8 Great Smarts by Dr. Kathy Koch - why parents have a responsibility to teach their children in the way they were created to learn

            I just listened to an amazing another amazing podcast from Dr. Gary Chapman; it’s called Building Relationships. I've only listened to 3 episodes so far but each time there is a different featured speaker/author and topic. Tonight I heard the episode from April 2, 2016 with Dr. Kathy Koch. I saw her speak at the Hearts at Home conference last fall. She's an amazing author and I have another one of her books called “Growing up Social”, but in this podcast she was talking about her book “8 Great Smarts” tells about the 8 different ways that your child can be gifted.

            She explained what each different smart is and different ways that you can connect with your child and foster that giftedness and if they're not strong in one area you can get them interested in it. I totally loved it and I’ve decided that I'm going to be buying a copy of that book for both of Addison's teachers this year. I think that if you take that extra step to really understand your kids as a parent, then you can foster excitement in them for everything around them.

            I really feel like some people may have an issue with helicopter parenting and that sort of thing, but I don't feel like I'm a helicopter parent. Instead, I feel that I am an involved parent because I feel that especially in this age with so much information available, I feel like it's my duty and it's my responsibility not just to hum along and give her clothes, give her food, send her to school. That’s the bare minimum. It's my responsibility to identify the strengths and the uniqueness that God has put in her and help her develop them. It's also my responsibility to find those areas where she is not as strong and to help her identify that and work through those challenges.

            I think some parents just kind of float by with the absolute minimum needed to raise their kids and I think that with all of the knowledge out there  – there's books, there's podcasts, there's so many different things – why not take advantage of all that knowledge and truly pour your heart and your passion into making your children become the best people that they can be?? Our kids are going to be the adults of tomorrow; if we want a better country, if we want a better world as we're getting old and gray, then we better put the work in now to be creating these amazing children that we are blessed with.

            That's one of my passions. I am a stay-at-home mom and I'm blessed with all day to be able to do that with Addie and spend time with her. If I wasn't doing that with my day then I don't think that I would be taking advantage of the gift that I have in being a stay-at-home mom. If our kids’ teachers aren't fully immersed and reading books like 8 Great Smarts on how to foster excitement and intelligence and all sorts of different gifts in the children that they are teaching every single day…then I think that they're in the wrong profession-plain and simple! If you don't have a passion for the kids that you teach every time and wanting to make them the best people possible and leaving an imprint on them, a positive imprint on them, then you need to stop teaching. Because you're sure not in it for the money, so I don't know why you’re there if you're not there for the kids and making them better people.

            I will be listening to this podcast again because it was so full of amazing information, and I’ll be ordering myself a copy from Amazon tonight and also copies for Addison’s teachers this year. I think that this kind of knowledge is something that not only every parent should have but every teacher should have because they are very big influences and our kids as well. So I encourage you to not only look at that book, but also follow Kathy on Facebook. I'm sure she's a wealth of knowledge. It’s bedtime but I just could not go to bed without sharing my excitement for this new book that I'm going to be reading.

            If you're a parent or a teacher or even a volunteer for a kids program (like I do for our church program AWANA), I think if you are involved in kids lives in any way you need to realize what a gift that you're being given: the gift influence on these young kids. You really need to take that seriously and do what you can to leave them better than when you first found them. Can you tell I’m passionate about this? I'm not an official teacher, but I teach my daughter every day so I feel like I'm a teacher!

What's your love language?

How do you express love and caring to your spouse (or anyone for that matter)?
❤️
My husband has enough to worry about while he's gone for 12 hours a day teaching and coaching. The last thing I want to do is greet him with a "honey do" list as soon as he gets home. I do my absolute darnedest to accomplish things on my own during the day so that I don't bog him down when he's home for family time. 
A less secure man would see my pulling these big (thicker than my arms, easily 20 feet long) broken branches to the street from our backyard as me taking his "manly responsibility" from him.
It's a good thing we both rank very high on "acts of service" as a love language, because he will see me doing this and know it comes across as a caring gesture.

Dealing with anger toward your children in a Godly way: God's timing for my personal development reading

          Sometimes your kids can give you big reality/gut checks. When Addie and I were talking before nursing last night, she said in a sad but serious tone "Mom I want you to apologize for spanking me." Now to clarify, it wasn't a spanking but I yanked her towel down off the ring in the bathroom pretty quick in frustration from her not listening to me and it got her hand in the process.
          But, I was frustrated and lost my cool and that's the truth. It's tough when your kid points out a fault you already know. But if I'm going to set a good example for her, I need to show her how to apologize and ask for forgiveness when she does make mistakes. So I apologized and we talked how you can sin when you are angry or if you don't listen to mommy that's a sin too.
          She responded by saying "I don't have sins anymore. God took them and made a hole in the ceiling and flew up to Heaven with them and now they're gone." 
          Then we prayed together. I went first to show her how to say I was sorry for my sin and ask Jesus to help me do better next time. Then she folded her hands, closed her eyes, and prayed an apology and asked Jesus to take that sin away.  We both apologized to each other and forgave each other and made a commitment to (me) take a deep breath first when frustrated and (her) listen to mommy the first time.
          I am so humbled by her innocence, growing faith, and the refreshing honesty she gives me on a daily basis. She is such a blessing from God for my own faith and that pesky pride.

          Fast forward to today. I was reading my personal development while Addison was at school. It was totally God's timing for me to read this chapter today out of Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman. This book is such a blessing. I highly recommend it to everyone.

          Do you ever find yourself letting your anger get the best of you? It's not a sin to be angry! It is a sin to act wrongly because of our anger. We have a responsibility as parents to stop the cycle of not being able to handle our anger effectively and to teach our children to be in control of their emotions.

How does reading a book about anger help me in my business?

Anger: Taming A Powerful Emotion

I intended to read 1 chapter a day of this book and be done within 2 weeks. I bought it at a conference in November after I listened to a seminar on anger. The author is Dr. Gary Chapman who also wrote the book The 5 Love Languages. That book completely changed how Corey and I communicate in our marriage and I believe changed our marriage so much for the better.

Given some recent events that have happened in my family's life I feel like this book was was destined for me by God and I am already one quarter through it in one afternoon! I have highlighted and taken notes all over and I can't wait to pass this along to some members of my family who are really struggling with the emotion of anger and how to deal with it.

So many people, Christians included, feel like anger is such a taboo subject and we aren't supposed to admit that we are angry. This book is teaching me (as did the seminar several months ago) that anger, as an emotion, is rooted in the nature of God as a response to something that is unjust or unholy. Anger is designed to motivate us to take positive action when we encounter an injustice. It's purpose is to motivate us to positive loving action that will leave things better then we found them. This is totally not what mainstream media portrays as anger; they always show us something negative and destructive and that's because people don't know the origin of anger the purpose of anger and they don't know how to keep it from being a raging uncontrolled emotion or how to let not let your body take over you when you're angry.

Anger is the opposite of the feeling of love: love draws you toward someone and anger sets you against them. It's really a poison in your life and in your heart. I have learned and gone through firsthand how freeing it is to reframe how I think of anger and how I deal with it. If you're a Christian you are to be set apart from other people; other people should be able to look at how you live your life and know that there is something different about you, something good. I used to suffer from a lot of anger and fly off the cuff and have outbursts and not really control what I said (I always regretted it), and I had a festering bubble all the time inside of me waiting to explode. That's not a good way to live your life!

Personal development is one of the required behaviors for a Beachbody coach. True, I could be reading a book about marketing or some business topic and I have several of those on my bookshelf and my wish list, but honestly I want to better myself in all areas of my life. I want to be a better mother, a better wife, a better Christian; I don't want to suffer from having anger, depression, or anxiety take over me! I want all over health for my life.

For me, being a Beachbody coach is not about having a perfect body or selling products. Yes, it's helping people discover physical health and wellness through nutrition and fitness, but it is also creating all over health by investing in yourself with personal development, and financial health by sharing this opportunity with others and building your own business. 

If you'd like to see these sort of all-over changes in your life, please reach out to me because YOU are the type of person I want to align with and have on my team!