Violent Behavior Of A Six-Year-Old
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Psalm 36:7 “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.” (ESV)
Question: I am a divorcee and each time my husband comes over to visit, we get into a verbal battle. Lately, my six-year-old has begun to scream and tear the covers off the bed and scratches on the walls. She has defaced doors and furniture. I told my ex-husband and he said it’s my fault she’s doing these things. Do you think she does these things for attention?– D.N.Answer: When parents divorce, they not only suffer themselves, but their offspring suffer emotionally as well. Since the child, although young, is an intricate part of the union as well as the separation and needs to understand your decision, you and your ex-husband together should have explained to her that your separation had nothing to do with her, that your own mistakes caused your separation. She should have been allowed to ask questions. Even though you could not answer them all, telling her honestly that you don’t have all the answers would have helped to dispel the anxiety she had about her fault in this divorce. Parents commit a serious mistake when they do not respect their children’s place in their relationship. Children have emotions that must be nurtured and respected.
Now to the question: Yes, your six-year-old needs your attention. You do not talk to her, you yell at one another, and nothing has been resolved with her. You and your ex-husband should forget your dislikes for one another and concentrate on healing some of the wounds your six-year-old has endured. Have you ever taken the time to comfort her and ask her, “Do you know why you are being destructive?” You have planted a seed of destruction in this child by your own actions, yours and her father’s. It can be uprooted by positive communication, quality time spent with her, and allowing her to share how she feels about your divorce. She needs security and quiet loving hugs and attention. Her actions firmly denote frustration and emotional trauma.
Children need security, quiet loving hugs and attention.
Beginning with the next BLOG post, I’m beginning a series called, “Heart to Heart.” It will be bringing the message of the heart of God. I hope you will join me in this series.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
The Strong Will Of A Two-Year-Old
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Psalm 78: 5-7 He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 6that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 7so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; (ESV)
Question: I have a 2 1/2 year old and she is so strong-willed and disobedient that I don’t know how to discipline her anymore. I am constantly saying no-no; she gets into everything. If I spank her she yells as though I’ve abused her and shortly thereafter gets into the same things I said no to…I am so frustrated, I feel like running away and leaving her although I know I won’t. Can you help me? – C.R.
Be consistent in teaching your child what pleases you...
Answer: First of all, you must recognize the developmental stage this child is in. A two-year-old is in the “me” stage, very self-oriented and curious. She is a child and she is reacting as one. She needs to investigate, feel, smell, and experiment. However, you must establish her parameters. She does not know when to stop and saying no to everything she does wrong will only exasperate the both of you. Settle once and for all that you are responsible for your daughter’s behavior. She needs training – instead of saying no to everything she does wrong, establish some alternatives, restrict her play area and what you want her to do. When she heads for the off-limits area, tell her where she can play and what she can do and lead her to the place. You are training her to be negative by constantly saying no.
This “no-no” problem with two-year-olds is one that plagues numerous parents. By teaching your child what she can do rather than constantly telling her what she can’t do, will teach her what pleases you. Positive reinforcement like, “you did well, I am proud of you, I like the way you played today,” etc. will teach the child to differentiate between right and wrong.
You have established a discipline pattern with your child and it will be difficult the first few days to change this pattern of behavior in her through alternative methods. Be consistent: You must physically lead her to the “yes” play area and insist that she plays with the items you have chosen. When she realizes that you will not change your mind, she will yield. The time and effort spent changing her pattern of behavior is worth it. You will know the child is not completely trained until positive results are obtained. If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
Influence Children Before Age Eight
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” (ESV)
Ofidean Phillips is the Founder and President of Women of Purpose, International. She has a doctorate in Educational Administration and Psychology. She has been the Executive Director of Family & Children’s Service for two counties. She was also the Director of One Church One Child of Oregon and provided counseling and psychological services to families and young children at Give Us This Day, Inc., a counseling, family, children and community service center founded by she and her husband, Reverend Joshua D. Phillips, who was a Family Therapist. The organization’s emphasis is on preserving families and children through adoption and extended family homes for displaced children. Dr. Phillips has also written a creative parenting book that she has used in her parenting classes. Later in this BLOG, you will find instructions of how you can get a copy of her book.
Dr. Phillips is a frequent speaker at seminars, retreats (she calls them renewals) and conferences. One of her organizational thrusts which began in 1980, is to locate respite homes for parents who are experiencing burn-out and family conflicts that require community resource and support systems. This specialized respite care is designed to foster family communication and deter child abuse and neglect.
Dr. Phillips has written training manuals and books assessing the family, for teachers, education and parenting classes. She wrote a weekly family Question and Answer column for the Portland Scanner Newspaper with circulation in Oregon and Washington called “Extended Family”.
Dr. Phillips feels that her most important contribution to family life is her team work in Family Therapy with her husband, Joshua, and the rearing of eight biological and two adopted children and nurturing of dozens of children in her family. This was the inspiration for the founding and coordination of four parent and child education centers while residing in Northern California and the model Extended Families Program for high-risk, homeless adolescents in Oregon.
Dr. Phillips has traveled in Africa, Haiti and much of the United States teaching on Extended Family principles for the stabilization of high-risk youth and establishing Single Women of Excellence support groups.
She has written columns in magazines with a question and answer format to encourage questions from families and individuals of all ages with the intention of strengthening an individual’s life-management skills on the job, in the home, at school, and in the community
I am constantly asked questions about childrearing, especially concerning young children. If you have any questions please send those to “Ask Ofidean”, to the link listed at the bottom of this BLOG.
Most frequently asked questions are answered in a section of our book Creative Parenting. The book sells for $8.95 and is available for purchase through our website or by sending a check / money order to: P.O. Box 596 Newberg, OR 97132. Please add $4.95 to defray the shipping costs, if located in the United States. If outside the U.S., please send your address and add $13.95 to the cost of the book, to cover the costs of shipping.
You are their primary influence until age 8.
Question: I have a “non-verbal” child. Any suggestions on how to begin working toward the half-hour talking sessions you recommended? He is eight years old. –C.P.
Answer: “Non-verbal” children need an atmosphere that is safe for them to open up to communicate. This depends upon the parents. If the parents are non-verbal, this becomes the child’s model. Since the primary influence of parents on the behavior of their children is from birth to eight, then whatever behavior you want them to exemplify should be learned in this crucial trainable period.
If parents “aren’t there yet,” encourage your children to speak by making a tape talking with the child. Sometimes it’s easier for non-verbal parents to talk to their children when they are not face-to-face with them. This can be fun, too.
Talk into the tape, pause and ask the child to talk back. Of course, this is only one way to involve a child in conversation and listening.
The best way is to keep talking and listening to the child. After a time of consistency, the child will begin to respond.
Some topics of conversation:
- Express feelings. By talking about how you feel (try and choose good, positive feelings to begin), your child will be encouraged to express his new feelings.
- Talk about summer, spring, winter, birds, anything that will expose your son to the outside world.
- Read to the child and ask questions.
- Of course, ask about school.
- Ask your son what likes and dislikes he has.
Children respond to the closeness of a parent; so hug or hold him while you are talking.
Question: What do you mean when you say “Kids should have an atmosphere for expressing themselves?”
Answer: Children need a non-threatening atmosphere where their ideas and expressions are accepted. That means they need your undivided attention, children need the same conditions that parents need to encourage conversation. Respect and courtesy, kindness and understanding are not just parents’ needs, children need these, too. They learn from what you demonstrate.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
My Daughter’s First Boyfriend
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (ESV)
Question: I like your blog, although, I don’t write to blog writers to get answers. I’ve enjoyed the two times I have read yours so I would like to ask help for my teenage daughter. My seventeen year old daughter says she’s in love. This is her first boyfriend so we thought we would wait and see what transpires. However, everything in her active life has stopped. She does not see her old friends anymore, her school work goes undone and she spends hours on the telephone which is unfair to our other children. We have tried to talk to her but to no avail. It usually ends in a battle of wills and my husband and I have become so frustrated we need some advice. How can we help her get her balance? – J.G.
shouldn't disrupt family harmony
It is obvious there has been positive communication between you and your daughter at some point in your child rearing. Since this is her first boyfriend at age seventeen, her concentration to this point has been in other areas because your values have been instilled in her. This is indicated by your initial response to the dating relationship. Since a foundation has been established between you, build upon it. Choose a non-threatening time to explain without anger how her actions (be explicit) are disrupting family harmony. Tell her what your expectations are, clearly and concisely. Point out how her actions make you feel and ask if she realizes what she’s doing to each member of the family and to herself. Build on her positives, her obedience in the past, her friendship, and her maturity toward certain issues. Allow her to discuss her feelings and accept them. After each of you have talked out your expectations, tell her what you will accept and why and why you will not accept other types of behavior. This will clear the air and establish the do’s as well as don’ts. Communication is the key in this situation. Express your love and respect for her and explain that her behavior is the issue, not your love. Do not compromise the values that you have already established regarding dating, respect, etc. She knows and depends upon your consistency. Her reactions are temporary. She needs to be reminded that the family needs her cooperation as much as she needs theirs. Set just limits and stand by them.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
Grandparents’ Rights
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Ephesians 6:2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), (ESV)
Question: Do grandparents have any rights if our children decide that we cannot see our grandchildren? We raised our children on hard work and what we thought was good sound teaching. We left the south when our daughter was seven years old and our son was nine because we wanted them to have the best education we could provide. We went without to send them to the best schools. While they were growing up, we kept them in church with us and they never complained about our flat language or the way we worshipped until they went off to college. My daughter has a masters degree and is married to a doctor in New England (she attended Princeton). My son is a lawyer and he married a white woman from an upper middle class family and now we are not good enough for our grandchildren. We worked hard and now that we retired we don’t even have fellowship with our children and our grandchildren. This is a hurting situation. We have visited our daughter, but our son won’t even allow us to visit or allow the children to visit with us because he thinks we are ignorant. – R.P.
Grandparents
This seems like an unusual story for this time in our history of enlightenment, but situations like this still occur in black families. We cannot reiterate enough the erosion of black family values through assimilation. Black people adapt to other cultures easily. Unfortunately, we do not always adapt to the best and leave off the negative. Too often we allow ourselves to completely assimilate and lose the stabilizing values and strengths that balance our lives in a positive manner. In other words we become like our teachers.
Deuteronomy 5:16 “‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. (ESV)
What great wisdom your grandchildren could experience through the stories you could tell them of your hopes, your work ethics, your discipline, your faith, your love; in essence your survival skills. What great stories you could tell them so that they would have a balanced view of their history. Your son has been lulled to sleep by the social norms of another race and culture. Some of those norms are positive; many are not. Education and social position are not bad choices, tempered with your faith, love and survival skills.
Unless your son changes his attitude, your grandchildren will not appreciate you as they should. Perhaps your daughter can help by having a family reunion and invite everyone. There, you can take time to have a family meeting and let your feelings be known, expressing your desire to know and love your grandchildren. Have you spoken directly to your son’s wife? It’s worth a try. You are already hurt so if the answer is no, then you won’t lose anymore than you have already lost. There is hope, you reared your children with strong family values, and remind them of the values you taught them and your love for them, keep planting the seed. Send pictures of their young years. Even though your son seems far away from you, something of you is still there. Hopefully, he will come around. Given his background, they usually do.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
Give Of Yourself For Christmas
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Luke 10:2 2He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Galatians 6:9 9And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Romans 8:32 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Be the gift of Christmas to someone else
Holidays usually bring with them good cheer and delightful feelings, but for too many they are times that bring grim reminders of homelessness and hopelessness. Some children have no family to spend the holidays with; there are adults who have no family as well, but this year there is a marked increase in the number of children who have no families. This often occurs when a parent or parents are too dysfunctional to care for their children. Children without families is a social abnormality that is being perpetuated by drug use, lack of jobs and homes, and a lack of physical and emotional support from family members. The beauty of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season is that they transcend socio-economic differences. Nearly everyone looks upon this season as a time for giving. This year, like no other, we need to recapture the meaning of Christmas. You might ask yourself, “If I were homeless with no family to relate to, in a foreign environment, no job or friends or just lonely, what would I want someone to do for me?”
You can take a walk around your community on any given day and see children and adults who do not have adequate clothing for the cold weather, they are hungry, and they don’t feel good about themselves. The face of poverty is a sad one, and you don’t have to walk far to see it.
So for this cause, Women of Purpose, Int’l. is reaching out. If we see someone in need we make every effort to meet that need. If a child needs a coat, we get them one. If we know of families who are not eating enough, we invite them to our homes and let them eat some of our food. If we know of individuals who don’t feel good about themselves for some reason or another, we try to inspire them to do something to make themselves feel good – like get a hair cut, or put on some clothes and go somewhere special.
Presently, there is a young man living in our home who was staying at the Mission and trying to finish school. He was put out of his father’s house because he could not get along with his stepmother. He is working part-time after school. Because he is 18 years old he is not eligible for welfare or foster care. Nevertheless, he was homeless and had many other needs that he was not able to meet on his own, like many youth today.
He has been with us for two months. He attends church with us on a regular basis, he eats meals with us, he has his own bedroom, he helps around the house with chores, he gets along well with the other children, and he enjoys being a part of our family.
Since he came to our home he has received much needed assistance from the church members, the neighbors and friends. Things like extra spending money, clothing, free tickets to sports events, and lots of counseling which he has reached out for from the men in the church.
I encourage you to open your home to a child or a family this Holiday season. We commend the intercessors of Women of Purpose, Int’l that have opened their homes.
Take a look at your own needs and plant seeds. Begin to give someone else something you need yourself. If you need kindness, give it, if you need love, give it; if you need affection, give it; all that you freely give will return to you 100%. To many, Christmas is a religious holiday, but true religion is love in action.
Whose gift are you?
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
Words Can Heal Or Kill
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Psalm 141:3 3Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips!
Question: What are some words of wisdom that can help raise the self-esteem of my children?
Our words are powerful so be careful of what we speak. Always speak life and give thanks for all things. For this is the perfect will of God concerning us. Have a happy Thanksgiving season! In everything give thanks
Recently, I have found myself advising parents to live their lives circumspectly so that children will learn by example, as well as by the words they (the parents) speak. One of the reasons I repetitively advise this is because one’s life is the outworking of one’s beliefs and therefore the way we live exemplifies our true selves. I want to remind parents that even before the child learns to respond to the values lived out by parents, that parents and others in authority (teachers, policemen, neighbors, etc.) can affect the life of a child by the words they use. If a child hears the same phrase repeated three times it does not necessarily become a part of his/her consciousness but it is computed into the subconscious. However, a phrase this is heard sixteen to thirty-two times becomes a part of a child’s recall. So it should not surprise parents that if a child uses words that he/she has not been consistently taught but have nonetheless been said in the child’s presence enough that they are habitual phrases. Words heard over and over help to form habits in a person’s life. They are instruments that can emotionally strengthen or weaken a person. Words are seeds and, when planted, will produce a good or bad crop. It’s important to our children that we speak into them what we want to be reaped.
A child does not need lots of material assets to excel. In fact, given the proper skills, any child can succeed in some way if the family expressions are success-oriented: “You are a wonderful child,” “I love you the way you look, the way you are,” “You will succeed regardless of the odds,” “We are here for you,” “You can make it” are expressions children thrive on. “You can’t make it in this world, they won’t let you” is a death sentence. The phrase “they won’t let you” is repeated so often, even in jest, that people do not realize how deadly it is. This one sentence has caused a generation of children to lose their birthright before they even know they had a destiny.
If you do not believe in your own success, there is a process called self-talk that you can use to build your own self-esteem. Begin by telling yourself that you are a valuable human being, there is only one of you, so you are unique. You were born for a purpose and whatever you can imagine in your heart can be accomplished, so begin to imagine success. If you think it won’t work because it isn’t true, then it won’t work. The lie that has been told over and over that “they won’t let you” is only true because people have believed it. The fact is, God created each person uniquely to achieve, and whatever a man or woman thinks on long enough, and believes, can become reality. It sounds simple but it works. It’s worth practicing for the sake of your children. Children deserve to believe in themselves and in a God who makes no mistakes. The words we speak create our atmosphere – and our destiny when nurtured with action. Act now to change non-productive language.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
High-Risk And At-Risk Children
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Proverbs 12:18 18There are those that speak rashly, like the piercing of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
I have been hearing jargon like at-risk and high-risk kids. What’s the difference and why are they labeled this way?
In this country most behavior is labeled; jargon is used to define behaviors, attitudes, products, etc. Words mean different things to different people, depending upon your field of expertise. In education, “at-risk” is widely used to define students as individuals who have certain conditions or circumstances which make them less likely to succeed in an educational environment. Actually, this belief can be a self-fulfilling prophecy since words shape and define the way we think. If a student is deemed at-risk the student will most likely be placed in a special class which creates false associations and expectations for the student. The burden of responsibility is upon the student then to prove that he/she is not at-risk, rather than on the school to challenge the student beyond a predisposed determinant, which oftentimes are low test scores or environmental circumstances. Many students are labeled at-risk because their first language is not the language of instruction.
At-Risk?
In the human services arena, at-risk usually characterizes a child who is a member of a household whose family income is below poverty level, or is determined to be at–risk by a social service agency after consultation with a school or other agency; or, if the child is associating with gang members, or whose parents are substance abusers or negligent of the child. When a child is inundated with such a characterization as at-risk, he/she will be treated differently and will begin demonstrating at-risk behavior, even if the label is untrue. The child’s family support system is too often not there to challenge the achievement level of a child or to bring about positive associations to negate the predetermined behavior.
High-risk children are those who by association or environment have committed a crime, belong to a gang, are suicidal, have been physically or emotionally abused, are wards of the court for any reason and must depend upon society to affect some change in their lives.
Although these explanations are brief, I hope it provides some information to help you formulate and idea of what children must face. These predispositions of what children can or cannot achieve promotes failure in their expectations of themselves because once they have been identified as at-risk or high-risk, they are usually provided band-aids and not challenges.
Martin Luther King Jr. in a 1967 speech said, “To be honest is to confront the truth. To be honest is to realize that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and moments of comfort, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy. However unpleasant and inconvenient the truth may be, I believe we must expose and face it if we are to achieve a better quality of American life”
Parents and entire communities must rise up and meet the challenge to administer to the need of our children; it takes time, education and commitment but the end product is worth the involvement.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
Why Did They Have Children?
Ask Ofidean
By O. Virginia Phillips
Dr. Virginia Phillips
Psalm 127:3 3Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.
James 1:17 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
This is not a write-in question, but one that was asked of me several times after the “home alone” couple relinquished their two children, ages 6 and 9 for adoption. The questions most frequently asked were: Why did they have the children in the first place? Didn’t they love them? Or, you see, they were the worst kind of parents.
Some of my responses to these questions and many more comments are in part the following. Not a single day passes without the ever present reminder on the television, in newspapers, and other media forms that youth, our hope of the future, are in serious danger of decline, challenged by a multifaceted, complex, disconsolate world. Thousands of children are without permanent homes. In 1990, there were 407,000 children in foster-care nationwide, with an additional 210,000 under the care of child welfare agencies in some capacity. The numbers are not declining, but growing. The number of young people arrested for violent crime, rape, robbery, aggravated assault of murder – jumped by 48 percent from 1985 to 1990. The teen violent death rate rose 13 percent according to the Fourth Annual Kids Court Data Book, issued by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Center for Study of Social Policy. Action to reverse these trends are expected to number in the millions of dollars. The federal government is reacting to the dilemma of impermanency for children by pouring more dollars into family preservation programs. While this is one solution for some, there is a bigger picture that will be overlooked because our society’s definition of what a family should be is obsolete, and has been for centuries, and it does not meet the needs of children. The ideal family is still in the eyes of middle class America, the nuclear unit, a mother, father and two children, preferably a boy and girl. This definition of the ideal family paints a picture of stability and security which thousands of children do not have, and does not meet the needs of children in this decade and the years to come.
Due to the deterioration of two parent households, we must return to having child-rearing practices which center around the needs of children today, rather than on whether or not adults have the right to parent. More than likely, the “home alone” couple felt that they should have children, not realizing that they would not be considered selfish if they didn’t. Perhaps the “home alone” couple recognized that love means providing their children with the best possible care and they were not the caretakers for these children. Allowing them the opportunity to be loved by parents who really wanted them did not mean that they were the worst parents, but parents who needed a support system. Does this mean that all parents who do not want their children should give them away? In most instances, due to the pressures of parenting and other stresses, there is a temporary need to not have children, an extended family system would be the solution. There are conflicting messages in today’s society, and one is, if you don’t have children, your life is not complete; the other is, if you happen to get pregnant, you can abort. Neither message takes into consideration the rights of children to be nurtured. Neither is ideal for the child and both are selfish. Both approaches are exclusive of the other and bring about ostracization of groups of people in our society.
We need well thought out presentations in the media on choices in the best interest of children. If parents do not want children, then they should not be forced by opinion into bearing unwanted children. There are several ways in which children can be included into an individual or couple’s life, i.e., individuals and couples are sorely needed as big brothers/big sisters, mentors, tutors, hospitals needs them to nurture children who are ill, they then become part of an extended family process of child-protection and caring. Adults can and should use restraint so that abortion does not become a way to alleviate unwanted children. If adults cannot use restraints, the message to our children is, do whatever you want even if it’s harmful to your emotional and physical health. When the problem of unwanted children on several levels gets out of hand, we spend billions of dollars on education against unsafe sex, foster care and adoption systems, etc. Children’s issues have become a billion dollar industry. What we can prevent with some logical restraints and family intervention, we pay for in dollars, loss of innocence, confused parents, institutionalization of children, and the list goes on. We have lost sight of our most precious commodity and our future, which is our children. Experts in all fields that impact on the lives of children often fail to realize the simple but profound rights of children to have a supportive caring life. The African proverb “The village raises the child” should be conceptualized and implemented today. It’s a system of child-rearing practices. I propose a return to the extended family value system where a child can and will bond to the person who genuinely loves, cares and supports him/her in a safe, secure environment.
There are many readers who have been reared by an extended family and it worked well for them. I am wrote a book on the extended family: “Once Lost, Now Found”. We need some solutions for successful child rearing, and the extended family is one of them.
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
God – The Birther of the Universe
He created all the universe.
Genesis 1:31 – 2:2
31God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day. 1Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
Dear Lord ~ The Season brings such a delight in You, the birther of all the universe.
You, Father who planted the seeds and worlds were created.
You who planted the seeds, the seas flowed freely and the earth took shape
You who planted the seeds and darkness became light
You who planted the seeds and divided the waters in heaven and on earth
You who planted the seeds and the earth exploded with herbs, fruit, grass, flowers and trees of every kind
You who planted the seeds and galaxies and seasons spread themselves like blankets over the earth
You who planted the seeds and the stars shone in an array of brilliance in the night and heavens gave its light to the worlds you birthed
You planted the seeds and an abundance of creatures of every kind moved upon the earth
You planted the seeds and birds of every hue and beauty multiplied to fill the earth and waters
You planted the seed that produced every living creature, cattle and creeping thing, according to its kind upon the land and sea.
You planted the beasts of the field and forests for them to dwell
And then, the greatest creature of all you created yourself in a living body and called them male and female to be just like you
Because you wanted a family that you birthed to inherit your Kingdom in heaven and on earth, you gave them your hearts where the life of your body lives
Your life is Jesus and Jesus is the Blood that flows through the vein of mankind and you gave them breath which is Holy
You birthed all this to bring forth a family united in love
Love is who you are
If you have any questions or comments on any topic regarding marriage, family and relationships, fill out the contact form with the link below and I’ll respond to you.
To contact Dr. Phillips, click here.
