Task Orientated or People Orientated?

Posted on October 10, 2016 by angathome

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I am a task-orientated person. As a choleric/melancholy I can fairly easily get this family vehicle going and keep it going. I enjoy planning and schedules and all the tools and techniques that make life run more smoothly. The danger however lies in my focus becoming all about getting “stuff” done (organizing my vehicle and making it run more smoothly) while neglecting to fill up the tank – the love tanks of my children that is.

The concept of the 5 love languages in brief is that we each give and receive love in 5 ways; quality time, acts of service, words of encouragement, physical touch and gift giving. Each time we do or say something that meets one of these areas we are giving our children a love tank top-up.

As the children come to ask me questions, show me their latest creation or tell me their latest dream in every miniscule detail it can be easy to see these interruptions as things that slow down my vehicle (interrupting my plan for the day) and react by brushing them aside, missing an opportunity to add a little top up to their love tank.

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Instead of listening with my full attention, I might keep my eyes on the computer and make vague listening noises in their general direction, or perhaps tell them to come back and tell me at the end of room time, or to save it for their evening “talking time” around the dinner table. In the end it all amounts to the same message; what I am doing is more important than you.

If I keep neglecting to top up their tanks they will get emptier and emptier and eventually this usually leads to a major catastrophe. This equivalent of a tire blow-out or radiator overheating brings the family vehicle to a violent stop and requires lots of time and attention to get things moving again.

In the end, if I take a look at the time involved, it would have been far quicker and a lot easier for everyone if I had used those few minutes along the way to give a little love. Five minutes to hear their dream retell, 2 minutes to listen attentively and admire the latest creation, seconds to notice the job well done that they are desiring to show me. What it takes is for me to slow it down a gear and cruise along in 4th instead of tear along in 5th being too busy to notice the needs. The vehicle keeps moving, everything eventually gets done and life is happier for everyone. Instead, the tanks are empty and we are stranded on the side of the road trying to fill up an empty and leaking tank.

Ensuring you have a special date or another event planned on a regular basis will take care of filling the love tank to some extent, but one burst of filling doesn’t make up for the continual lack of filling that has gone on all through the week. It’s like pouring in premium oil but forgetting the fuel.

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Of course different children have different needs and some require less time that others. A quick tank top-up for one may be as simple as spending 10 minutes tidying out the drawers of their desk for them; an act of service. For another, bringing home a new pink toothbrush tops them up; gift giving. Making sure I start my 4 year old’s day with a cuddle, give him a piggy-back to nap time, tickle him on the way past in the afternoon and have a quick rock on the rocking chair before bed is the continual topping up he needs as a physical touch boy. Writing a ‘well done, I see you are working very hard’ message as I correct another child’s maths for the day gives them the words of encouragement boost they are needing. All of these things take mere minutes and don’t stop the vehicle from ticking along nicely.

The quality time children are the ones that do take time. They need the little top-ups along the way plus MORE. But if you are continually topping up then it reduces the need for the huge fill-up of a bottomless tank that seems to leak right on out again as soon as you finish.

I often get asked how I manage 7 children. This sums up the danger – I could easily become nothing but a manager. I need to proactively set myself into relational mode, change down a gear and use the little moments to keep topping up along the way.

A couple of strategies for task orientated personalities:

  • Write focus time and planned extra minutes into your routine so that it becomes a task. You are less likely to feel like you are wasting time that you should be spending doing something else. Plan extra moments at transition periods so that you have the few minutes here and there to give a little top-up.
  • Ensure that you have focus time with your toddlers early in the day. You might sit them on your lap for a story, have a cuddle in the rocking chair or do a puzzle together to top them up before expecting them to do a long alone period like playpen time. Several smaller timeslots through the day is often more effective than one marathon session for little ones. Older children will wait if they know their time is coming.
  • Deal with the heart needs as they arise rather than waiting for the engine to overheat later. Sometimes you will need to pull the vehicle over, come to a complete stop and deal with the issues.
  • Give full eye contact – you’ll be surprised at how little time it actually takes to hear the interruption in full when you stop and focus.
  • If you really can’t stop, ask them to put the timer on for 20 minutes (or whatever time will work) and come back to you when they hear it beep. They know you won’t forget and you can’t make an excuse the next time.
  • Give the child who constantly interrupts during room time (or any other period when they should be alone) 3 interrupt tokens – after they use up their 3 chances there is no coming back unless it is an emergency.
  • Find activities that you like to do with the children and use them as one-on-one time. I like to sew, bake, build a Duplo house or other tasks that feel like we are getting somewhere. I can’t stand playing cars on the floor! It’s got to be something the child enjoys too of course.
  • Special dates on planned occasions. There are many ways to do these that do not have to be too expensive or difficult to put together. I have a post on that here.
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Consequences series – What? When? How? Part 2 Finding the cause

Posted on May 5, 2015 by angathome

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So you have read through the consequences series introduction and your parenting “ducks” are all in a row. You’ve booked into a GFI parenting course, ordered some good quality parenting books, your husband/wife relationship is flourishing, your routine is on track, the children’s love tanks are full and you are training their hearts. With all this in place you have seen dramatic improvements in their behaviour and many of the problems you were dealing with previously have all but disappeared. And yet… there are still behaviours that need to be worked on!

Our children are sinful creatures (like us!) and yes, no matter how perfect your parenting is there will always be issues to deal with. Today we are going to take a brief look at finding the root cause of the problem, also know as the “besetting sin” or underlying cause that will help us to see where some of those behaviours are coming from.

Having a good understanding of basic personality types will help immensely as these are often very closely tied with the areas that our children struggle in. A highly choleric child will tend to be bossy and impatient, the sanguine child can be impulsive, disorganised and easily detracted, the phlegmatic child struggles with time management and diligence. While it is not helpful to put our children in a box as some critics would say, having some idea of their underlying motivations, needs and approach to life will help you to better parent them. My favourite book for those who have yet to explore this area is “Personality Plus” or “Personality Plus for Parents” by Florence Littauer. Who knows, you may have a whole new understanding of why and how you relate to your child as you do.

Secondly, grab hold of a list of character qualities or virtues. This will help you to categorize your children’s areas of struggles and start to see the connection between them. There is a free printable version here or here.

The “Working With Your Child’s Besetting sin” series of messages by Joey and Carla Link from Parenting Made Practical is brilliant for understanding and identifying your child’s personality type and working to improve their sin areas.  But I warn you, you will want to listen to the rest of the Mom’s notes series as they are the best parenting resource I have ever come across after the GFI parenting courses.

The idea of your child’s besetting sin or root of the misbehaviour is that many different wrongful behaviours can actually spring from the same underlying motivation or lack of character/virtue. The example Carla uses in her Mom’s notes message is that of patience. A child who constantly interrupts others when they are speaking, pushes past siblings to get out the door, shows frustration with anyone or anything that holds them up etc. is demonstrating a lack of patience. As a parent, you could come up with a bunch of different consequences to suit every different occasion that you see it demonstrated, but you really need only one – for the lack of patience itself – as this is the underlying cause or besetting sin.

So how do you start to find this common link between behaviours?

Sit down and make a list. List everything that your child does that you would consider less than virtuous! Once you have done this (and if they are anything like most children it will be quite a long list) take your character chart and note down next to each problem the character quality (virtue or vice) that they displayed. Perhaps they lack diligence, honesty or generosity? Sometimes it is easier to find the vice being displayed rather than the virtue and vice versa. Hopefully, by the time you have finished you will be starting to see a pattern. Maybe your toddler is simply showing a lack of self control and this is showing itself in a variety of ways. (Just a tip – most toddlers are lacking in self control and need to do lots of work in this area 😉 ) Perhaps an older child is not showing the responsibility necessary and appropriate for their age.

Once you have identified the areas you need to work on you have a starting point. Spending time actively working on the positive side of the vice is going to be vital. If your child is impatient then you need to be focussing on training them in patience, not just correcting for impatience. If they are lacking in responsibility then they are going to need lots of training and encouragement in this area. To ignore this training will mean that you are continuously ‘cleaning up’ the result of the lack of virtue but doing little to build the corresponding character that you want to see. Yes, there will be a place for correction (after all, that will be a major part of what this series of posts is all about!) however, without the balance you will be struggling uphill.

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Family night ideas – Family fun spot

Posted on September 1, 2014 by angathome

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Depending on your personality, it can be easy to become too focussed on the mountain of tasks that surround us as Mothers (especially when you are homeschooling many children) to the detriment of our relationships with those children. With 6 children and a newborn in our house, life can get busy and with night feeds keeping me slightly sleep deprived it is easy to let all the fun leach out of life. Relationships take the back seat and jobs take priority.

In order to keep this somewhat in check we endeavour to keep our family “nights” going. Too often though we don’t get around to arranging anything and fall back on the old standby of movie nights. Despite having a very long list of ideas, I just wasn’t getting around to planning any of them. Introducing a family fun spot has addressed this issue for us. It gives us a place to write our family activities and keeps us accountable to actually getting around to doing some of them!

So how does it work?

The children write ideas of things they would like to do in a suggestions spot and Mummy and Daddy transfer appropriate ones onto the “coming soon” space on our whiteboard (adding our own as well) until we are ready to do them. We then transfer a couple at a time to the “fun spot” when we know they will be slotted in sometime in the very near future. We avoid giving a specific time as to when they will happen as a newborn can be unpredictable and we don’t want to make plans that keep needing to be changed and disappointing and frustrating the children. We simply wait for a good opportunity and announce the event as we are ready to go ahead. Once we have been there, done that, the idea is erased and a new one added in its place.

It gives the children something to look forward to with anticipation – a little sparkle in their day. It keeps them in front of me too so I can’t forget and am forced to plan the upcoming events – the children are very quick to point it out if there is nothing written in the family fun spot! The added bonus is that we do some of these type of things as part of our everyday life anyway and our children have it so good that they take them for granted, barely noticing the fun stuff that we do with and for them. Writing activities we were just going to do “because” on the family fun spot helps them to notice the good things we are already doing.

For more info on family nights (the why’s and a great list of ideas) see this post.

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Sibling Relationships

Posted on June 5, 2012 by angathome

We all want our children to get along and to enjoy being with each other. I would take that one step further and say that I’d like them to develop life-long friendships and to be each other’s best friends throughout the childhood years. So what is our role in this process? Throwing them together and hoping for the best is unlikely to yield the outcome we are looking for, so some proactive parenting is necessary. Here are some specific steps we can take as parents to help siblings develop close relationships.

Have a routine. Too much time together, particularly unstructured time, is a recipe for conflict. Nerves become frayed and patience short. Think about the time of day that siblings play together. If they are tired and hungry things are unlikely to go well. The length of time is important. Wind it up while everyone is still having fun. Finish on a positive note rather than waiting until play turns sour.

Refer to them as best friends. Tell children regularly that they are each other’s best friends. Talk about how other friends will come and go but brothers and sisters will always be there for each other. Ask them if they are treating their sibling as a best friend should.

Supervise sibling play times. If children are not getting along well then they should not be given the freedom of unsupervised play together. Mum or Dad need to be within earshot and ready to step in before a situation blows up into a conflict. If you can hear a problem brewing and fail to do something about it then you as a parent are partly responsible for it. There is a place when children are older to let conflict run it’s course and give them the opportunity to use the conflict resolution skills you are teaching them. If they are never tested or given the opportunity to do what is right, then they will not be able to grow in this area. Be wise with this though.

Good modelling. Older children should be regularly reminded of their responsibility to be a good role-model. Even young children are a role-model if there is a younger sibling behind them or to friends outside of the immediate family. Teach children about good leadership; learning when to follow a good leader and when to be a good leader.

Non-conflict training. The majority of your training should be in times of non-conflict, rather than in the heat of the moment. Take time to teach Godly character. Act out and work through common conflict scenarios. Role-play conflict resolution and negotiation skills. Teach specific phrases for dealing with conflicts the children are likely to face; turn- taking for example.

Personality Types. Spend time teaching your children about the different personality types. Help them to identify their character strengths and weaknesses and to work on improving those weaknesses. Help them to understand each other better and relate with other’s needs in mind.

Dominion. All children need to have personal dominion over something. Special toys that are theirs alone and that they are not required to share is an excellent way of allowing them to exercise this dominion. Toys that they are not prepared to share should as a general rule not be used during playtimes together. If a sibling wishes to use that particular toy they must ask first and respect the answer given.

Memorise scriptures that relate to the conflicts they often face, such as “A gentle answer turns away wrath.” Ask children what God says about a particular behaviour? Make sure that children know the moral reason why. Read about sibling rivalry and its result in the bible. For example, Joseph and his brothers Gen 37 and Jacob & Esau Gen 25-27.

No means no. Teach children to respect another person’s “no” or “stop.” From a very young age we teach our children to stay “Stop please” when they do not like the play that is going on. They are expected to listen and stop the first time they hear those words. This includes parents and applies to wrestling, tickling, chasing and any other fun game. Children soon learn not to say “Stop please”unless they mean it as our play immediately halts. We avoid just “no” or “don’t” because children often shout those in fun when it is clear they do want the tickling to continue. “Stop please” is not something they would normally say unless they actually mean it.

Conflict resolution. Once a conflict between young children has occurred, walk through from the beginning and model the correct things to say. Ask older children what they should have said and then have them go ahead and say it. Require younger children to repeat the appropriate words after you. Give children specific strategies to address issues they face such as using a timer for turn-taking.

Pow-wow time. Older children can be asked to sit together to talk through the problem calmly and quietly until they reach a compromise that both parties are happy with. Some time apart to calm down may be necessary first. There is to be no yelling, raised voices or unkind words. This works best when a parent steps in before a conflict has had a chance to escalate into something serious. The solution decided on should be bought before the parent to ensure it is fair and equitable, otherwise one child may always assume the “peacemaker” role by simply giving in to their more forceful sibling in order to get the problem sorted out and move on. That is not a fair and suitable compromise. Watch out for older children manipulating younger ones. Both parties should be satisfied with the solution.

Justice and judgment. Teach children that if they are unable to resolve a conflict by themselves they should come to a parent. The idea that children need to just “work it out” is a faulty one. It leads to older, physically stronger or more dominant personality children always getting their own way and unpleasant character traits developing. “Might makes right” becomes the order of the day and good relationships will not be the result.

When someone has been wronged, you as the judge should listen to both sides of the argument. Have one child speak at a time with a calm voice – no interrupting. If there are tears, whining or loss of emotional control in any way, they may need a few moments to sit alone and regain their self-control before bringing the matter before you. Children should be expected to have taken steps themselves to work out the problem before coming to you. Pray for wisdom. The children may be able to come up with a solution themselves or need you to supply one.

When emotions are running high, it may work better to separate the children and hear one side of the story at a time without the other person participating initially. Sometimes this allows children to be more honest about their fault in the situation and what they need to do to make it right.

Telling tales. The difference between tale-telling, tattling or dobbing and sincere reporting of a problem for mediation is all in the attitude. If damage to person or property will occur they should be able to come immediately. The first step is to encourage the other sibling in right behaviour. When the intent is clearly to get another sibling into trouble, rather than a sincere effort to solve the problem, the tale-teller receives the consequence that would otherwise have been given to the offending child. When children first come to you they should be asked whether they have tried to encourage their sibling to do right and also whether they have done all that they can to resolve the problem first. “What have you tried to make this right?” is a good start.

Isolation. Children, especially older children, may need some time to work through the problems alone before coming back together to talk it through with the other party. Ask them to think through their responsibility in the situation, whether they have treated their sibling as a best friend and what God’s word has to say about it.

Physical touch. Hugging or shaking hands when the matter is resolved melts the tension and helps to repair friendships. Verbal forgiveness needs to be asked for and given. Shaking hands afterwards often helps children to break through that last barrier of unresolved anger or hard feelings towards their sibling. While children can forgive someone without hugging or shaking, often this physical contact will get them smiling at each other again.

Forgiveness and restitution. Saying “sorry” is for accidents, not for deliberate acts of unkindness. If the wrong was intentional then forgiveness is needed. Model this by asking for forgiveness yourself when you are in the wrong. Children are very forgiving and LOVE it when a parent apologizes and asks them for forgiveness. If something has been destroyed, taken or otherwise damaged, restitution or “paying back” must be made. A child who has knocked over another child’s tower can build it back up. A child who has drawn in a sister’s book can use their pocket-money to buy another one.

Consequences. Clear consequences for wrong behaviour should be given and acted upon consistently. Some examples of consequences for unkind behaviour are acts of service, losing the opportunity to play together and saying 3 nice things about the other person’s character – not physical features. See spoiled walls.

Reinforcement. Character reinforcement systems may be useful to jumpstart the process. Praise good behaviour and character when children do the right thing; catch them being good. Use specific praise that clearly labels what it is they are doing well. You may like to temporarily introduce a marble jar, praise plate, or treasure tree system.

The sorting out prayer is useful for the wronged child to work through and helps them to forgive their sibling. Based on biblical instruction, it is something we will introduce as the children get older and have to deal with more weighty situations.

“If… then…” charts are good for clear consequences. Take the time to write them up with the children’s help and refer to them when a problem occurs.

Resources:

I have linked to The Book Depository when products are available through them as that is the cheapest source for Australia in most cases. Other sources as stated.

Personality Plus: How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself


For general personality information and identification see Personality Plus by Florence Littauer.

Personality Plus for Parents

Personality Plus for Parents is by the same author with more information specifically for parents.

Spirit-Controlled Temperament

Spirit Controlled Temperament is a Christian take on the 4 temperaments and how the Holy Spirit can help us overcome our inbuilt weaknesses and improve our strengths.

Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends: How to Fight the Good Fight at Home

Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends is a good tool for teens to read through either by themselves or with you, with time to discuss each chapter together.

Proverbs for parenting is an excellent resources for finding what the bible has to say about parenting related topics with Proverbs sorted into easy to reference categories.

 The Power of True Success How to build character in your life.

A good resource for the Christian family for teaching character to children.

Mom's Notes Volume 3 - Notes in Binder

Dealing with sibling conflict by Joey & Carla Link is a topic from the Moms Notes.  These are an excellent resource for all things parenting. Very detailed with ideas for all ages. Brilliant but it is pricey. Audio CDs also available.

For Instruction In Righteousness

For Instructions in Righteousness Pam Forster is another character training resource with bible verses, stories and other ideas for training and building character into your children. (Also available at Heart and Home Bookstore in Australia.)

Four Chart Special

The Brother offended checklist and booklet and If..Then Chart are helpful in the thick of dealing with conflict. Great to take children straight to to help work through their conflicts with a biblical framework. Available separately or in a set at Heart and Home and Doorposts.

Parents Arise

Janine Targett’s book Parents Arise and scripture CDs show you how to use God’s word to overcome character weaknesses amongst other things. This is the source of the “sorting out prayer.”

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Our treasure tree reward system

Posted on May 14, 2012 by angathome

Character development is an ongoing focus in our house. We finished with the marble jar reward system several months ago now and the children have been asking for a while for a return to our praise plates (more on them another day.) Rather than go back to something we have already used, I decided to introduce a “treasure tree” which linked in very nicely with our reading of “The Treasure Tree” by John Trent.

Our treasure tree reward system.

The system is very simple. When the children demonstrate positive character traits they are given a leaf to stick onto the tree. Character qualities like unselfishness, kindness, generosity and the like are promoted and reinforced throughout the day. Flowers are given when all the children have displayed Godly character together. A great chart of character qualities including a definition and the opposite negative quality is available here.

All you need is a painted tree, a bunch of paper leaves, paper flowers and sticky dots or a glue stick to stick them on with. The dots allow us to keep track of how many leaves need to be earned to reach our family reward – once the dots are all used, the tree is full.

You may like to tie it in with scripture memory work and focus on bible verses relating to treasure such as Proverbs 7:1, Proverbs 15:6, Matthew 6:21 and Luke 6:45

For a full explanation of the difference between bribes, rewards and goal incentives please see my post on marble jars. We don’t always have a reward system operating, but we do use them every now and then when the tone of the household is becoming negative and the children are beginning to bicker.

Rewarding right behaviour is not enough though, we need to spend time teaching what Godly character looks like in action. We use bible study, good books, songs and discussions during morning circle time and discuss how we can display these qualities throughout the day. It’s one thing to talk about serving, showing kindness and loving others, it’s another thing to practice it!

The Treasure Tree

“The Treasure Tree” by John Trent is an introduction to the 4 personality types for children. It uses the 4 main characters of a lion (choleric), beaver (melancholic), golden retriever (phlegmatic) and otter (sanguine) to tell the story. The animals have to work together to overcome some obstacles and find the golden keys to reach their destination of the treasure tree.

The personality types are woven into the way the animals approach each situation and can begin to give your children an insight into why they each behave differently and help them to understand each other and get along a little bit better.

While no means a detailed overview of the personalities, it does provide a great springboard for discussion and helped us to lead into identifying personality and character strengths and weakness that each child needs to be aware of and work on.

The children loved it and asked for the next chapter every day, even though we were only reading from it once a week! I’m looking for something a little more meaty to go on with, but I would recommend this story as an enjoyable read-aloud and worthwhile discussion starter.

Other posts you might like:

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