Adventures of a Boy Mom Monica Swanson Ep 254
Don't Mom Alone Podcast
08/26/19
•52m
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Fellow boy moms, this episode is for you! This chat with Monica Swanson another mom of four boys and author of the new book Boy Mom dives into a lot of your questions about how to raise your boys to be godly men.
We talk about encouraging strong friendships between brothers, teaching boys to be strong AND gentle, and about the importance of giving our sons ways to experience excitement and adventure while getting some of their natural aggression out in safe physical activities.
“I am a big believer that boys were made for adventure that they need to have some excitement in their lives I think is just how God wired them. They're little warriors who need to experience some thrills. A lot of the trouble boys can get into is related to when they're lacking authentic adventure, when they're not facing challenges and overcoming obstacles.”
Monica has two boys out of high school and two still in the nest, so she offers a lot of hope for those of us in the trenches of parenting to keep pressing into relationship with our sons and to make the practicals of faith an anchor in all that we do.
“God is so big and so powerful and he can move mountains on behalf of your son. He wants your son's heart more than you even know. We get our boys plugged in everywhere we can. We want them to have so many positive spiritual models in their life that there's no denying that God is the best way to go. It about coming alongside them and saying, ‘This is for your best. God is for you. Let's walk this life with him.’”
What we chat about:
- Monica’s four boys and working with very different personalities
- Building healthy brother relationships and dealing with kids who hit
- Boys need to let out their energy with exercise and physical activity
- Setting healthy boundaries for your kids with manners and learning to laugh with them about it too
- Teaching boys how to balance strength and kindness by pointing them to the stories of godly men
- The power of shoulder to shoulder conversations with boys and why to keep pressing into conversation with them
- Motivating boys to get excited about school and finding hobbies and interests
- Ideas for how to foster adventure for your boys and learning not to parent from a place of fear
- Fostering faith in your sons through time in the Word, prayer and modeling
Previous Episode
Summer of Mentorship 2019 Week Six Shontell Brewer
August 19, 2019
•59m
With the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, feels like we’re more isolated and ineffective than ever. But what if we worried less about making a big impact. And focused more on doing the things in front of us with quality and depth?
I’m a big fan of this week's mentor, Shontell Brewer. She’s a wise mom to five kiddos. And she has an excellent sense of humor. More than that, she has discipled her children well to love and serve others around them.
Discipleship can be organic. Keeping your ministry small enough. To be present wherever God has placed you.
In this episode, which originally aired as Episode 140 (Oct 2016), Shontell and I talk about discipleship during dinner conversations. She shares her method of asking really specific questions. And giving her kiddos a challenge for the day to love others in tangible ways (e.g., encouraging a 4 year old to compliment his preschool teacher).
My most favorite thing we talk about is Taco Tuesday. The last Tuesday of the month, the Brewer family serves up meat & tortillas. They invite coaches, teachers, friends, neighbors (any one who interacts regularly with their kids) into their home.
We love on our community one taco at a time.
I shared the idea with my boys and they wanted to do it the next night (“Taco Tuesday, but on a Monday”). I’ll let you know how that goes. We may go the Pizza Friday route (love our community one slice at a time).
Shontell also inspired me to help open my boys’ spiritual eyes. And to encourage them to fight over who is going to put the other one first.
What we chat about:- How women apologize for their carpet
- Keeping your ministry small
- Specific questions to ask during dinner time conversations
- How Shontell helped her daughter minister to her Starbucks’ manager
- Sending your kids to school with a basic challenge to bless someone
- Setting the habit of conversation and other family “norms”
- Learning to not be offended when our kids aren’t performing
- Parenting small with intimate corrective conversations
- The BEST idea to invite people into your home monthly–> Taco Tuesdays!
Next Episode
Raising Worry-Free Girls :: Sissy Goff [Bonus]
August 30, 2019
•24m
For a variety of reasons, childhood anxiety rates are soaring, especially among girls. My guest Sissy Goff is here to share some of her insights on how to recognize worry and anxiety in your daughter and empower her to overcome.
We talk about tools we can use to help us understand why our brains are often working against us in times of anxiety and grounding techniques to slow and stop the emotional spiral that often ensues.
“We always want her to know she's stronger than her worries and that she has a voice to talk back to the worry. A lot of people who work with kids call it the worry monster because that separates it out from her voice. We don't want her to think it's the truth, which is what kids are going to think when they have voices in their heads telling them things.”
This is a short, hope-filled bonus episode that just scratches the surface on all that we can learn about equipping our kids to work through anxiety. For more encouragement, follow Sissy and her team at https://www.raisingboysandgirls.com and watch for her book Raising Worry-Free Girls coming out September 17.
What we chat about:
- 1 in 4 kids are dealing with anxiety of some kind and girls are twice as likely to feel it
- Anxiety is hard to recognize in kids. Sometimes it comes out as anger or meltdowns and other times it’s deeply buried
- People whose personalities lean toward Type A tend to have baseline anxiety at all times. If your child’s personality leans that direction, it’s important to give them tools to deal with it
- Anxiety is always an overestimation of the problem and an underestimation of ourselves
- Techniques to help a child with anxiety calm down and redirect blood flow to their prefrontal cortex
- Integrating our faith as we teach our kids to fight back against fear and worry
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