The Privilege of Saying Yes

This is a great article that summarizes a topic that is talked about at length in "The Connected Child." It is written in the context of parenting children from hard places.

From: empoweredtoconnect.org
By: Amy Monroe

One thing I’ve learned in my journey as a mom is the need for me to raise the level of nurture I bring to parenting in order to help my children build trust. My children need to trust that I will consistently meet their needs in ways that help them understand that they are precious and that their voice matters. Telling them I will meet their needs helps them to “know it;” showing them (over and over and over again) helps them experience it and learn to trust.

A great way to accomplish this is to give my children as many “yes’s” as I can. It is through my “yes’s” that I can best give my kids this gift of trust. In order to improve in this area, during a recent Saturday at home with my kids I committed to giving them as many “yes’s” as possible. Trust me, this wasn’t easy, but I need the practice and they need this gift. Throughout the course of that day I was intentional about catching myself before each and every “no” I was about to give. As I stopped to think every time I considered saying “no,” I asked myself a simple question: Can I give my child a joyful “yes” instead?

What I learned in the course of this day was truly insightful. I realized that I am often tempted to say “no” out of mere convenience or for selfishness reasons. In fact, in many situations giving a “no” had become my default response. But I discovered something even more amazing – the more “yes’s” I gave the better my kids responded to me and the more our connection was strengthened.

I know what you may be thinking about now – that as a mom we can’t always give “yes’s.” This is certainly true. But I am discovering that the more “yes’s” I give the easier it is for my kids to accept the “no’s” that are an undeniable part of learning and growing. In fact, as I am mindful and creative about giving “yes’s,” I have found that I can often give a “yes” to go along with many of my “no’s.” For example, when I found my six-year-old daughter Kate in the pantry looking for a snack just 15 minutes before lunch, I had to say “no.” But, I was also able to give her a “yes” by telling her that she could put her snack in a special place and have it after lunch. That “yes” represented a win for both of us, and allowed me to meet her need and put another, albeit small, deposit in our trust account.

Each day is full of countless opportunities for me as a mom to give both “yes’s” and “no’s.” My kids certainly need me to say “no” at times in order to help them grow, but they also need many joyful “yes’s” to help them build trust. I am learning that God has given me the responsibility to say “no” when needed, and the privilege to say “yes” as often as I can.

Amy Monroe writes a weekly column – A Mother’s Heart – on the Tapestry blog.

Something More To Consider:

Giving your child “yes’s” isn’t just about saying “yes” to his requests. You can also say “yes” to your child by learning to share appropriate levels of power him. Watch as Dr. Purvis explains this concept and its benefits for our children in terms of helping them grow and heal.

Unique Adoption Supporting Idea & Story

I can't get my link function to work, but I found the video/story below from www.rageagainsttheminivan.com.

If you have time to watch the video, you totally should. I love this story for several reasons. First, it is a GREAT idea for caring for orphans when you are not at a place in life to adopt yourself. Second, if you continue to watch the video it switches to the story of the family who is adopting a boy from Ghana. My jaw dropped when they said it was after the earthquake in Haiti that they decided they needed to adopt NOW . . . not down the road after they have 2-3 biological kids. The Haiti earthquake is what God used to prompt Jason to start looking into caring for orphans.

Another part of this family's story that is strikingly similar to ours is that they primarily decided to adopt from Ghana because they learned that several other families in their county had adopted from Ghana and there is a growing community within these families to help their children know their roots and stay connected to other kids adopted from the same country. Hmmm . . . sounds like what God is doing here with C-country. So cool!

Lastly, I about got tears in my eyes when the dad adopting talked about how their church community has come around them and used their gifts and skills to contribute to their adoption. I haven't talked a lot about that, but that is so true for us. Some day I'll have to blog about all the incredible ways God has provided for us using His people. God is so faithful!

Okay, onto the video from the www.rageagainsttheminivan.com:

This video is a great example of how someone can play a part in helping children find families – without adopting. International adoption is expensive. Stupid expensive. Not everyone is in the position to do it, and not everyone should do it. But a couple from my church decided that they would play a role in another couple’s adoption. They are getting married, and instead of registering, they are asking for donations for my friends Steve and Sarah Carters’ adoption.

Wedding Gifts from Nick Benoit on Vimeo.

Good Advice

My favorite blog that I mentioned on my resource list a couple posts ago takes reader questions and often posts them for her readers to comment on. That way, the blog author is not the only one answering but so are many other people who have probably dealt with similar issues.

A couple months ago I submitted a question to her about discipline and she posted it as her Tuesday Topic this week. I read some of the comments tonight. Some are quite interesting and don't really apply to us. But some others were GREAT and SUPER HELPFUL! I'm not going to talk about that discipline question here (you can read it from the Tuesday Topic link). But, what I do want to share is part of the comment one of the readers posted.

What she posted is not new information to me, but was great encouragement to do what we have been planning to do once the kids get here. I thought I would post it so you can get an idea of what our lives are going to look like when our kids come home:

Spend a LOT of time at first going back to that "first year" of life phase (even with the oldest) and do a TON of rocking, holding, bottle feeding, eye contact - all of the things that answer the question "am I o.k.? will you meet my needs?" - over, and over, and over, and over. Do NOT overindulge in the American way of giving them all of the stuff and experiences they have never had - it is WAY too much sensory overload and it is overwhelming in a BAD way. DO have very tight boundaries (in the way that you would have with an infant or toddler). A 6 year old adopted child from a trauma background is NOT 6! I would GREATLY encourage you to not seek to do any type of "school" work during the first year. Keep them home with you and live the infant/toddler/preschool years with them. This is going to be a MAJOR year of change, some chaos, and learning for both you and your children. (I say this as one who has adopted large sibling groups two times now!). It is hard, but it is very good!

The gal who wrote this comment blogs here.

The only thing I'm a bit unsure about is not doing any type of "school" work during the first year. I get where she is coming from but I'm not sure how that works when kids who are seven years old have to be enrolled in school or officially doing home school (which we were planning on). I wrote her to ask more.