Our greatest highlight for this week would have to be our family having the privilege of giving positive and encouraging identity words to participants finishing a 12 step addictions program. Our children (Princess 10 & Matey 7) didn’t want to be in the same actual room, mainly due to both shyness & the fact that it meant they could go into my friend’s office & spend time on the iPad. Therefore, I got them to draw the pictures for the participants that evening before we left home. They had to ask God for a picture or sentence & then draw it for each person. I gave them about 2 minutes each person. We had supper with the people when we arrived, so I got the kids to tell me who each picture was for ie which person matched the picture. The kids didn’t know the people so they just said – the lady with the long hair etc for that picture. The kids then went into my friend’s office & we sat around a lounge room & hubby & I began giving prophetic words to these folk. As we came to each person, I gave the kids pictures to them & these tended to impact the people heaps more than our words. When my friend & I had coffee several days later, she commented on how accurate the kids pictures were & how it had impacted the folk so much.

It has been the first week of the spring school holidays here & we have majored on decluttering. We had already done the bookcases since we are sending 37,000 books to Cambodia (another 1,000 books have been dropped in this week that I still need to sort & pack). The kid’s leader at Kids Club is setting up a kindergarten in the Solomon Islands. Thus, after decluttering we were able to give her a whole car load of kindergarten toys, games, dressups, matchbox cars etc. It was great for us as the kids love having more space in their rooms & it was fantastic for this lady to help her. Princess was able to do most of her room on her own so that was a huge help. It is a pleasure giving away things when you know they will be treasured as much as when you had them.

Every day before the kids played with the neighbours on their scooters & skateboards, they had to help around the home. This included weeding the garden which they broke down into manageable chunks for each day. I was thrilled with their weeding ability & the resultant look. I was thrilled also with the fact that they didn’t complain but approached it positively and systematically.

Matey had a swimming lesson each day & managed to go up a level. The end is now in sight!! Due to it being school holidays, we have a break from homeschooling but the kids still do their reading and can get points for doing schoolwork or educational activities. These points then transfer into a reward eg book or lego. The kid’s loved playing various board games this week but totally forgot about the points. This was actually encouraging for me that they still did educational activities but not for a reward but because they love playing games or reading.

I have realised that our family doesn’t do late nights very well, especially 5 nights in a row. There were several activties that we were committed to plus we wanted to catch up with a married couple before they returned to Cambodia & also another family whom I love gleaning parenting ideas from as they have kids who are “stand-outs”. By Saturday, we were all exhausted. It is easy when we are tired to get grumpy and I realise that I need to set the example & create the atmosphere that is needed. We don’t do moodiness in our family. It is just part of being a member of our family that you are not allowed to act moody. You are allowed to express your feelings in an appropriate manner but not allowed to get moody. I realised afresh on Saturday that when you are tired, it is a lot easier to express or act in a negative manner. This tiredness can be prevented on a lot of occasions eg going to bed earlier, but on other occasions it is unavoidable. Thus, it is great to talk about it as a family before the situation & remind family members of the guidelines. I find that this helps our family manage emotions and behaviour a lot better.