Over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing some ideas for “conversations” to have with your tween or teen girl.  Hear what I have to say about talking about expectations with your daughter here:

Perfect Time Number 6 is Table Talk

Meal times are a great time for conversations. This should obviously involve the whole family, but that is an even better time to cultivate the relationship between all family members, not just you and your daughter. Meal times are a great time for families to share what has gone on throughout their day. Making mealtimes a priority is important for families. Sharing a meal together is a great way to connect. Remember, grocery store runs are a teaching time and this connected with meal time itself can be the ultimate bonding experience for you and your daughter.

Have your daughter help with meal planning weekly. She might even choose to cook one night of each week. Or at least choose to have her favorite meal on that night. Why not make meal times extra special in this way. Your daughter is a gift from God, it is important to do all that you can to make her feel important, valued and special.

Perfect Time Number 5 is Girls Nights

Every now and again it is fun to purposely spend time together. These other times mentioned may just happen accidentally, but a purposed planned event such as a girl’s night out or a girl’s night in with your daughter(s) can be a great way to connect. Do something fun that you both enjoy and allow the quality time you are spending together to affect your relationship for the better.

You might even want to invite a girlfriend along, one of your daughter’s that is. My mom often allowed me to have friends sleep over. Spending time with my friends helped my mom to get to know them and to discover whether or not they were someone she really wanted me hanging out with. She was able to judge and then from there give me advice on how to handle that particular friend. She was also able to positively influence some of my friends who may have not had a strong connection with their own mothers or even with Jesus Christ.

Perfect Time Number 1 is Potty Talk

Over the years I have spent a great deal of time with my mom in the bathroom. Over the years we had a bunch of “potty talks”. I sat on the potty as she bathed, or put her makeup on, or fixed her hair, or shaved her legs and I talked. I tend to be a talker, so I talked a lot, but all the while these conversations were shaping our relationship, strengthening it, giving us a bond, a connection.

So, for me, potty talk was a great part of my life. How about you, do you and your daughter have “potty talks”? It is a perfect place to talk, to connect and to even teach. Think of the private areas of a woman’s life that you could teach in the “potty”, about abstinence, about purity, about a woman’s body and hormones, about the menstrual cycle, about all the areas that a girl will face in her life that are specific to the female sex. It is the perfect time to prepare her, and equip her.

Integrity, it is one of the traits that I learned from my parents, by their actions.  My mom and dad were people who “practiced what they preached” and that in layman’s terms is what I believe integrity is, though more specifically it is “the state of being complete, unified.”

I believe that when I have integrity, my words and my deeds match up.  People with integrity have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.  As a youth leader I have told youth dozens of times, garbage in, garbage out.  Your thoughts will come out in your actions.

The Bible says that “Where your treasure is your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21 (NIV) A person of integrity has their heart in the right place.  Their priorities are in the right order and they practice what they preach.  They maintain their promises and they live their beliefs.

So, my question for you is, “Are you a mom of integrity?” Be a mom of integrity, a mom who follows through with her warnings for discipline, they’ll thank you for it later.  Be a mom, who does not participate in the things that she warns her children again.  Be a mom who models by example the principles she hopes her children will embrace.

Only by being a person of integrity will others follow after you, and will you be a positive influence on those around you, especially your children.  Of anyone in our lives, it is our children that we hope to influence the most.

Sometimes as moms, we get the crazy idea that because we have become responsible for the lives of precious little children, that we should focus solely on them and leave our own thoughts and ideas for ourselves behind.  This should not be the case.  We as moms should be true to ourselves, use the passions and gifts that God has given us and set some goals for ourselves.

These goals will not only benefit us, as people, but also our families as well.  Its kind of like the old saying, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Naturally, our children, husbands, families and others around us will benefit from us taking care of ourselves and doing things that will help us to feel more productive and successful.

The Lord also expects us to use the gifts that he has given us.  He tells us in Scripture that without every part of the body of Christ functioning at its best it will not work.

“ If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
1 Corinthians 12:19-27

This scripture passage makes it clear why it is so important for us to use what God has given us. He gave us those gifts and abilities so we can function as a part of the body of Christ, and that includes our families.  We have a responsibility to our families to do our part.  Part of that is setting goals for not only us but for our families as well.

So, mom, how about you setting some goals?  Here are a few tips to get you started:

Family goals can include your marriage, your children, or the whole family.  They can be fun or serious.  Fun goals might be to save money for a vacation, or to have family night every Saturday night, while goals that are more serious might include paying off debt or seeking to improve your marriage.

Then you will also want to set some individual goals just for you.  There are probably things you have put on the backburner or put off doing altogether because you have become a mom, why not take one of those things to focus on a year and make it happen.

Whether the goals are for your family or for you, it will be so fulfilling to make them a reality.  Of course, once one goal is accomplished it is time to set a new one and begin working to achieve it.  It is a never-ending process that you and your family can always benefit from, so keep it up.

It isn’t often that I make a recommendation here.  But this one just HAD to be made.  Journal Buddies, A Girl’s Journal for Sharing and Celebrating Magnificence is a must have for your girls.  It is perfect for the tween girl (age 8-12).  It was a finalist in the Mom’s Choice Awards and for good reason.  This journal allows a girl to explore and share her feelings on paper, helping to create a power, positive and lasting self-esteem experience for her.

As you all know, I am a journaling enthusiast, however often times it is difficult to get a girl this age to share her feelings on paper.  But this journal brings out her creativity and allows her to open up and share easily.  It involves fun activities that will help them to draw out their feelings and emotions and record them all in a very special place.

One of the great things about this journal is that it allows the girls to share either through words or pictures.  This gives them yet another way to record their thoughts without feeling that they are “writing the right thing”.  They can just be themselves!

As someone who has journaled for years and who advocates it as an activity that all girls should do I highly recommend this journal for all tween girls.

Pick up a Journal Buddies for your tween girl today.

There are many commandments that we are given as children of God. The Bible lays these out for us in the Ten Commandments and other Scriptures. Some are easy to follow, while others we struggle with.  Honoring our father and mother is one that during our teen years we often struggle to keep.  The simple commandment,

“Honor your father and your mother,” Exodus 20:12 (NIV),

becomes so complex as get to this age.  For some strange reason as we hit around the age of thirteen our parents become dumber and we become smarter.
This was my personal experience.  I can remember thinking that they were so wrong, while I was so right.  Many an argument was fought because of this.  Whether it be a disagreement over whether I could go somewhere with my friends, how messy my room was, or how I chose to wear my hair, I thought they were wrong and I was right.

Sure, my friends often had crazy ideas my parents were right about not letting me participate in, my room did often resembled a pig sty, and my hair  needed washing more than once per week, but I sure did not think so in my naive little thirteen year old brain.

So, as moms and dads, how do we get our children, especially those of the teenage variety to clue into the fact that we are “smart”?  The truth is, as a former teen myself, I believe it is a phase we all have to go through.  Quite honestly as time went by, my parents got smarter and smarter.  I began to clue in to the fact that some of the things they were telling me really were for my own good and slowly I came back onto their side of many an issue.

By the age of eighteen I had come to realize that I needed them, they had good advice, and I could count on them more than my friends.  So, do not loose hope, your child will come around again.  So, be patient, and wait for them to realize the error of their ways, receive their newfound belief in you with love, and be grateful for their new found belief in what you have to say.

The Bible’s words are true that if you,

“Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”  Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)

Let that verse be the hope that you cling to as you continue to train your child, no matter how dumb they attempt to make you feel, because Mom and Dad, your honor will soon be restored to its rightful  place.