Are you a Permissive Parent?

Are you a Permissive Parent: High Love and Low Limits?

Permissive parents use love as their primary style and consider love more important than limits. These parents believe that if they love their child enough, the child will love them so much that things will go smoothly. They also think using attachment and their bond with their child will teach them right from wrong. They spend much time with the child, communicating, negotiating, and reasoning. 

The psychology of a child is primarily ME-centered. Children are not born evil or good, and they are not self-regulating. As they grow, kids learn limits from their parents. Early limitations include bedtimes, eating on a schedule, and playtime. The older the child, the more limits he is capable of. 

Permissive parents believe that love conquers all and sometimes do not consider the child's inability to understand its benefits. Kids are taken care of from birth and perceive this as their right of existence. Parents must teach that love is not a right but a benefit of acceptable social behavior. 

Permissive parents think their children will return their love with obedience and acceptable behavior. Kids believe that mom and dad love them so much that it will be okay no matter what they do. When children enter school, they are confused and saddened to learn that the world does not love them.

The traits of permissive parenting:

• Accepting and affirmative, but do not place demands on the child to enforce the child's responsibility for his conduct. 
• Be tolerant of the child's wants and impulses, including those of the aggressive ones.
• Usually, they have trouble saying "no" and setting boundaries and guidelines for their kids. 
• These parents tend to be lenient and avoid asserting authority or imposing controls or restrictions. They avoid confrontation when possible.
• Few demands exist for acceptable behavior, like table manners or home responsibilities—there are few rules for bedtimes, homework schedules, mealtimes, or TV watching.
• Allow the children to control their behavior and to make their own decisions. 
• Discipline is inconsistent, creating problems centering on a child's lack of responsibility, motivation, and self-control. 

Studies have shown that the permissive parenting style has a more negative than positive effect. Children are often impulsive and aggressive, and lack independence and personal responsibility. This style frequently leads to demanding and selfish behavior rather than the child being loving and supportive of others.

Children are often insecure because of the lack of defined boundaries. While the kids have high self-esteem and good social skills, there is often problem behavior and a lack of motivation in school and adult life because the children have not learned to be accountable for their actions. 

How did you meet the Lord?

 

God is ever-present, looking and longing for those who will come to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9) How did you catch God’s eye? Were there times of trouble and grief, or were you struck by the truth that God exists?

I met the Lord during the Jesus movement in the late 1970s. My friends were “saved,” and I thought they were stupid. I didn’t not believe in God; I just couldn’t see the need for it in my life. 

I am a poet, and I was working on a poem about the creation of the earth, some hippie notion of Father Moon and Mother Sun. I remembered the Bible talked about giants who walked the land, and, in curiosity, I asked a woman who was a preacher’s wife if I could come and speak with her husband.

I went to their home and discussed what the Bible says about the giants and other things. As I left, her husband said if I wanted to know more, I should read the first book of John. 

 A few days passed. While cooking dinner one evening, I remembered what the preacher said. I found the Bible my mom gave me when I got married. I looked for the first book of John and opened the Bible to John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.

The power and Spirit of God entered my heart and consumed my mind. It was an unseen bright light shining through me. I knew this was the truth. And that is how, 47 years ago, I met the Lord. I have never regretted one day of this life.

Halloween-Last minute ideas for a backyard bash

Celebrate Halloween with a backyard bash. Gather your costumed friends for a party that includes a bonfire, smoking punch, snacks, and games. 

Build the bonfire

If you do not have a firepit, build a bonfire pit safe from the house.
Dig a shallow hole large enough to contain the fire.
Set two medium-sized logs side by side in the middle of the hole.
Place newspapers, hay, or wood pieces in the spot for kindling.
Light a match and carefully place it in the middle to start the kindling.
Place another log across the top of the fire when the kindling has an intense flame.
When the top log catches fire, your bonfire is good to go. Feed the fire regularly throughout the party. Be sure to douse it with water when the party ends.

Halloween Punch

Make your favorite punch and encase it with dry ice to create a spooky atmosphere. Watch the video below for the how-to.

Prepare for ghostly games

The Mummy

Break into teams of three or four. Each team will have a toilet paper roll and choose one person to be the mummy. Each team has five or ten minutes (whichever you decide) to use the entire toilet paper roll. The winners were the team with the fastest time and the most creative mummy. Prizes can be candy, popcorn balls, or a round of applause.

Eat the Donut

Use tree limbs or a clothesline between two trees and hang donuts using string. Donuts should be slightly higher than the average teen. Choose teams of two and tie them together at the waist. Each team tries to eat the donut without using their hands or arms—the first team to eat the donut wins. If a donut falls to the ground, the team is eliminated. 

Blindfold Drum Finder

Choose one person to be the drummer. The drum can be a pot or hollow log- anything that resonates. 

The game begins when the drummer drums once. Each player is blindfolded, and the drummer chooses a spot away from the bonfire. The blindfolded teens try to find the drummer, who can make a sound every few minutes. The game continues until each teen has found the drummer. If found too quickly, the drummer may change location. 

How to Use Dry Ice with Halloween Punch 

Quiet Beauty of Fall Morning

Quiet beauty: 

Silent sun shines softly bright
On the waning green of trees about to winter.
Penetrating the leaves
And outlining each vein.
This whispering sun caresses the grass.
With fine filters through the fence cracks,
It gently covers the house
And slips gracefully through the moss.

A fragile day, this end of summer.
The earthy breeze and tender sun
So carefully preserve the warmth.
A tended hearth.

Portend of the coming quiet beauty
Of another season.

Climate change: what is the cause? What solutions can we apply?

Climate change, global warming: We experience it every day. The increase in severe weather, the droughts, and the melting ice are all symptoms of a worldwide illness. I recently read an article discussing the causes of alarming global warming. This article states, "Human activity has rapidly increased the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution-human activities such as burning fossil fuels, including coal and oil, have increased greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere."

The article did not point out the number of factories and cities constructed during the industrial revolution. Building the factories and towns required the consumption of acres of trees to clear the land and build the needed housing. Transporting goods and people led to the need for roads and railroads. While removing the trees, the use of fossil fuels increased with few remaining air filters (trees) to combat the warming effects of these greenhouse gases.

There is always cause and effect. The cause is the deforestation of the land and increased use of fossil fuels. The effect is global warming or planetary destruction. There is a reasonable, cost-effective method to reduce carbon dioxide using this simple cause and effect model. The technique is how our planet developed the life-sustaining air we need to exist.

Trees are natural air purifiers using a process termed photosynthesis. During this process, leaves pull in carbon dioxide and water and use the sun's energy to convert this into chemical compounds such as sugars that feed the tree. But as a by-product of that chemical reaction, oxygen is produced and released by the tree

Governments spend billions of dollars seeking to control carbon emissions and develop alternative energy sources. Carbon cleaning plants capture and bury the carbon dioxide. But these plants do nothing to release breathable oxygen back to nature.

 Iceland introduced the world's largest carbon cleaning plant, claiming the plant will remove 3,600 metric tons or 7,936,632 pounds per year. About 15 plants are in operation.. It is excellent to clean carbon dioxide from the air; it is better to set up an efficient air filter that removes the carbon dioxide and returns clean air. Achieving this is simple and rewarding. 165,347 mature trees can achieve the same air purification. One tree removes 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air and returns breathable oxygen.

The funding from the federal and state governments would be better used to reforest cities, develop incentives for builders to resist the need to raze land before building homes and business sites and remove blighted city areas, replacing these areas with trees.

Reforesting is not a novel idea. China, the top polluter of carbon dioxide, launched a reforestation project in 1999 to combat the damaged landscape of China's industrial growth. China has spent upward of 100 billion dollars, benefiting crops, controlling in part the carbon dioxide emissions, and has raised the forest coverage to about a quarter of China's total land.

In the U.S., combating the degradation and rise in crime in blighted urban neighborhoods could be better served by removing abandoned buildings and replacing these with trees. Many communities have pockets of blight, a breeding ground for drugs, crime, and despair. Replacing these areas with trees would improve living conditions and create an environment of hope and a future. One acre of blight can hold 80-120 trees and remove 3,840 to 5,760 pounds of pollution from the air in one year.

So what can one individual do? Plant trees. Incorporate trees into your landscaping projects. Various trees enhance any yard; some are quick growing, like the Quaking Aspen, Sugar Maple, and Arborvitaes. Whichever type of tree you choose, remember one mature tree can create enough oxygen to support 4 people.