Laura L. Smith
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IT'S NOT ALL ON YOU

2/11/2018

2 Comments

 
I'm blessed to have my friend, Brenda Yoder, guest blogging here this week. Brenda is a certified counselor, speaker and writer who is passionate about balancing the busyness. Anyone out here need a little of that? Yeah, me too! Her newest book, Fledge: Launching Your Kids Without Losing Your Mind, released yesterday, March 13!!! To celebrate we're giving away a copy of Fledge right here and now. To find out how to enter....keep reading.

BRENDA...
I walked out of my classroom pulling my cart of books and memorabilia behind me. I turned off the lights, shut the door, and my heart broke in two.
 
I had failed. I wondered why other people could handle raising a large family while teaching high schoolers but I couldn’t. While I had won teaching awards and made my US History classroom engaging to my students, the stress of teaching over 150 high schoolers and parenting four kids from high school to first grade took its toll on me.
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Fledge: Launching Your Kids Without Losing Your Mind by Brenda Yoder
Our busy family schedule with sports, chauffeuring kids, and homework pulled me in different directions in addition to grading papers, getting groceries, and moody teens. I was stressed out, irritable, and reactionary most of the time with yelling and angry outbursts towards my children.
 
I was a mom in the early fledging stage of parenting—the stage of release. My oldest was a high school sophomore and the youngest was in first grade. Life passed by school year after school year and my parenting and professional workload increased along with it. That particular school year my student numbers soared to 180. Being emotionally and physically exhausted when I got home, I had little patience for the barrage of “Mom, Mom, Mom” demands when I walked through the door. I had even less tolerance for my own teens’ snarky comments or disrespectful attitudes. I dreamed of the day when fewer kids were in the house so I could catch a break from the stress and mess that had become our life. 

Then I realized there were only two years left with all four of my children at home. If something didn’t change, the memories my children would have of the years with all of us at home would be of an irritable, contentious mom. It was far from the dream I had of motherhood. Something needed to change before my firstborn went to college. That change had to come from me.
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Brenda Yoder, author of Fledge
Since then, I’ve learned most families have some pain while raising teens and young adults. Here are 5 essential truths I’ve learned as a counselor and parent who has fledged three of my four children.

  1. There’s no simple formula for the perfect Christian family. Each family has their own struggles and there’s not an easy answer for most family problems with teens and young adults except for biblical principles personally applied to individual families.
  2. Your children’s choices do not define you as a parent or excuse your behavior. A friend once said that raising godly kids isn’t our responsibility—it’s being a godly parent. When I realized my ungodly responses to my children’s behavior was negatively affecting our family, I had to focus on my own behavior, not my child’s. I had to enlist godly parenting rather than prideful, reactionary parenting.
  3. Teens and young adults need you invested in their mess. Mental health needs among today’s teens and young adults are increasing at an alarming rate. They need us as parents to be fully engaged and invested in their emotional and mental health much more than their popularity status. We need to walk with them through their struggles.
  4. We need to extend grace to one another as parents. Parent pain is deep pain. Most parents are afraid to share what their child or family is struggling with for fear of judgment—judgment of your child and judgment as a parent. When you’re already hurting, added judgment debilitates you. When God started transforming me and our family, I noticed how many others were struggling around me, too. We need to extend the grace of Christ to one another.
  5. Diligently pursue God during the years your kids are fledging the nest. God’s Word is the best parenting primer for the hardest moments parenting teens and young adults.
 
Thanks, Brenda! I especially like the part that it doesn't all fall on us! Brenda wrote Fledge to encourage parents in this season of growing pains. 

​TO ENTER TO WIN  your very own copy of Fledge either:
1. Leave a comment below, maybe mention something you're trying to do on your own.
2. Share this blog on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (make sure you tag me on your post, so I know you shared it)
4. Open to citizens of continental U.S. only. Winner will be chosen in a random draw and notified by March 21.
2 Comments
Gina Weeks
3/19/2018 12:52:34 am

This book couldn't be released at a more perfect time for me, as I'm preparing to watch my oldest birdie leave the nest within this year.

When it boils down to it I think I am simply just trying to do too much to be the perfect mother and wife and homemaker -- and as time gets shorter before she leaves I think I'm trying to do and have us experience more as a family.

I know that this is not of God. I shouldn't feel as though I'm striving and working so hard to make things be a certain way. I just want to take the time to delight in my daughter and enjoy the memories that are being made, as they're being made.

I hope that makes sense.

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Laura Smith link
3/22/2018 07:15:53 am

Gina,
This totally makes sense! I think we have some bizarre idea in our head of how many meals we should cook, how often we should change the sheets on the bed, etc., as if those things made us "good moms." I mean, yes, people need to eat, and the sheets should be washed every now and then, but that doesn't make or break anything. Thank you for your comments and CONGRATULATIONS! You win the free copy of Fledge.
Please send me a private email with your mailing address by clicking on the contact page of my website and filling out a form or sending a DM on social media. Thanks again and congrats.

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