God's Perspective

Summer bickering is giving me a headache.  Offering rewards works as long as there's a reward.  Saying, "stop," and assigning extra jobs only works for a minute.

I believe that behavioral interventions change behaviors in limited settings (i.e. home, school, work, etc.)  I believe my role as a parent is larger than that of a behaviorist.  I believe if I'm not a teacher, my children will grow to adulthood and miss what it means to be a loving, kind human being who values relationships and life...

(This is going somewhere.  I promise.  And it's even funny.)

So as I've struggled with the summer bickering, I've thought more and more about what is is my children could understand that would give them a desire to put effort into relationships.  I found myself wishing they could just understand our lives through God's perspective.

So today I had that conversation with a few who were having a not-so-great day.  I asked them what they thought it was like to live with God before we came here.  We talked about lessons we might have learned from God to prepare our spirits to live on this earth.

Good discussions.

I love those moments.

In one such conversation with Nate (because he's a little older) we talked about perspective and how to keep that perspective, and see things through God's eyes.  We talked about daily contact with eternal things, like prayer, and scriptures to keep our perspective on what is important.  I loved his ideas.  I felt blessed to be Mom to such a great thinker.

But parents of teens know that moments of connectedness come with humor...because it would be horribly uncool to connect too much.  So Nate left the conversation to get on the church website to "see things through God's eyes."   A few minutes later I looked up to see something like this on the screen:

From there he progressed to google earth...images of different places in the world.  I couldn't resist.  I had to know how he got from scriptures to that.  He said, "I'm trying to see things through God's eyes."  

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!  I love it when they make me laugh.

Wish us luck in our perspective shift!