“Our kids deserve the opportunity to follow their passions”
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Welcome to the Mothering Spirit newsletter! Each Saturday morning, you’ll receive a round-up of the week’s posts—perfect for your weekend reading.
This week on Mothering Spirit
Holly Forseth tells of a surprising place she’s learned to meet her sons as they grow: over their love of online gaming:
“If I were a different type of mother, writing for a different type of publication, this is where I would lay out the parenting gold. Something about how supporting your child’s unique loves will be the thing that allows them to live the lives God intended.
This feels true, because it mostly is, but there are no guarantees in parenting teens. The truth is that once our children enter the teenage years, they have already begun to navigate their lives without us. All we can do is live out the ordinary moments placed in our path, allowing room for those moments to grow into extraordinary love.”
From Never In A Million Years: Playing the Parenting Game.
Meta Herrick Carlson gives us words to bless a big milestone for today’s kids: their first phone.
“May it be a tool you own and use
so that it does not own and use you.May it offer connection to what is real
rather than escape from what matters.”
Read the rest: A Blessing For Their First Phone.
Reflecting on our kids’ tech habits got us thinking about our own (gulp). Here are 3 fresh ways to think about this perennial problem:
1. Pray about your own screen time.
2. Make a list of positive ways you can use your phone for prayer.
3. Turn to ancient wisdom and pray with Psalm 91.
Check out these 3 ways to pray about your own phone use as a parent.
And remember: you can only do one thing in each moment.
From the archives
“If only I could see Your way, I pray and muse throughout the day, flitting between a thousand distractions. If only You would give more clarity, more direction, more confirmation of where and what You want from me, a sign of where I should go, and then—
Mom! Mommy! Mama! Look, look, come and see.
Perhaps their cry is the clearest answer. The only thing I seek.
In a world of whittled attention spans, in a culture of continuous partial attention, in an era of distraction and addiction and depression and isolation—is the greatest gift I can offer them the simplest?”
“Look, Mama, Look: Do You See?” by Laura Kelly Fanucci
A final word for reflection
“Simply let go of distraction for one moment. In that moment, you have the power to make a significant connection with another human being. You have the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.”
(from Rachel Macy Stafford, Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters)
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