Tag Archives: Parenting

Sacrament Meeting Does That.

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Source: PreparedNotScared.Blogspot

I remember when I was very small—maybe four or five, sitting on a cushioned chapel bench and staring up into Mama’s face during the Sacrament prayer. Her face looked very serious, and her lips moved in sync with the words the priest spoke. Always. I asked her why she did that. She told me it helped her think about the words that were being spoken. As she sat with her head bowed and eyes closed throughout the passing of the bread and water, I thought about the words she had spoken.

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The Paradox of Children’s Humor

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So my wife says, “oh, I saw a funny shirt today.” My wife loves to share funny things she heard or saw. The shirt said “I’m right 93% of the time and who cares about the other 4%”

My kindergartener starts to laugh and then says, “Hey, I know a funny shirt too.” So she tells us about a shirt that we already bought for our son months ago that has a picture of a rock and a ruler. The Ruler is saying “You Rock!” and the Rock is saying “You Rule!”

After repeating it to us, she then proceeds to say about 10 times in a row. “Get it? The Rock is saying you rule to the ruler and the ruler is saying you rock to the rock. Get it?”

We all bust up laughing and she is happy. But the thing is that it’s not funny because of the “funny once” rule. You can’t actually repeat a funny joke multiple times and expect to get the same laugh each time. So why are we laughing? It’s real laughter too.

Well, of course, it’s because our daughter is hilarious precisely because she doesn’t “get it” that she isn’t funny. Thereby making her funny. So she’s funny because she’s not funny. It makes no sense, so of course it makes perfect sense.

Advice For Parents: Choosing Your Words Carefully

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      A lot of children have selective hearing; have you noticed?  Some of this selective hearing is planned and some isn’t.  They really don’t hear us correctly sometimes.  We can do something to make sure this doesn’t happen as often. 

      Have you ever said don’t run down the hall, and the first thing your child does is run down the hall?  My mom used to say to me, “Don’t talk back to me.”  The first thing I did after this instruction was talk back to her.  Strange. 

      It is never a good idea to start an instruction with the word don’t, because whatever you say after don’t might be the part of the instruction that they think they have to follow.  Here is a classic example. Continue reading →

Nicholeen and Spencer Give Parenting Advice on TV

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As I was thinking about what question would beneficial to answer today on M*, I realized I had just answered questions this morning on television which might be of interest to M* readers.  Today my husband and I had a great day with Debbie and Ron on The KJZZ morning show hosted by KUTV2 news station.  I hope these video clips will be interesting and useful to you and your family.  Today’s topic was consequences and how to choose them.  Remember, “Home should be the safest place to make mistakes.”  (Parenting A House United)

  Below are the links to the two segments we appeared in. 

Segment one: http://connect2utah.com/content/fulltext/?cid=79502

Segment Two: http://connect2utah.com/media_player.php?media_id=119902

Last month we also appeared on the show and will on the second Friday of each month.  Below are the links to last month’s segments. Continue reading →

Success Strategies ~ Respecting Parents

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There are certain skills I teach my children for successful communication in my home.  Two of the main skills are Following Instructions and Accepting No Answers.  These are two of the basic skills for showing respect to parents and for learning how to respect any authority, even God.  People who can’t do these basic skills are very noticeable in society. 

However, learning these skills takes lots of practice and really goes against our selfish tendency to disconnect and Continue reading →