The A, B, C’S of Parenting

By Janet Skinner

If you are a first-time parent of a newborn infant, you are just finding out that parenting is not just a job, its a full time, round the clock profession for which there is no pay. I find it hard to believe that we actually get more training for the job of birthing the baby than we do for the profession of raising the child. Almost all parents attend a course that lasts about eight weeks in order to learn about childbirth, which takes an average of eight to fifteen hours from start to completion! And you have a team of experts there with you throughout the entire process. Then comes the day you take the little bundle home. You are given a gift pack from the hospital and sent on your merry way to spend the next eighteen years guessing what to do next!

I believe this job is too important to leave up to chance. For a child is a gift from God, much more important than a gift to be placed on a shelf and forgotten all about. Raising a child is an enormous responsibility, and parents must take this responsibility seriously or face the consequences of not doing so. Therefore, I urge you to take the time to read this book. I hope as you begin to walk down the path of parenting another human being, the most important and incredible journey you will ever experience in life, you will not forget the lessons learned from A to Z!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490863900

Janet Skinner

Janet Skinner is an educator with over thirty years of experience as a public and private classroom teacher, director and regional director of La Petite Academy, and director of Kids Under Construction Preschool, a Christian preschool. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Purdue University and a master’s degree in early childhood education from Webster University. She lives with her husband in Potomac Falls, Virginia, and currently teaches Language Arts to middle school students at County Christian School, a private Christian school in Ashburn, Virginia.

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Copyright © 2014 Janet Skinner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6391-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6392-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6390-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922370

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/10/2015

Contents

Accept and Appreciate

Blessed

Courage and Consequences Build Character

Divorce Can Be Devastating

Exercise and Eat Right

Flowers Should Be Given Away

Grandparents Give the Greatest Gifts

Humor, Hope, Hugs

Instincts and Inward Guidance

Join a Church

Kindergarten—A Child’s Garden

Love One Another

The Mundane Ain’t So Mundane Anymore

Network

Organized and On Time

Pictures Are Not Always Worth a Thousand Words

I Quit!

Read to Your Children

Snow

Technology and Talking

United We Stand

Volunteer

Whisper a Prayer

Go the X-tra Mile

Yelling, Yelling, Yelling!

At Least I Didn’t Get Zero

Sources

To my dear husband, who would ask me every summer, Are you going to publish your book?

To my dear children, Drew and Jenna, now amazing adults who are impacting the world by using their gifts

To all the children and families with whom I’ve been so blessed to work in the last thirty-three years

To God, for blessing me with the gift of teaching that I will use until He calls me home

The motivation for this book came from the experiences I have had over the last thirty-three years working as an educator and, of course, from raising my own two children. Through the years, there were some stories and situations that would come back to me from time to time. Each time I would think of a particular situation, I would realize that there was something to be gained from that experience, something to learn about life and about raising children the way God intended. I would play out the scene in my mind and then wonder why it kept coming back to me. Why hadn’t I just forgotten all about it? Finally, I felt led to share these stories, for I believe that others also will benefit and, I hope, learn from them as I have.

The stories and information are presented in the form of an alphabet book for adults. Each letter covers a different topic, about which a great deal of knowledge will be needed in order to make the best possible decisions for your child. An alphabet book may be one of the first books you will buy for your child. Some children will learn the letters quite easily, while others will struggle to recognize these symbols. Parenting is, at times, like learning the alphabet. Some decisions will have an obvious solution, but you may struggle with others and question the choices you made. It is my sincere hope and desire that by the time you reach the end of the alphabet in this book, you will have at least some answers to your questions. At the very least, you will have learned from the wisdom and experiences of others and will have some insight into the most important job you will ever take on.

If you are a first-time parent of a newborn infant, you are just finding out that parenting is not just a job; it’s a full-time, ’round-the-clock profession, for which the paydays are few and far between. In the B chapter, you will read about one of my paydays, and make no mistake—that was a big check!

I find it hard to believe that we actually get more training for the job of birthing the baby than we do for the profession of raising the child. Almost all parents attend a course that lasts about eight weeks in order to learn about childbirth, which takes an average of eight to fifteen hours from start to completion. And a team of experts is there with you throughout the entire process. Then comes the day when you take the little bundle home. You are given a gift pack from the hospital and sent on your merry way, to spend the next eighteen years guessing what to do next.

I believe this job is too important to leave up to chance. A child is a gift from God, much more important than a gift to be placed on a shelf and forgotten about. Raising a child is an enormous responsibility, and parents must take this responsibility seriously or face the consequences of not doing so. Therefore, I urge you to take the time to read this book, and I hope as you begin to walk down the path of parenting another human being—the most important and incredible journey you will ever experience in life—you will not forget the lessons learned from A to Z!

A

Accept and Appreciate

My husband and I taught Sunday school at our church for over eighteen years. We started teaching the year our son was going into third grade because no one had volunteered to teach, and we knew it was an important year in his spiritual life, since that was the year the children received their Bibles and learned to use them. We thought we could make the commitment just for one year and then, we hoped, someone else would volunteer, and we would go back to our normal routine of sending the kids to Sunday school while we attended worship service.

Little did we know how this experience would affect our lives! My husband and I still say that we learned just as much, if not more, from the kids than we ever hoped to teach them.

We have enjoyed each class and every student over the years, but there is one particular boy we will never forget. Actually, his brother is pretty special too, and the relationship between these two boys taught the entire class the true meaning of acceptance and appreciation.

I still remember the day I met the boys—I’ll call them John and Timothy. When their father brought them to class, he asked to speak to me for a moment. He explained that John needed a lot of extra help because he had problems with learning and was in special education classes at his school. They had found that Timothy could help John, and it seemed to work out best in Sunday school to keep the two boys together, even though John was a few years older. I assured this father that we would do everything we could to make John feel a part of our class.

After working with John that first day on the leaflet and Bible work, I found that he knew the letters of the alphabet but could not write words without assistance. His brother quickly finished his own work and volunteered to help John with his writing. Patiently, Timothy would tell his brother the letter to write in order to form the correct words for the worksheets.

As the weeks went by, other students would finish their work and then voluntarily would help John. With the kids’ assistance, I had figured out the challenge of John’s written work, but I was still struggling with how to help with his oral reading. Most children at this level love to read orally, and whenever I would ask for a volunteer to read, many hands would eagerly wave in the air, including John’s. I ignored him for a few weeks, calling on other students, because I knew that he could not read. This really bothered me because I could see that John really wanted to participate in this part of the class as well.

One day, I heard my voice saying John’s name, and I called on him. I didn’t have a plan; I guess I just knew that he deserved a turn. A split second after calling his name, the answer came to me. I whispered, Thank you, Lord, and proceeded to tell John the plan. I said I would read a line, and he was to repeat it after me.

When we finished reading, John turned to his brother and asked, Did I do good, Tim? Timothy smiled at his brother and gave him a thumbs-up.

For the rest of the year, I never hesitated to call on John when he raised his hand to read, and as a class, we continued to grow and learn God’s Word together.

During our class discussions, John did not always understand the topics, but, again, he was always willing to participate. Many times when I asked who did something in the Bible, John’s favorite answer was, Joseph. Of course, at Christmas, I made sure to call on him after asking who Jesus’ earthly father was.

Our lesson on one particular Sunday was on handicapped people, and we were going to discuss how we could help and love them. The Sunday school leaflet had a picture of person in a wheelchair, and we looked at the picture together. Then I opened the discussion by asking the children if any of them knew someone who was handicapped. I really didn’t know how much of the lesson John was following until I realized his hand was up, and he had a serious look on his face, not his usual ear-to-ear grin. I said, Yes, John? And he said, I am.

I felt every eye in the room on me and again prayed a split-second prayer on how to handle this one. I said, Yes, John, it is true that some things are hard for you, but there are also many things that you do very well. I then asked the class, Who can name something John can do well? Up went his dear brother’s hand, and Timothy said, He’s great at riding his bike. Then up went another student’s hand. He makes neat pictures with crayons. And up went another hand and another. The grin came back on John’s face; he was now beaming!

We went on to share as a class that we all have some things that are difficult for us, and that those may be things we may just have to accept. But we also found that we each have at least one gift, one thing about ourselves that we, as well as others, can really appreciate.

What Is the Lesson?

As a Sunday school and classroom teacher, I’ve had to learn to accept and appreciate each child who walked into my classroom and took a seat as my student for that year. For me, that came naturally; it’s what I had been planning to do since I was a little girl and knew that I wanted to be a teacher one day. I went through years of training at two wonderful universities to hone my craft, and I was pretty good at it. What threw me was when I had a child who learned differently, for I needed to accept and appreciate at a much deeper level. While pregnant with this child, I had many hopes and dreams for her life, but having a learning disability was not one of them.

From the time our daughter, Jenna, was an infant, she had challenges. As a parent and advocate for my child, I knew I must accept and appreciate this person who God created. But, I’ll be honest; it took me a little time to get to this point, and I struggled off and on for a few years as I searched for answers for my child’s differences.

Although communicating with us during her preschool years was very difficult for Jenna, I had trouble accepting that these struggles to