How to Overcome Disappointment

Today is our 41^st wedding anniversary. To celebrate it, I will publish a blog on disappointment! Overcoming disappointment is one of the reasons we have a happy marriage…

We all experience disappointment in life.  “Not getting what we hoped
for” happens on a regular basis; sometimes it is a huge, life-
changing disappointment, such as the tragic death of a loved one.
Sometimes it is a lower level disappointment, such as the cancellation
of a picnic due to rain, or anything in between. 

 Regardless, we may struggle to adjust to our loss. There are a variety of ways we can respond to disappointment, some are useful, some are not so useful,
for our long range emotional & relational health.

It’s no wonder I taught my granddaughter the word “Disappointment” when she
was barely two. It’s an important one to identify!

I remember how I used to deal with disappointment. I had a pity party!
“Poor me! It always happens to me…” For years I lived like that. Then
one day, I decided that I didn’t want to go through life as a
disappointed person. Thus began my journey OUT of the mire.

The most common response is to blame.  Blame one’s spouse, blame God,
blame the authorities, blame the government, blame ourselves, or any
combination of these. It is certainly human to attribute blame when we
are hurt, and the anger we feel is normal.

 I remember when I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go to the mission field. The most logical thing was to blame my husband, since 1) we didn’t have enough
money and 2) he didn’t want to go as passionately as I did. That hung
between us for quite a few years! (Thankfully, we are on the same page
now).

We need to recognize and learn to manage two emotions wisely: anger and grief.

Anger is the response of our body to a stimulus that it perceives as
threatening.  As a secondary emotion, the various degrees of anger
mask fear, pain, and shame. This is not a well known fact; many are
unaware that when they experience anger, they are actually struggling
to deal with underlying fear and hurt.

 Some are afraid of anger, having grown up in a family atmosphere
where anger was handled poorly and caused much pain. When anger is not
managed, it leads to harm. Bottled-up anger leads to depression or
self loathing. Anger that is expressed in an aggressive manner usually
harms others either verbally or physically.

Contrary to popular belief, anger does not subside by merely
expressing angry feelings.  The self-talk that fuels it needs to be
changed. “He should change! I can’t stand it! It’s all her fault! I never get what I want!” are some examples of self talk that we need to change to successfully cause our angry feelings to subside.

Grief is an emotion that may be due to a tangible or an intangible
loss. Obvious losses such as death, divorce, a job loss, or a
financial setback are easy to identify. More hidden are the intangible
losses: loss of a dream, the inevitable changes that come with time
such as aging, children leaving home, our bodies deteriorating, etc.

Grieving is a sign of love: our tears, sadness, sorrow, and other
emotions we experience demonstrate the depth of our love.  To cope
with the grief we need to talk about our feelings with a safe,
non-judgmental person.

 We MUST feel to heal! Crying, vigorous exercise, painting, writing,
are all constructive ways to express feelings. Only by letting out the
hurt will you make room for healing.

 Many Americans do not know what to do with the emotion of grief. In
our “quick fix”, “get over it and get on with it” society, we often do
not allow the time necessary to honor our emotional pain. The
unfortunate result of this hurry-up attitude is that many people live
with unresolved grief.  Undealt-with grief frequently turns to
bitterness.

The topic of bitterness will be my blog in two weeks. Meanwhile, let’s
honor our emotions of disappointment and grief. 

 “For everything there is a season,” says the Scripture. Can we put up with the
disappointment by seeing it as a season? Temporary? Even if the
circumstances are not temporary, our perspective is. It can change.

So, honor your grief, anger, and pain, but hold on to hope. This too
shall pass…

Vets with a Mission

Healing. Soul healing. Veterans of war need it, everyone agrees. So how does one go about being healed? I recently watched a movie called “By War and By God,” which showed a very effective way for restoration to take place.


“Vets with a Mission” takes veterans of the Vietnam era and gives them the opportunity to go back to the places in Vietnam where they fought, and bring medical help to the people there. The wounded healer (there’s a book by Henri Nouwen by that name), and it captures our imaginations just thinking about it. These men were hurt deeply at age 19, now as mature adults they are realizing that one way to heal is to bring help to the same people they were at war with in the 1960’s.


“The war is over,” is their message. One guy said that he’s never in his life had a former enemy say “I love you” and embrace him. An American vet had not slept the night through for 30 years, due to PTSD. When he went to Saigon, he slept like a baby!


 Many children receive help from this organization. A village that some of them went to did not have any medical facility in it, and the people had to go several miles to find any kind of care. So Vets with a Mission decided to build one for them. In it, they put a photo of their friend who lost his life there, so many years ago. And his testimony is written in English and Vietnamese next to his photo.


“The war is over.” When I do EMDR with people to help them heal from trauma, one thing I say to them is “that was then, and this is now.” Part of healing is recognizing that fact.


A Vietnamese man who had lost his leg was spending time with these veterans. “How did you lose your leg?” asked one of the Americans. “In the war, it was shot off by a machine gun,” came the answer. “I was a machine gunner,” said the vet. The translator did not want to translate it; perhaps he feared a reaction by the victim. After a while, the American persuaded him to translate it. The response? The Vietnamese man got up from his chair, went over, and hugged the American.


“The war is over.”


How many of us are suffering from old traumas from the past? Fighting wars with the voices in our heads? Healing can come as we move out and do something constructive to help those less fortunate than ourselves. There are lots of them. Our pastor always says “We’re blessed to be a blessing.” Throwing yourself into a project that contributes to the good of mankind is a sure way to recover from depression and anxiety. It is even prescribed sometimes!


Volunteer, if you’ve been raped, at a center for women, or become part of the anti-human trafficking movement. If you’ve been treated unjustly at a job, start a movement to help others who are worse off than you. Or simply, rake you 80 year old neighbor’s yard, offer to babysit for the single mother you know, or go to Feed My Starving Children. Open up your home to single people who need a place to stay. Go to a shelter and play with children or animals. The possibilities are endless.


I was very impressed with the “Vets with a Mission” organization, and the movie that publicized it. The movie was made by Kent Williamson, a friend of my husband’s, who was tragically killed in a car accident a few weeks ago.  Devastating. Heart-wrenching.


Like war.


"Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength." ~ Frederick Buechner  
  

We can learn something from these vets. They reached out, and in doing so found more than they probably ever believed they could. Can we do the same?

www.vetswithamission.org

Skills to Teach Adolescents (and Learn Ourselves!)

Recently I read an article by Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia. She outlined some skills that I think are vital for teaching adolescents. (Indeed, we can all learn from them!)

1.      Centering. Find a quiet place where they can sit alone for 10-15 minutes. Relax and breathe deeply. Focus on their own thoughts and feelings without judging or directing them. Observe them, respect them.

2.      Separate feeling from thinking.  This is challenging for a teenager, because their feelings are so intense and the pre-frontal cortex has not developed fully yet. They need to ask themselves “How do I feel about this?” and “What do I think about this?” They’ll come to recognize that they are two different processes,  that both should be respected when making a decision.

3.      Make a conscious, responsible choice. Make decisions slowly and carefully. Influence might come from others, but the final decisions are their own.

4.      Make and enforce boundaries. This is vital, for safety (who can touch me and who can’t). They need to learn to say “NO” firmly, and not be pleasers.

5.      Defining relationships. What relationships are in your own best interest? Many girls are “empathy sick.”That is they know more about others’ feelings than their own. They are socialized to let others do the defining: they worry about not being perceived as nice or appearing selfish. Once they have experienced becoming the object of their own lives again, they will be eager to continue to develop this skill. 

6.      Managing pain. All of the bad things in the world come from people trying to escape pain. Drinking, drugs, self-harm, hitting one’s partner, gambling, even suicide is an attempt to avoid unprocessed pain. One needs to sit with their pain, listen to it for messages about their lives, to acknowledge it, describe it rather than run from it. Positive self-calming methods such as deep breathing, exercise, hobbies, reading, mindfulness are very important.

7.      Modulate their emotional reactions. Both girls and boys have these, thought the boys’ more often take the form of anger. Rate their stress on a 1 to 10 scale. This helps them reframe extremes like “This day is the worst day of my life.”

8.      Look within for validation. Being “other directed” or looking to the world for praise and rewards makes teens vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Especially in this age of social media. Teach them to record victories, that is actions in keeping with their long term goals. Teach them to encourage themselves, not depend on other’s opinions of them, for their value doesn’t depend on what others think.

9.      Time travel. Teach them on bad days to go back and think of happier times. Sometimes travelling to the future helps, have them think about their hopes and dreams. Tell themselves that “this too shall pass.” Have a gallery in their mind of beautiful scenes that they can go to, to escape the present hard time.

10.  The joys of altruism. All teens are self-centered. It is not a character flaw, it’s a developmental stage, but it makes them unhappy and limits their understanding of the world. On a regular basis, volunteer to help people less fortunate than they are. Good deeds for neighbors, a homeless shelter, animals that need love, a political cause, children with disabilities…the possibilities are endless. This helps them feel good about their contributions and become less self-absorbed. 

Today’s adolescents need a North Star to orient themselves towards. Certainly the Bible and God’s love are a firm foundation and will provide them with something solid outside themselves to hold on to and focus on. Let’s, with patience and empathy, guide them in the right direction!



*Much of this article was taken from Reviving Ophelia: 25^th Anniversary Edition by Mary Pipher and Sara Gilliam.  

How to show empathy

Empathy fuels connection. In this day and age where self centeredness runs rampant, use these! People often in a hurry to “comfort” someone need to use these also. 

Here are some suggestions on how to show empathy:

1.     Take their perspective. “I can see how you would think that, given the circumstances.”

2.     Stay out of judgment.  (This is VERY DIFFICULT, as we do it so frequently!) Say to yourself: “There’s some reason why the person did/said that.”

3.     Recognize their emotion. “I can see you’re mad/sad/scared. Tell me more.”  Don’t say, “Keep a stiff upper lip” or “It’s for the best!”

4.     Connect with the emotion. Communicate that you “feel with” the person.  “I am heart-broken about what you said. I feel like sobbing.”  Don’t say, “God will never give you more than you can handle.”

5.     Don’t give advice! Don’t tell your own story.  Instead say “How can I help?”

6.     Better to say “Oh, that’s so awful I don’t know what to say,” than to say “At least you’re still alive” or some such thing. Empathetic statements rarely or never start with “at least.” Trying to make things better, or “silver line” the dark cloud does not help. Rather, it minimizes their feelings.

7.      Ask them, “How are you really feeling?” Don’t say, “I know how you feel.” You DON”T know how they feel, even f you’ve gone through the exact same thing. That puts the attention onto yourself rather than empathizing with them, and is somewhat presumptuous. 

8.     The phrase “It happened for a reason,” or “It’s God’s will” never is helpful! (One author called it psychological violence!)  Instead say “How can I pray for you?”

9.     Say “Give yourself time to heal,” rather than “You’ll get over this in no time.”

10.   Assure them that you’ll be here for them, do not say, “You’ll be fine.”

You can bring healing to someone just by listening. Perhaps they could teach the art of listening in schools. And colleges. And seminaries.

But all of us can learn these skills, so let’s do it!

Grrr #$%&* Anger!

It’s like blowing your nose or going to the bathroom, it’s so common. But, what if a person did not know where or how to do these things? They’d make a mess at best, spread germs at worst. So it is with anger: we can handle it properly or we can let it destroy those we love.

It’s such a human emotion everyone has, and it has the power to destroy or motivate for good.

First of all, let’s talk about the causes of anger. It generally happens when we have a blocked goal. We react in anger because we did not get our way. Or we think we had a right to something and it’s been denied us. Whether we’re justified in being angry or not, we suddenly have feelings to deal with! They flood over us, and vie for control. What are we to do?

I’ll talk in a minute about ways to handle angry feelings. But first I want us to look at what’s behind anger. It could be pride, thinking we’re right, we’re better than the person who has opposed us. It could be bitterness, harboring a lot of resentment from unresolved conflicts inside. It could be from self-talk, what we tell ourselves has the power to fuel anger. Or it might be all 3 of these things. 

What does the Bible say? First of all, “Be angry but do not sin.” (Eph.4:26) We are told that this emotion is legitimate, everyone, including Jesus, gets angry. But to not sin? That’s the tricky part! When we hurt someone with our words, hurt their body, hurt ourselves, or hurt property we sin. Reacting in anger often leads to this (95% of the time?!), but we can avoid it by learning some anger management techniques.

A whole list of techniques is available! Here are a few:       

1.     Check your body to see how mad you are. Stop and relax, take deep breaths.

2.     Exercise

3.     Get away from the problem, go to a safe place.

4.     Think of the choices you have. Think of the consequences for each choice.

5.     Speak your feelings, say “I feel ______”

6.     Visualize a proud moment

7.     Take a warm bath.

8.     Hit something safe, like a pillow or kick a cushion.

9.     Robot/ragdoll: tighten your muscles like a robot, then let them go limp like a ragdoll.

10.  Visualize a STOP sign. The think of a time I handled anger well, to remind myself I can do it.

11.  Listen to soothing music

12.  Cry, let it out, sob.

The Bible says to be SLOW to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. (Ja. 1:20.) People tend to respect those who have self-control, and are slow to anger. Think about it, don’t you? Think of a person you know who shows self-discipline and does not get mad very much. You can do this too. We are told that we’ve not been given a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and self-control. (II Tim 1:7)

What does fear have to do with it? Well, anger is a secondary emotion. Underneath are the primary emotions of fear and hurt. I show my clients a drawing of an iceberg, with anger at the top, and underneath are fear and hurt. So, when you get mad, there is likely some of both fear and hurt. You can ask yourself “What am I afraid of? How did I get hurt?” You may not be able to answer these questions, but just asking them can make you more self aware, and give you some control over your angry feelings.

Often our own self talk contributes to our anger. Take a look at these 4 things:

1.     Minimizing

2.     Awfulizing

3.     Demanding

4.     Shaming and Blaming

Minimizing is telling ourselves that “I can’t” or “I can’t stand.” We are telling ourselves that we are too weak to handle whatever happens! We convince ourselves that it will overwhelm us, and like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it does. Better self talk is “it would be hard, but I probably can.” That affirms our capability, and causes our angry feelings to go down substantially.

Awfulizing means telling ourselves “it’s a disaster.” Or, “the worst will probably happen.” Again, we’re saying that we can’t handle this horrible thing that is about to happen, and that feeds our fear. As we learned above, fear is one of the primary emotions that drive anger, so feeding it is not helpful. If our quest is to be less angry, we could say to ourselves, “It’s annoying or disappointing” and see if our angry feelings don’t subside.

Demanding is a big one. We think that other people SHOULD do something, and if they don’t we get mad. For some reason we tell ourselves that “they have to” do the thing or we have a right to be angry. Such thinking fuels our angry feelings. Can we control others? Better to say “I wish they would…” because this is realistic. It is much more healthy, and better for the blood pressure too.

Shaming and blaming come way too easily to us. “It’s their fault, and they are bad,” we rehearse to ourselves. Somehow we feel that shaming and/or blaming the other people lets us off the hook. Maybe it really is their fault. But does it help to be telling yourself that over and over again? No, it makes us feel angrier! Better to say quietly “take responsibility, who is perfect?” and let the angry feelings wash away.

Try these! They really work.

Encouragement in Jamaica

            “Some people come down here to build buildings, and you’re building lives,” said Randy, the leader of the Institute for Vocational Training and Development.  Thanks to your prayers, we were able to invest in the lives of precious people in Jamaica.

I taught 16 classes (they worked me hard for 4 days!), on such topics as Anger Control, Relationships, Self-Esteem, Tolerance, and Self-Control. Imagine how encouraging it was, when I asked the students what they were going to take away from the teaching, many of them said, “I learned that I need to forgive!” Such a truth can be life-changing, and it was very gratifying to hear. 

Discouragement is a frequent visitor to Kingdom workers, and Jamaica is no exception. The old Christmas Carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” says in verse 3:

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

We felt that way at times!  But then we looked up the lyrics, and were rejoicing to see verse 4:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

The weekend we left, two staff from the school, the principal and the guidance counselor, were in bad car accidents. It sobered us to think of the spiritual warfare going on, and we are determined to pray diligently for them. (They have been discharged from the hospital, but are in pain, and their cars are totaled.) “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper…” Is. 54

Gail and Jill did a lot of counseling, which is so needed and they are very gifted at it. They also gave a presentation on Self-Care to the staff. Every year we’ve gone down there, the staff is more open and trusting of us. This time they were really engaged and open to what we had to say.

Last year there were 175 students at the Vocational School. This year, it doubled to 350, and it is still growing! Apparently the Jamaican government recently allocated more money to help the youth gain career skills. An answer to prayer for the country.

Jamaica is beautiful, diverse, and full of very talented people. We covet your prayers for the land, that God will pour out His Spirit on it and that many can see who they are in Christ.

Please pray for the school:  1) Wisdom to deal with such rapid growth; 2) Safety for Randy and the staff, they are under attack; 3) More young people to catch the vision to go down to Jamaica and invest in the precious people there.

Again, THANK YOU for your prayers! When we gather before the Throne, with people from “every tribe and tongue, and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9), many will thank YOU for investing your prayers in them. “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail…”

Encouragement is needed everywhere, whether in our homes for our spouses and children, our neighbors, friends, as well as to the uttermost parts of the earth. Let's be encouragers! Literally it is from the French word coure which means heart. Let's strengthen the hearts of people we know and love...

True or False Self Esteem? What's the Difference?

“We want teaching on self-esteem,” said a group that I am planning on visiting. Immediately my mind went to the two kinds of self esteem: true self esteem and false self esteem. Can you articulate the difference? I’ll attempt to do so here.

False self esteem is too often taught to our children. “You can do anything you put your mind to.” “You can be anything you want to be.” It involves a self-focus, and a sense of invincibility that is seriously overstated. There is a 100% chance that the person will be disappointed later in life, when they find out that they can’t “be anything they want to be.” Especially without effort.

Self-focus leads to narcissism, which is not healthy for anyone. Telling a person that “You are awesome, you are amazing” without saying something specific that they’re being praised for contributes to this self-focus. Or else the person just doesn’t believe it. Unfortunately many of our children are growing up with a higher view of themselves than they deserve. An example is grades: American kids rate themselves more highly than their age-mates in other countries, yet they have some of the lowest scores. Why is this? They’ve been fawned over, told they’re wonderful all their lives, and therefore it doesn’t matter how they perform.

Allow me to quote from Twenge in The Narcissism Epidemic :

Did you know that there are four legs that false self-esteem rests on?

 1) The permissive parenting and self-esteem focused education. Fewer boundaries are set by families, and teachers tell kids that they are “stars” and “winners” even as performance stays stagnant.

 2) The media culture of shallow celebrity. Celebrity culture tempts people with the idea of fame- fame awarded for the amount of attention drawn to themselves rather than actual accomplishment.

3) The Internet: it’s a conduit for individual narcissism. It allows people to present an inflated and self-focused view if themselves to the world, and encourages them to spend hours each day contemplating their images.

 4) Easy credit, which make self-focused dreams become reality. It serves as a personal Fairy Godmother who makes wishes come true.

I think we further this problem by praising our kids excessively.  Here are some problems with praising our kids:

1.     Praising what takes no effort. Rewards and praise are most effective when they focus on an achievement that took time and energy.

2.     Praising for what is required.  Luke 17:10 “We are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.”

3.     Praising what is not specific.  “You are amazing!” Praise should go in one of 4 buckets: hard work, being kind, being honest, being vulnerable. Non-specific, excessive statements have no bucket, so they are either not believed, or go towards making the child a narcissist.

4.     Praising and telling your child that he/she is better than others. “You deserve special treatment” instead of “You worked hard with your team and your individual plays were excellent. Now go and help your coach pick up the equipment.”

5.     Praising not based on reality. “You can do anything you want to do,” is unrealistic, it leads to disappointment and resentment.

6.     A lack of warmth in a family upbringing. Creates a defensive grandiose identity, who comes across as arrogant and superior.

7.     Praise the achievement rather than the character.  This emphasizes the talents a person is given rather than their choice to do right.

True self esteem on the other hand, doesn’t think this way. It’s said that four things yield true self esteem: work, producing something (art, creative endeavors, etc), responsibility, and when one exhibits self-control. Hmmmm, is that what we’re teaching our kids today? Let’s look at each of them.

Work, not a pleasant task, is largely denigrated by children. “How little do I have to do?” is most often the question. Gone are the days when children had to work to help support the family; we’ve swung the pendulum in the opposite direction now. “But my child can’t do chores, it would put too much pressure on them.”  “They complain too much, it’s easier to do it myself.” “But mom, it’s so BORING!” Work humbles the soul (Ps. 107:12), and all of us need humbling.

Many of us try to produce creative things and fail. Maybe we’re too perfectionistic to recognize that they are indeed good, but not the best, so we give up. Others of us create lovely things (a story, a painting, acting in a play, musical endeavor), and are proud of ourselves for it, but do not go on getting instruction on how to improve so we can move forward in the field. That may have to do with our hesitancy to work hard, to practice, to learn. A passive attitude will not get us anywhere. Nor will a complacent view of yourself. (“I’m great already.”)

My mother used to say, “Responsibility makes a child grow up.” I’m sure that’s true, and that’s one reason we have so many young people in extended adolescence today. Giving people responsibility involves yielding it up, as well as a younger person taking it. Both are not happening today.

Which brings me to the last one, which is the hardest of all: Self-discipline. “He who neglects discipline despises himself,” it says in the Bible (Prov. 15:32), and this is the most difficult truth to assimilate. Self control must be taught to children if you want them to have high self esteem. We need to cultivate it ourselves. Yes, in this world of more, more, more, and no boundaries, only self-mastery will bring about a happy ending.

Take for example the college graduation rate. Right now, 32 % of girls graduate with a four year degree from college. For boys, it’s an abyssimal 22%.  (Dr. Michael Kirst*) Why is that? Could part of it be a lack of self discipline? 

Victoria Prooday has some suggestions as to how we can build true self esteem in our kids.

• Spend one hour a day in green space: biking, hiking, fishing, watching birds/insects.
• Have a daily technology-free family dinner.
• Play one board game a day. (List of family games) Allow for unstructured play.
• Involve your child in one or more chores a day (folding laundry, tidying up toys, hanging clothes, unpacking groceries, setting the table etc).
• Implement consistent sleep routine to ensure that your child gets lots of sleep in a technology-free bedroom.

• Teach responsibility and independence. Don’t over-protect them from small failures. It trains them the skills needed to overcome greater life’s challenges.
• Provide nutritious food and limits snacks. Avoid toxic foods.
• Teach them these skills rather than do it for them: Don’t pack your child’s backpack, don’t carry her backpack, don’t bring to school his forgotten lunch box/agenda, and don’t peel a banana for a 5-year-old child.  
• Teach delayed gratification and provide opportunities for “boredom” as boredom is the time when creativity awakens:

• Don’t feel responsible for being your child’s entertainment crew.
• Do not use technology as a cure for boredom.
• Avoid using technology during meals, in cars, restaurants, malls. Use these moments as opportunities to train their brains to function under “boredom”.
• Help them create a “boredom first aid kit” with activity ideas for “I am bored” times.

Be emotionally available to connect with kids and teach them self-regulation and social skills:

• Turn off your phones until kids are in bed to avoid digital distraction.
• Become your child’s emotional coach. Teach them to recognize and deal with frustration and anger.
• Teach greeting, taking turns, sharing, empathy, table manners, conversation skills,
• Connect emotionally – Smile, hug, kiss, tickle, read, dance, jump, or crawl with your child.

To teach them to work, keep this in mind: Loving but firm is a key. Boundaries must be set and enforced to show the person the balance between grace and truth.

A.    Chores are a good way to beat entitlement. Here are the ABC’s of chores:

1.     Assign every member of the family some meaningful contributions. Ask yourself: “What am I doing that my kids could do?” Some families find it useful to post the list of contributions on the fridge with the person’s name next to it. Note- don’t say “Do it now,” or you will be inviting power struggles. Simply give them a deadline.

2.     Be quiet! Don’t nag.

3.     Consequences preceded by empathy will teach them. If they refuse, forget, or do a sloppy job, have them repay you for your energy and effort you put forth to do the thing for them. Ideas are: they could do extra chores for you; they could stay home or lose a privilege to save you energy; or they could pay a professional (or you) to do the chores. (Example: when a teenage girl had to pay a maid for doing her chores!)

We can build true self esteem in our kids, with effort and intentionality. Let’s do it!

* https://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu/tag/women-exceed-men-in-college-graduation/