One Word At A Time: Self-Control
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 9:26AM MAD21 By MAD21
For the last three weeks, my youngest has been humming the same tune. It's not a terrible tune, it's just the the first few bars from the Wallace and Gromit show's theme song.
But as much as we love Wallace and Gromit, I am going to lose it if I hear it's theme song just one more time. A week ago, I told my daughter that she needed to find another song to hum. It worked for about an hour. I had to remind her a few times over the last week, but it got better with each day. I don't think I heard her hum it once over the weekend. Then... this morning. Back to Wallace and Gromit. <sigh>
Everyone has problems from time-to-time with self-control. It can be as minor as humming the same tune for weeks, to as serious as a gambling problem or over-eating. I find self-control to be difficult to teach to my children at times because it's one of those things that we as parents haven't even mastered. How do you teach something that you haven't fully learned yourself? Well, as with many things, you just learn along with them.
As we've been working through each of the fruits of the spirit on the One Word at a Time blog carnival, I'm beginning to see how the gifts work with each other. You really need to have all of them to make any one of them work well. It can seem a little overwhelming. But I think if you step back and think about where to start, the rest will fall into place. Personally, I think it starts with Patience. I have found one of the best ways to teach our kids self-control, is to start by teaching them how to be patient with things. How do we do this?
Curb the desires for instant gratification.
This works well for us as parents, too, as we work on our own struggles. We need to be sure our kids see us having to work hard for things. Take advantage in your day-to-day situations to talk to them about the joy in the waiting, in the anticipation of something great happening.
Last week, I wrote about my oldest working hard to get her locket back after damaging it. It was a great opportunity to teach her not only the value of our belongings, taking responsibility for her actions, but also having to wait to get what she wanted. I could have gotten the locket fixed and given it to her right away, and then had her earn the money and pay me back, but I thought it was important for her to do the work first. Then receive the reward.
After patience, I think keeping a good perspective is also key in having self-control. If we try and remember that we are not the center of the universe, or even in our own little world, we will realize that us getting what we want when we want it, is not the most important thing. We live in a country where it's easier than in most places to acquire everything we could possibly want. This creates the need more than ever to have self-control. Because if we are not careful, soon, having the next best thing; eating whatever we want; doing whatever we want to do; will take over our lives. And worse yet, it will take our focus off of God's desires and make us focus on only our own. Just because it is available to us does not mean we should have it all. Just like having freedom of speech doesn't mean we should say everything that comes to our minds.
What a lesson this is for all of us, isn't it? If we focus on what God desires, we tend to be less selfish. If we work what needs to be done first, before receiving the reward, it helps to take the focus off of us. If we let others go first; let them choose first; take responsibility for our actions first; earn the money first; if we are patient with people and events that occur around us, self-control will usually happen on it's own.
This post is a participant in a blog carnival over at Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time.
Be sure to go and check out what everyone else wrote on: Self-Control.
Reader Comments (4)
Very good post, Ginny. As I was writing and thinking about parenting, I was putting the patience and self-control together too. It's so valuable and so needed. Thanks!
"If we focus on what God desires, we tend to be less selfish." The more we focus on God, the more we focus on others, and the less we focus on ourselves. Thought-provoking post, Ginny -- and a good one.
"If we try and remember that we are not the center of the universe, or even in our own little world, we will realize that us getting what we want when we want it, is not the most important thing."
I love this... it is so true. Thanks for a great post!
Wow! I think you are so right about the fruits all tying in together. I'm not great at patience or self-control... so I needed this for myself as well as my kiddos. Thanks, Ginny.