Teaching Your Children Values (Guest Post)

A few of you may have heard of Joy School which is a parent run and guided preschool which I would love to do with Shayla but have not found anyone locally to do it with me (any takers?)! Anyway, the founders of Joy School are also Mormon (did you know that?) and they are amazing parents who have been able to instill Christ-like values in thousands of children worldwide! I think they have such an inspired outlook on parenting and I recently started reading their book "Teaching Your Children Values" which has been very insightful so far! My sister, Megan, recently attended a talk when they were in the DC area and she posted some of her notes from their talk on her blog and graciously gave me permission to share them here since I think they are such great parenting tips and I know a lot of my parent friends and relatives read my blog - hopefully this will inspire some of you as well!

This is a "guest post" from my sisters blog - slightly modified -

FROM MY SISTER MEGAN'S BLOG -
Here she is with her adorable family!

Jane and Richard Eyre Fireside 9/5/10

On Sunday, Sept. 5, 2010, I had the opportunity to go to a Parenting Fireside given by Jane and Richard Eyre at the Visitors Center of the Washington D.C. Temple.

Jane and Richard Eyre have nine children, have written many books on Parenting and spearhead the Joy School program. I've been reading their newsletters for almost 3 years now so when I heard they were coming to the D.C. area and speaking at a Fireside I was so exicted! I even made a facebook event page for it. Crazy, huh?

Well, the day came and I went. It turns out the Eyres were in town to visit one of their sons- Eli- who lives near D.C. and were willing to speak to us as long as they were in town. They both spoke together, speaking about what the needs are currently in Parenting. Brother Eyre spoke about how he feels every Parent needs to listen to the Spirit to receive revelation for their children. Sister Eyre spoke about how Parents need to learn about Entitlement. Here are a few of the main points I got from the Fireside:

1. Deal with our children how our Heavenly Father, Our God, deals with us: patience, love, understanding.

2. If you have little children in your home, you have JOY. (How true is that? I love how all my little ones make me laugh and want to just play)

3. Little kids can memorize little scriptures.

4. We should ask them what they learned at Church. We can have a Parent/Teacher Conference with their Sunday School Teachers as you would do with school teachers.

5. Upgrade Family Time Together, Upgrade Scripture Study, Upgrade Family Prayer. We can do everything a little bit better!

6. They said "I promise you will receive the most direct and responsive answers you've ever received if you pray-'Heavenly Father, you sent me this child- how can I help him/her with ________ (such and such)' "

7. Analyze the problem, take it to the Lord and listen for His answer, you should spend 40% of the time you pray listening for a response.

8. As LDS Parents we have Eternal Perspective, Stewardship Prayer, the Model of Supreme Parent and his Plan of Salvation, a back-up system- the Church and Jesus Christ.

Good luck in all your Parenting endeavors!