Water the Flowers, Not the Weeds

I don't know about all of you, but there seems to be a constant background noise in my house that drives me to want to climb on the roof, stick my fingers in my ears and sing out loud to drown out the noise.  Ha...that would be quite the sight...lol!!


On a bad day, the bickering between siblings starts within five minutes of waking up and doesn't end until they lay their precious little heads down and fall asleep.  A good day is really not much better.  It drives me batty!!  I am baffled on a daily basis as to things this kids can find to argue about.

Please tell me I am not the only one feeling this way!?!

So, I am constantly turning towards myself and my ability to parent.  What in the world are we doing wrong???  Totally spent and in pure out desperation, I spent the better half of this morning scouring the internet looking for thoughts...someone out there has had to have fixed this problem. 

What I learned...kids are never going to stop fighting.  Um...that stinks, but made me feel better about our parenting skills at least. 

Then, I read something that stopped me in my tracks...

The gist of what I read was water the flowers, not the weeds.  Well, that makes complete sense from a gardening perspective.  I can look at the kids' good behavior as little flowers blooming them into loving, responsible adults and the bad behavior as weeds stealing the nutrients from the little flowers.  If I water the flowers and not the weeds, eventually, the flowers will choke out the weeds.  Not that the weeds ever go away, they just aren't thriving.  Just like gardening!  Genius!!

How do you water the flowers?

First and foremost, water them with God's word.

"... do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Ephesians 6:4

I like to look at the exasperation part as watering the weeds.  Every time I respond in a negative way to all the fighting, I am just watering the weeds.  Sometimes, it's so hard sometimes to respond any other way.  Like most moms, I'm just tired, over worked and under paid.  Maybe this little change will help me with that as well.

Looks like, in our house, it's time to start watering the flowers.  We've been working on a piece of this by trying to teach the kids that responsibility leads to privileges.  It all ties together, because part of being responsible is treating your siblings with love and respect (the training and instruction of the Lord).  So, out come the jars and charts, and an extra dose of positive reinforcement is on it's way.

Happy Friday!!