I can’t find that document so I will share the almost final draft). I share this so you can use it to help you in writing your own. We loved reading other families to help us come up with this. The program comes with a Wait to Date contract but we didn't feel it captured our hearts/desires for this area. Purity Covenant To my parents: I recognize that God holds you accountable to raise me in the admonition of His ways. I recognize that I am under your authority as your daughter. I believe that you love me unconditionally and are committed to my well-being. I commit to God, my parents and my family: To put Christ first and guard my heart to protect the gift entrusted to me by the Lord. To joyfully await the man the Lord will bring for me to marry. To save all of my innocence and purity for my future husband. To wait to until my parents believe I am ready to develop a loving relationship with a man. To submit to my father's authority over my courting and marital intentions. I joyfully and intentionally promise myself to these things. __________________________________________ (your signature) __________________________________________ (dad's signature)
There are lots of things that go into the question - how far apart should you space your kids? Here are some things to keep in mind you might not have considered. This post from an L&D RN will talk about child spacing and how far apart kids should be.
Responsible kids grow into young adults who take on tasks without being asked and need little supervision, instruction or guidance. Here's how you can nurture a sense of personal responsibility in your child.
La familia es lo más importante en la vida de las personas, pero muchas veces no nos damos cuenta o nos distanciamos por asuntos sin importancia; sin embargo, al final es lo único realmente valioso que tenemos. "El lugar donde nacen los niños y mueren los hombres, donde la libertad y el amor florec
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A collaborative blog by Pre K and Kindergarten specialists. Child growth and development, information, free printables.
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Tons of fun family games and activities for EVERYONE! These indoor activities will brighten the mood and get the family playing together!
I've been waiting my whole life to show you this. He's spunky, he's silly, he's lovable, mischievous, and smart. He's se...
11.Prevent Your Child’s Toys From Floating Away In the Bathtub Via: reddit.com. 12.Use to-go sauce pots to keep pacifiers clean while you’re out Via: cynditha.blogspot.com. 13.Stick a Command hook on the back of a high chair to hold bibs. Via:definitelyjennifer.com 14.Teach your child to hold a pencil the right way with a wad of Kleenex. […]
Photographer Haley Marie shared a photo shoot of her empty nester parents after she moved out, and it's so funny that of course it went viral.
Every once in awhile you meet one of those families. (No, not those crazy families who make you wonder how that much crazy ended up in one place.) Those families who are just so nice and so genuinely caring that they make you wonder how they do it. This family is one of those families. (And they'll be the first to tell you they are who they are because they love God and each other.) I love my family, but I'm not sure we could pull of a session this long (about an hour and a half of shooting, including the two little guys who were fabulously behaved) without someone losing an eye, or a head for that matter. They made my job really easy. I am so glad I got to work with them. I've known them since I was a kid, and am flattered that they asked me to capture their group. They made me feel more like part of the family than the photographer. I told them, totally truthfully, that I have had sessions with three people that were more stressful than this big group of 11. No chasing people or yelling "hey can you pleeease look at the camera", and "can so-in-so please remove their hands from around so-in-so's neck"? I hope me and my little family are a lot like this when we grow up. The first shot is for Communal Global, second is for Leigh vs. Laundry, and third is for Sweet Shot.
There's been a lot of talk lately about organizing, cleaning and chores. I shared a post about how I think it's important to stop doing everything and...
I saw this on Pinterest a while back. It seemed so simple and just right for our family, as we have hands of all sizes right now, mashaAllah! So, here is ours. I stacked the hands in a more regular fashion. Boys of the family get to have blue hand outlines and girls get pink. It had been a long while since I last did embroidery and I enjoyed it very much. It was so very relaxing and fun way to unwind. I already have some ideas for another embroidery project in the near future.
Happy Monday! I’ve been having fun brainstorming about home improvements around our house and looking at lots of blogs and Pinterest boards for inspiration lately. I thought it would be fun …
My friend Danielle sent me this link to a consequence spinner this weekend: While the creator/seller obviously uses it to reinforce negative consequences for kiddos at home, I'd love to see/hear of a version where teachers use something similar for positive consequences regarding behavior modification in the classroom. For instance: if little J. is working on impulsivity and personal space issues, it would be cool to create an incentive spinner where each day or half-day of success keeping his hands, feet, and objects to himself, he could earn a chance at the spinner, receiving more time on the computer, the chance to pick a special buddy for centers, extra time with a favorite manipulative or art material, or an extra storytime with me. Ideas? Links?
The discipline of worship is the beating heart of our Christian journey, our nourishment, our Sunday asylum. It's time we all worshiped together.
A practical series on raising spiritually minded kids. Great for families! Includes weekly challenges to implement in the home and as a lifestyle.
Positive Discipline parenting and family coach. - See more at: http://marytamborski.blogspot.com/#sthash.9J0NbM9K.dpuf
