Over the years I have had people comment on the peace in our home, how I seem to parent from a place of peace, and host from a place of peace. I am so thankful and humbled by these compliments. I honestly have had to really evaluate what makes the atmosphere in our home, what sets the tone. After some time of introspection, I think I have it boiled down to prayer, time, time, time, and time.

I pray every day that our home would be a place of peace. I specifically ask the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to come and fill our home, to fill each one of us so that we will be able to have the grace to navigate the day, and that we would have extra to give to one another. I believe first and foremost that this act of inviting the Spirit to come is where the truest portion of peace comes from.

And then we have TIME…deep breath…I am so thankful for the gift of time. The more I live the more I appreciate time with my children, husband, family, and friends. When it comes to the subject of “peace in the home”, I will share a few things about what taking time affords for those who take it seriously. Life is short and the time spent with our little people is even shorter. I encourage us as parents to realize this.

I feel like what our children are crying out for is just time, specifically quality time. I do understand that time is a luxury item. But I really believe that when it is something we know to fight for and when we realize the importance and the value of time, we realize truly what a treasure it is.

(1) Meals together: There is a great deal of study that has been devoted to this subject of families eating meals together. There are so many positive things that occur in this simple act.  Not just having food in the same general area of the house while each person is reading, watching the news, catching up on email or texting…etc. Instead, I’m referring to sitting at the dining room table and actually dining, having dinner conversation, and looking each other in the eye. We try to accomplish this at our house at least 2 times a day. At the breakfast table I try to ask each of the children if they slept well, what they dreamt about, and what they are looking forward to for the day. Over the years, I have loved this time with the younger kids as they have absurd, scary, or sometimes very profound dreams to share. I feel like this is the beginning stages for the younger ones in communicating what is in their brain and putting thoughts and pictures to words. I don’t use this time to correct their grammar unless I sense that they are in a place to handle the correction and still able to complete a thought. I also use this time to gently enforce table manners.

We like to have even the youngest member of the family as close to the table as possible so they are present for meal times since they learn just by observing the mealtime processes. I know a lot of people put their youngest children to bed even before dinner time. While I understand that putting the youngest to be before dinner offers the rest of the family a short break, I do not believe that it results in the best long term outcomes. If you take a few moments to help little ones understand simple table manners it makes peace at the table. When you are invited for dinner at someone’s house or you are trying to enjoy holiday meals, the children are not put into an unfamiliar situation for which they have no experience. Its kind of cruel to just expect our kids to behave at the table when it is completely foreign territory. Take time to practice at home and enjoy food with your children. I guarantee the food struggle will diminish.

Dinner time is usually when we are all together so we use it as a time to ask about the day. We try to take one night a week usually on a weekend night to express to each of the children what we are proud of them for or something special about them. It is s really sweet tradition and you can see their spirits just drink it in. Sometimes dinner time is the only time for Dale and I to catch up on the business part of life. In this case we often have to ask the kids to just be quiet for a few while we work on logistics. It’s not ideal, but I don’t think that it is all bad for the kids to hear adults working out and coming to solutions for life, or politics, or work issues. They learn from this as well.

On this note, however, there are a few ground rules for mom and dad to! No fighting at the table! This is totally off limits as well as other negative talks regarding bad grades, or behavioral things that may need to be addressed. These are things that need to happen somewhere other than the dinner table so as to keep the time positive. Negative interactions while people are eating or hearing negative information can really mess up the digestive process and cause negative outcomes such as bulimia and anorexia. So, enjoy your food together!

(2) Quality Time: I am sure we have all heard the ads on the radio about spending quality time with our kids. I think that it is a great message, I am just sad that the world has come to a place where we need to hear this reminder on the radio. Our society is so wound up that we need an amusing or sobering advertisement to bring us back to reality… hmmm…anyway enough of the soap box. I have found that some of the most peaceful days in our house are those when I have to spend the day parenting from the couch due to sickness. The kids satellite from my little spot and I find myself reading books to the little people and having a more conversational style approach with my older ones. Life is just simple and centered on those days. It is not that I would wish to be bed ridden, however it is those days that make me stop and remember what is the most important. Quality time. Slow time. There is a certain peace in the house on quiet days like that.

(3) Availability: This can be a touchy subject and I do not wish to offend anyone. I do feel however upon observation that when children don’t feel like their parents or caregivers are available that there is such a lack of peace.  I have specifically chosen to not have a career outside of the home. My husband and I made this commitment early in our marriage and the Lord has blessed it.  We chose this life because I didn’t want to have to choose my career over my children even for one day of their existence.

This is a mindset that was passed on to me by my late mother. She and my dad had made a deal. If she wanted a career, then they would not have children. If they were going to have children she was not going to have a career outside of the home. Even if they had to live in a tent due to their single income they were committed to this concept. Well, obviously, they chose to have children. We did have financial hardships, but I am so thankful for the time that my mom was determined to spend with us. I am now a second generation stay-at-home mom and I am so thankful, as I do understand that in many cases this is not possible. I feel that much of the peace in our home is due to the fact that I get to focus – I am not split in mind, heart, or energy. The kids feel this. Kids know when they are not a high priority.  When children feel second rate there is a breakdown in the communication and harmony of parent child relationship. I am not saying that there is absolutely no way for there to be peace within family relations unless the mother is at home. But I do know that the path is very difficult to maintain and it takes a GREAT DEAL of determination and intentionality.

(4) Listening: This could be a subcategory of availability, but I’ve set it apart because it is slightly different. I know lots of stay at home moms that should have plenty of time to listen to their children, but don’t know how to listen, or don’t really want to listen to them. I watched so many parent/teen relationships get blown to bits while I was growing up. These were good people trying to keep their children from making bad choices.  So, what went wrong?  They hadn’t created a platform for communication by taking the time and energy to listen, that is really listen to the rhythm of their kids earlier in their lives. What a tragedy. Each one of my soon to be adults are sooooo different! It takes time – time spent talking, observing, and navigating thought patterns. This is an area that my mom had mastered!!! She was focused on the one on one moments (in fact, if she would have chosen a career she would have been a very successful physiologist/therapist of some sort!). I really thought that the whole world communicated this way until I hit adolescence and all my peers started asking me questions and talking with me about things that “they would never talk to their parents about”. I was shocked! In my mind, my PEERS were the last people I would talk to about “things”.  Starting from the moment our babies breathe dry air we purpose to LISTEN. Their communication starts out as different cries for different needs. Learning to listen to them is the foundation of raising an adult who cares and who listens to his fellow man. When children feel listened to there is peace because they feel loved and this creates the foundation for a successful life.

(5) Law and Order: OOOH man! Another land mine subject! Without law, there is no order, without order there is no peace. This is a very broad and deep subject. To spank or not to spank, time out, solitary confinement, grounding, eliminating toys or privileges….the list goes on and so does the controversy. I mostly adhere to the Dr. James Dobson approach to parenting mixed in with lots of other methods. I do not use time outs except for on very rare occasions. I have found that the main thing to keep as a goal when dealing with disciplinary action of any sort is to execute it in love and to be consistent. To make sure that there is an understanding of the offense and the disciplinary action and that there is a follow through on the heart and that your child knows that they must ask for forgiveness for “X” and that they are forgiven. As parents we can become so distracted in life that we forget what our boundaries really are. Things get wild and chaotic and we forget that we are actually the only ones who can calm the storm! This is not something that our children will rise to the occasion for! I find that when I am at my wits end its my own fault. When the peace is nonexistent in our household it’s my/our fault. I have let my boundaries as a parent slip and slide until they are unrecognizable. That’s when I pray and then  address the root issues between siblings, or between my children and me, that’s when I have to look at where I have not been consistent in my parenting. Consistency in boundaries brings peace because children are checking, testing, and pushing to learn the boundaries. Children need boundaries and without them they can’t experience peace in their hearts.

One of the most common questions that people ask me is, “How is it that your children get along so well? Another common comment, “They love each other openly, they are affectionate, and they help one another with a loving attitude!”

Does this happen naturally? NO!!! Quite the opposite! There are so many things attached to this subject/question. So many factors are involved in achieving harmony between family members. I will share some of the things that I see as the root issues in our household and the solutions that I have found along the way to keeping harmony in the relationships under our roof.

Some of the factors that I have observed in the problem of discord within family relations are:

The relationship between parents, level of stress due to the obligations of busy households, the amount of time spent with children, the amount of time the children actually get to spend together, general miscommunication due to personality differences…just to name a few.  We have found that children pick up on the tensions of the household more than we can believe!

Family discord and sibling rivalry is the most ancient battle. Battles for power between siblings is nothing new. This battle starts way back…the first negative interaction recorded in the Biblical history of Genesis is the “blame game” between Adam and Eve. Then a few chapters later we have the account of their first two children the result of jealousy between brothers ending in murder! This was not and is not an isolated problem, this is a humanity problem. You see this pattern reflected in the examples we have of Greek and Roman mythology depicting the best and the worst of humanity and the fight for power between siblings and lovers. Harmony between family members and loving relationships are a battle worth fighting. It is a battle that I often fight in prayer. I pray for help because my human reasoning will often get in the way of a deeper issue and I rely on the Holy Spirit to help me delicately handle the spirit and soul of each family member involved. So often the real fight is not what it appears to be on the surface.

This is a place of prayer and intentionally reminding the kids and myself WHY it is crucial for us to work hard on “getting along”.

I also pray for this aspect of our lives very specifically; that the redemption power of what has been done for us would wash over us. If we have a particularly bad run with a couple kiddos really at each others throats, I make them take a moment to look one another in the eye and say two things that they really appreciate about that sibling such as a character trait or attribute that makes them special. This exercise often brings tears to both parties and either reconciliation or the root of the bickering gets exposed. This often leads to another layer or so of sifting through verbal offenses…etc. I am sure this may sound tedious and exhausting! Who has time for this stuff? Nobody. But you MUST make time!!! The time is now! It is the best use of time in the world. Tend to the relationships within your household. It is your garden of heritage, with a great and lasting harvest.

A few practical notes:

*From the time the children are very small we teach them the pattern of, “I am sorry for X (looking the person in the eye), please forgive me” and, ” I forgive you for X”. Followed by a hug. We have a little bit of a window of grace for the forgiveness party. They get to say, “I am working on it.” However, this can get a bit overused, and you have to have the memory to follow up and make sure that there is closure. The other bit about this interaction is if I sense that there is still bitterness after the initial reconciliation, I ask why. Why the “stink eye”, or rolled eyes, or heavy sigh? Sometimes there is a real issue that needs to be addressed beyond this incident.

*I also have had a lot of conversation with my kiddos about the need to work as a team. We are what we have. At the end of the day you have each other, that is it. We cannot be against one another. As they have gotten older it has been a battle to stay out of the sarcasm zone. The word sarcasm actual means to tear apart and we have found that it can be a very slippery slope to non-communication “communication”. This is not to say that we don’t enjoy a little good hearted fun at one another’s’ expense, but we only allow it to go just so far.

*Another portion that is really important to remember in family relationships is that we are all different.  This is something that I felt prompted to pray into early on in our parenting journey. We, each of us, have differences to celebrate. That is what makes humanity so very interesting and wonderful!  It’s easy to pick on each other and be annoyed with the things we don’t understand. This is something I will write about on a more personal level in another blog post. However, in this context it is important to focus in on the fact that much of the miscommunication within family relationship is just that, miscommunication. Within the sibling relationship we get to practice the art of communication. If we can master successful and kind communication with the people within our family nucleus, then we can take on the world!!!

* BEDTIME! It can be the most exhausting part of the day, however, I have found in our house that the grievances of the day come forth in the dark of night. I encourage any parent to save a little energy from the day for this moment. Sometimes it’s just pure craziness and they need to be told that sleep is more important. But some really special times of connection and relational life issues have been effectively and sweetly addressed in this precious time for me and the relationship with my children.