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As you know, my daughter’s been experiencing some heart-wrenching problems with the other youth in our Ward, and we’ve been ward hopping. We attended our regular Ward last Sunday because we organized a social event for a number of people in the Ward after Church, so we felt we had to be present at Church to remind them, and for propriety reasons. I have been meeting my daughter in a private place on the Church grounds during Sunday School, and giving her a custom lesson at that time. Her SS class is not well-organized, or well-taught, and there is bullying there, so I have been meeting her elsewhere for a custom lesson. She still attends the other meetings.
It was a wonderful lesson based on her reaction, where we talked about two things — how “A soft answer turneth away wrath”, applied to our family regarding certain recurring conflicts we’ve experienced with my daughter and my son. I wrote it on a piece of paper, and had her say it backwards, forwards, every other odd word, every other even word, and then described situations in which she might have used it during family conflicts.
She is strong in organization, and sometimes nags the family to clean, which needed to be tempered as she gets really frustrated with my wife and my son who have no interest in housekeeping….I taught her about how she needs to look at cleanliness in our family as a process, not an event that suddenly materializes in full perfection bloom. Then I used an appreciative inquiry technique where I asked her to comment on how our family has improved in cleanliness since she started partnering with me in cleaning the house. She listed several ways — 3 or 4 ways. She left very happy after a bit of humor about how utterly cranky I was during the first week of a weight loss program I was on, citing some of the things I did which in retrospect, were actually quite funny. She was in tears with laughter at the end of it.
Anyway, I wanted to share with how I’m trying to make being away from home and at Church a better experience for my family when Church is not an uplifting place to be. She looks forward to these one-on-one lessons that are engineered to help her personally, and it certainly is strengthening my relationship with my daughter. She knows it’s not every week, but I have to confess, I look forward to these lessons with her where I get to use the time to strengthen the culture in my family.
SD, this is a great solution for a terrible problem. It also provides “bonding” time for you & your daughter. How can I join your SS class?
Mike from Milton.
Sign me up, too! Good job, SD. I’m sure you will reap the benefits of paying this kind of attention to your kids, now and in the future.
That is a great example of being an agent unto yourself, SD – of acting and not being acted upon. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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