Communicating with our Children

Elise and I are home from the gathering of the Church this morning as neither of us are well. Jonathan and I thought it would be wisest not to expose Elise to any more germs than necessary during this time so that her body can focus on healing itself.

I've been listening to the Bradrick family's messages on "Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World" this morning while my baby girl is napping and, wow! have I been so challenged and encouraged in my role as a mother! Specifically I've been listening to Susan Bradrick as she talks about the training of children from birth to 3 months, which while I missed that opportunity with Elise I plan to take advantage of it with this new little one that we are expecting in June :-) Although, the point needs to be made, that while Elise is past the ideal time for the training that Susan lays out, she still needs these basic truths to be structured into her life:
- Establishing Communication/Relationship
- Time for Mommy and Daddy to be wrestling in prayer for the wisdom to discern her personality, her strengths, weaknesses and her sin nature so that she can be trained rightly.

Susan shares how we build a relationship with such a tiny, helpless infant by communicating with them through talking, not at them, but with and to. For example, rather than just giving instructions, or talking for the sakes of hearing ourselves talk, speak things such as, "Oh, you woke from your nap! Mommy is so happy to see you awake and cheerful. Why don't we change your diaper?" etc. It is sharing our thoughts, ideas and desires with our children.
We communicate not only through words but through our tones and responses, our actions, the world we 'create' for them, family relationships, music, scheduling, etc.

Overall I was amazed at how much we communicate without even realizing it! I was inspired to really put forth the effort to redeem my time with my daughter and communicate to her in all of life the goodness of God.

I hope to come back and address a few more of her points in detail, they were just so good! However, right now, Elise is up and  in need of her mommy. . .