Discipleship through the Word of God

I have been intending to write about Wise Words for Moms for a whole year. I bought Ginger Plowman's book "Don't Make Me Count to Three!" last year at a Catholic homeschooling conference. Rarely are Protestant resources sold at Catholic homeschooling conferences, but I knew and trusted the seller, plus asked her why she was selling something Protestant: It's a very useful Biblical tool that can be easily adapted by Catholic parents.

Plowman's basic thesis is that we parents often do well enough with punishing misbehaviors but don't do nearly enough discipling about good behavior. She advises parents to respond to sinful behavior by asking "heart-probing questions," providing Scripture references against the sinful behavior, providing Scripture references supporting the virtuous behavior, and then punishing as needful. This appealed to me very much because I find too often that I tell the children not to do a particular bad behavior because of how it affects me, when I should be telling them not to do the behavior because it is against the will of God. He's a bigger authority than me! The children and I should all be inside His will.

After reading Plowman's book, one can buy her quick Scripture reference chart in calendar form. I keep this chart on my white board in the kitchen (the "brain outside my body").

"Wise Words for Moms" reference chart

I have only six years and four kids' worth of parenting experience, but I have noticed that explanations and discipline is not heard in the heat of the moment--true of adults too! When the child is rebellious and angry and I have lost my temper and raised my voice, any teaching I'm providing falls on deaf ears. Do I try to explain things to children in the heat of the moment with a loud voice anyway? Yes, way too often! I am a work in progress.

Over the last year, I have found the above tools very useful in calm and quiet moments. As an example: Lately John and Mary have been boasting to each other--getting pretty mean at times until the other one cries. I have noticed that various sinful behaviors come in waves with children, not just the individual child, but within the family unit. I have been making immediate corrections to the boasting--standard items like time out, separation of playmates, loss of privileges. But this morning when the children were playing together really sweetly, I gathered my things and asked them to sit with me on the big bed and chat.

We talked through Plowman's chart about boasting for about ten minutes, which is a good, long attention span for children four and six. We read three lines of Scripture, which led to us defining some great vocabulary words: praise, haughty, arrogant, endure, humility/humble, pride. As we defined words, we came up with examples of that thing (e.g., a "haughty look") and the acting out of these things brought levity and warm-heartedness to our chat.

The Child Training Bible

The Bible I used was a favorite Catholic bible marked up with the (Protestant) kit entitled the Child Training Bible. This kit comes with great charts showing subject matters (e.g., "laziness") with up to ten Scripture quotations concerning the subject. They are color coded on the chart, and the parent marks each Scripture line with matching color highlighter pen and matching color tabs.

The copy work is ready to go, as I'm sure I'll need it soon enough!

I ended our lovely chat telling them that when I hear them boasting again, they are going to be assigned copy work: "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth."

On the subject of character education, I am quite excited about a program we are going to be employing this upcoming school year: Program for Achieving Character Education (P.A.C.E.). This Catholic program covers nine virtues, one per each month of the school year. The lesson plans are flexible and are to be used over the course of an entire month.

Here is the gist of how it can work: At the beginning of the month, the parent(s) sits down with all the children and introduces the virtue of the month (e.g., Perseverance). The virtue and its definition is written on a white board or poster that will be up all month. Then, over the course of the month, the parent reads various classic stories, Scripture, quotations from famous historical people, lives of the saints, and examples from Our Lady that exemplify this virtue. The lesson plan provides lists of all these things, including the stories divided up by age (e.g., certain stories are best for children ages 4-6, ages 8-10, and so on). I plan to weave in this reading and discussion of virtue into my read-alouds throughout the month. (Bonus points because all the stories cited in the curriculum are from William Bennet's collections: "Book of Virtues" and "The Moral Compass," so now chasing around the library to obtain books in time.)

The lesson plans also provide so many more ideas, such as how to teach the virtue through enrichments, history, nature studies, and more! I'm not even planning to attempt to do that much with this flexible and adaptable curriculum.