Repentance and Forgiveness in the Family

      I'm sure you've seen it before, you have a child that breaks something in the home or something else happens that causes you to lose your cool. Understandably, kids don't know that what they're doing is wrong until you react to what they've done. Now there are specific ways that you can respond to what your child has done. According to the Child Mind Institute, they have the ABC's of behavior management:

• Antecedents: Preceding factors that make a behavior more or less likely to occur. Another, more familiar term for this is triggers. Learning and anticipating antecedents is an extremely helpful tool in preventing misbehavior.
• Behaviors: The specific actions you are trying to encourage or discourage.
• Consequences: The results that naturally or logically follow a behavior. Consequences — positive or negative — affect the likelihood of a behavior recurring. And the more immediate the consequence, the more powerful it is.

The Child Mind Institute goes on to talk about antecedents to avoid and others to embrace. Here's what they say:

• Assuming expectations are understood: Don’t assume kids know what is expected of them — spell it out! Demands change from situation to situation and when children are unsure of what they are supposed to be doing, they’re more likely to misbehave.
• Calling things out from a distance: Be sure to tell children important instructions face-to-face. Things yelled from a distance are less likely to be remembered and understood.
• Transitioning without warning: Transitions can be hard for kids, especially in the middle of something they are enjoying. Having warning gives children the chance to find a good stopping place for an activity and makes the transition less fraught.
• Asking rapid-fire questions, or giving a series of instructions: Delivering a series of questions or instructions at children limits the likelihood that they will hear, answer questions, remember the tasks, and do what they’ve been instructed to do.

Here are the ones that you should embrace:

• Be aware of the situation: Consider and manage environmental and emotional factors — hunger, fatigue, anxiety or distractions can all make it much more difficult for children to reign in their behavior.
• Adjust the environment: When it’s homework time, for instance, remove distractions like video screens and toys, provide snacks, establish an organized place for kids to work and make sure to schedule some breaks — attention isn’t infinite.
• Make expectations clear: You’ll get better cooperation if both you and your child are clear on what’s expected. Sit down with him and present the information verbally. Even if he “should” know what is expected, clarifying expectations at the outset of a task helps head off misunderstandings down the line.
• Provide countdowns for transitions: Whenever possible, prepare children for an upcoming transition. Let them know when there are, say, 10 minutes remaining before they must come to dinner or start their homework. Then, remind them, when there are say, 2 minutes, left. Just as important as issuing the countdown is actually making the transition at the stated time.
• Let kids have a choice: As kids grow up, it’s important they have a say in their own scheduling. Giving a structured choice — “Do you want to take a shower after dinner or before?” — can help them feel empowered and encourage them to become more self-regulating.

Source: https://childmind.org/article/managing-problem-behavior-at-home/ 

      Now I don't have any kids of my own as I'm writing this to you, I am expecting my first coming this August and I know that disciplining my child will probably test my sanity, but there are right and wrong ways to go about it. I remember as a kid, that my parents would spank me when I was younger and then as I got older they would sit me down and try to talk to me about the situation. But in some ways, I think they did it wrong (Don't get me wrong, my parents are awesome, but they weren't perfect), but I would just sit there and not respond to them as they tried questioning me about what it was that I had done wrong.

     Now we have to remember that repentance and forgiveness is an interactive process that leads from one to the next. First, we must facilitate forgiveness, meaning we make an active effort to forgive those that have done us wrong. Next, that will motivate us to repentance. Or as the scriptures put it in short terms, reprove when necessary, but afterward, show an outpouring of love. 

     According to the Worthington model of forgiveness, there are five steps that lead to forgiveness, here are the steps:

1. Recall the hurt- Try to remember the hurt without demonizing the person who hurt you or without thinking of yourself as a victim. Try to remain as objective as possible.

2. Empathize with the person who hurt you- At the level closest to the surface, empathy is trying to understand the other person’s perspective. If we go a little deeper, we can feel with the person’s emotions. If we go deeper still, we can actually feel compassion for the person who hurt us.

3. Altruistic gift of forgiveness- We give an altruistic gift of forgiveness when we realize we are like the person who hurt us in that we have hurt others, called the “guilt” phase. We follow this by seeing that when we are forgiven, we experience freedom and a sense of thanksgiving, called the “gratitude” phase. That makes us want to give the gift of forgiveness.

4. Commit publicly to forgive- Forgiveness is easiest to hold onto if we go beyond forgiving in the privacy of our hearts. We can say aloud that we forgive, write a letter of forgiveness (which we might never send), or even create a certificate granting our forgiveness (which we display on our wall).

5. Holding onto forgiveness- Painful memories can resurface if we see the person again, are reminded of the event, get hurt in a similar way by someone else, or even get stressed out. Our natural tendency is to doubt that we had ever forgiven. Remember that painful memories are different from unforgiveness, or holding on to the grudge.

Source: http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20080127/LIFE/801270317