15 years old! Jamin is the son that taught me to pray “God make me a bit stronger-willed than he is for just one more day!” It’s a prayer I am once again using daily as we disciple his youngest brother.
Jamin is an encouragement to all who have ever heard that their child is “too rowdy, too strong-willed, or too out-of-control”. He is an amazing gentleman these days. He’s quick to jump in and help with chores he sees need to be done. He’s always on hand to carry heavy things for me, now that my wrists won’t allow me to. He has a giving heart and is one to organize “work days” to earn money to give to others.
He is a perfectionist. I USED to be. We are working on a new goal for him…excellence rather than perfection.
Jamin tends to be a loner. We’ve laughed with him over the fact that God placed him in the MIDDLE of a large family to help him learn to interact with a variety of personalities…because he would not go out of his way to meet various personalities otherwise. Living in a Chaplain’s family that is constantly moving is a challenge for Jamin, who doesn’t enjoy change, but He’s learning to take it in stride. He’s a favorite with the younger boys at homeschool park day. I’ve even heard rumor that one is planning on buying him a light saber for his birthday.
When I tell Jamin’s story to mom’s who are struggling they are always so encouraged. Just this week at chapel one was moved when hearing that I was told “He’ll never be able to learn how to read if you don’t get him on Ritalin”. He’s the one who recently completed writing a 139 page book. We prayed about it and were led with this child not to put him on any sort of drugs. We worked with diet, and lots and lots of one on one discipling and mentoring (good ole’ fashioned hands-on parenting).
I’m so thrilled to see his heart for God and his heart for FAMILY…God has certainly done a maturing and growing work in his life. He is a young man any mother would be proud of (and father too – but this is MY perspective).
When I share Jamin’s story people want to know what “books” or what “parenting philosophy” we use. First, I’m leery of self-help books, including Christian self-help books. I found the most helpful thing to be to do topical studies on parenting/children and discipline. Doing Topical studies caused me to STUDY the words and contexts of those passages, rather than interpreting them the way I’ve “heard them all my life”. If pressed for books others could read I would say that parts of these books made an impact on our parenting philosophy. Only PARTS – because I’ve yet to find a book that I totally agree with, except the Bible. There are a lot of books here; we’ve been parenting nearly 21 years now. {G} *Making Your Child Mind without Loosing Yours* by Dr. Kevin Leman explains reality discipline. This is big for us. We want our children to learn, while under our care, HOW to make good choices and how to LIVE with the consequences of their choices. *Shepherding a Child’s Heart* by Tedd Tripp – unless we win the heart of our child for God, we’ve only created a generation of Pharisees. *Age of Opportunity* by Paul David Tripp, focuses on parenting youth. It’s great at pointing out how often OUR insecurities interfere with mentoring our children during this time of their lives. We have found the “teen years” to be wonderful years of reaping the benefits of the younger years of training. It truly is an AGE of OPPORTUNITY. Of course, and I’ve posted this before, but the article “The Myth of the Teenager” by Michael Platt also shaped our parenting. We have found Josh’ McDowell’s Right from Wrong materials to be great for using with our youth.
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