Ways To Love Your Kids Through a Major Transition

The Dad in me is hypersensitive to my kids emotional, physical & faith development.  I work hard at being intentional without being a helicopter parent.  I want to have the best dang relationship with my sons as possible while releasing them into adult hood.  A major goal for me through this transition is to reaffirm my relationship with each of my sons & point them to the movement of Jesus in our families lives.

However the truth is both of them are 10 & 11 years old and have emotions, feelings and experiences that are new to them and they do not know how to process them or even how to label them.

So here are the four things I'm trying to daily with my boys to help them through this transition.  None of these are new to our family as they have become habitual for us over the past 5-6 years but during this transition we are reminded as to how important they are for our family.

• Daily my wife and I are talking with our boys.  We are asking them about their day, their feelings, what they are praying about and random thoughts as well.  We are not goading or coaching the conversation but just taking it as is.  We are giving them space to speak and importantly listening.  Our language is also asking them what we can celebrate about our day.

• Weekly we are working on spending quality one on one time with the boys.  We are trying to do something that is fun for them but also doing something that allows us to explore the area.  It could be a dinner out, a drive, a walk, a special meal or an errand that THEY really want to go do.  The key is inviting their opinion into the decision.

• Monthly we are trying to celebrate together with a family day.  Now we've only been here one month but the family day we had was great and the next one we have planned will be fun.  Our monthly fun days are nothing new to our family but we are in a new area so that allows us to explore some new adventures together. 

• Prayer.  No matter what we are doing or where we are going we are praying.  Praying for wisdom, honesty, healthy family decisions, discernment, relational connections, confirmation, knowing truth from lies, being obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit…you name it we are praying for it.  Whatever we do we are wanting to be dependent on the power of God.