children – Page 23 – Home's Cool!

Health, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Ten Ways to Spot a Manipulator a Mile Away

Posted on October 7, 2011January 20, 2015 by Katharine

Oh, don’t we all find ourselves caught in a web prepared by some manipulator, sometimes?

It can be so hard to extricate ourselves. I am sure we would love if they wore beepers, so we could walk far around them.

In a way, they do.

I would love to share about this, in hope of sparing someone out there, if possible. Following are a few of the many signs of a controller/manipulator personality:

They usually do not have their own lives under control. You know the ones–3 times the size they should be, scream at their children lots, talk too loudly, abuse substances, have barely a pathway through their overly-stuffed home, etc.
They do not delegate well, and want to be the only one able to do the job right. We wish!–Because they volunteer too much and think they are good managers, even assume bogus titles to prove it, right? They are prideful and want you to think they know everything.
They ignore you, flatter you, change the subject, or know someone ELSE it applies to, but don’t self-apply good teaching; usually can’t get the Spritual application of it.
They gossip and gripe. Gr-r-r!
They want special privileges and unnatural private time. A lot.
They are resistant to, or even terrified of, proper authority, proper control.
They are long on doctrine, short on loving understanding; they try to confuse the mind.
They can become quite angry.
They often have been deeply wounded in the past and may be driven by avoiding further hurt.
They always, always have the person they manipulate, or “own”, foremost in thought and speech.

Okay, this is the short list. There is more, but the big thing to remember is that these people feel so insecure, it is sad. They do what they do to feel more secure, usually, to try to keep everything under control and at arm’s length, to avoid pain.

Note: Just because you have a PhD in blogging, need to lose 70 pounds, like me a lot, and send me personal notes of encouragement, it does NOT mean you’re trying to manipulate me!!! Just don’t google my phone number, call me, and rant at me for an hour, and we’ll be fine! 🙂

Oh, and the mother/child relationship is different. You are supposed to devote lots to your children, cherish them, think of them always, manage their little lives, etc. Most manipulators, although they should, do not do this.

Just remember one day, when they’re grown, you will have to let go of your children. Manipulators usually do not do that, either.

To see these concepts in action in the Bible, read about the lives of King Saul and Prince Absalom, in 1 Samuel 9 through 2 Samuel 19. David’s reaction to both was mostly good.

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Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Rain, Wisdom, Womanhood

Fayetteville Prayer Vigil Greeted with Sprinklers, Vulgar Music

Posted on October 5, 2011November 17, 2013 by Katharine

This is how it is, now, in the land of the free and the home of the brave:

The people who arrived for the 40 Days for Life kickoff event last week, outside the abortion center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, got a bit of a surprise–a brand-new sprinkler system, with the sprinkler heads pointed directly at the prayer volunteers.
“The owner of the business complex turned the sprinklers on as soon as we set up all our equipment,” said Tiffany in Fayetteville. “And they kept the sprinklers on for two hours.”

One co-owner spent the entire two hours “pacing and walking up and down the parking lot, yelling at us and telling the police to arrest us,” she said. “Needless to say, the police officers were polite and explained they could not arrest us.”

The prayer volunteers were then greeted with loud, obscene music from inside the building. “We sang and played worship music and lifted our voices to God,” Tiffany explained. “Our God songs drowned out the vulgar music.”

Through it all, the prayer volunteers refused to be discouraged. “The bottom line–God triumphed,” she said. “Praise the Lord!”

40 Days for Life is a peaceful assembly. Participants gather on public sidewalks outside abortion facilities, and pray that God will end abortion in America in our lifetime. That’s really all there is to it. I don’t know why someone would feel the need to try to stop a group of people from exercising their religious right to pray publicly, but that appears to be what happened in Fayetteville.

Report: How men conned feminists into abortion (wnd.com)

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A New Kind of Countdown . . .

Posted on October 3, 2011October 7, 2011 by Katharine

Do you “count” you kids down?

You know, you tell them to do something and they don’t do it.

So you say, “One . . . ”

The implication is that you have told them once and you are keeping track, so you must really mean it. Or something.

Then you tell them again, and you say, “That’s two,” a bit more firmly.

Then you tell them again, and you say, “Don’t make me get out of this chair!” They yawn.

And the countdown begins again.

The children learn they do not have to do anything you say because what you say does not really mean anything at all, and your frustration level escalates.

Well, I was at a craft show this weekend and met a lady who “counts” her grandsons and it is all different. I liked it.

She has taught these two boys to repeat a chant with her. It goes like this:

–Grandmother: One.

–Grandsons: One–I am going a wrong way.

—Grandmother: Two.

—Grandsons: Two–I need to find a different way.

You may wonder where the expected “three” is. On “three” she gets out of her chair. That’s one reason this method works.

(However, as a child, I am sure I would have been saying inside myself, “Three–I need to get OUT of the way!”)

As I observed these boys I marvelled. They had been without Mom for a week and were at a boring craft fair where it was not appropriate for them to do anything. They shared one toy truck and played on the ground with it.

When one boy decided to drive the truck on the sidewalk, Grandmother perceived he was causing a tripping hazard for the shoppers. So she told him to stop and return to the grassy places where her tent was.

He did this only briefly, then strayed to the sidewalk again.

Then she said, “One.”

He replied, “One–I am going a wrong way,” and he sighed, returning to the grass.

In less than a minute his toy truck had strayed again. And Grandmother said, “Two.”

He answered, “Two–I need to find a different way.” Then my jaw dropped, I am sure, as he calmly walked over to his brother, handed him the toy, and wryly said, “See if you can keep this thing off the sidewalk. I can’t.”

I imagine these two little guys, someday at age 35 or so, filling out a tax form or zipping down a highway, temped to “forget” some benefit or accelerate too much, and hearing Grandmother say to them, through the ages, “One . . . “

Blessings of Habit, Brothers, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

Been Unfriended?

Posted on September 16, 2011October 25, 2018 by Katharine

People can be complicated.

Friendships can be messy.

Knowing more can be scary.

With the knowing, the deeper truths, and the closer expressions of concern, can come the fears, the denials, and the silence.

The dark days of friendship.

A couple of friends once asked me if my young teen daughter could arbitrate between their two teens. I could hardly believe my ears. The three of us were close, so I shared my many concerns and said no.

The ramifications were astounding: a seeming total breakdown in all communication.

They literally continued being friends to each other without me and my daughter.

Wow.

A full year later, we were all at an event at a park. One of these friends had a newly-minted, biggest-baddest car-of-the-year and asked me if I would enjoy taking it around the park with her.

The shock!

Still the idea of sitting behind all 4 million horses under that hood was too tempting and we took her for a spin at park speed: 5 mph. Ha.

It was glorious and just destroyed my mini-van, in my eyes.

However, what happened during that drive was more. Far more. This dear friend apologized. She said she was wrong. She had thought I was wrong but she saw differently later. She thanked me for my dedication to truth and to our friendship. I thanked her for the same two things.

We are still friends, the kind that can be apart for a year and then take it up like we were just days apart. Which we did.

This was deep.

This was asking advice on children and giving it.

This was disagreeing and staying cool for a year.

This was trusting an apology would fix it.

This was forgiving wrongs. Deep, deep, deep, like few, few, few friendships ever can be.

The ancients called these types of friendships leb in Hebrew and philos in Greek, implying core understanding, brotherhood. This friend would visit a friend in jail. This friend would give up a year of pleasure for a friend. This friend would help a relative of a friend, if asked; would party and rejoice at a friend’s joy. Read about it in Ruth 2:13 and John 3:29.

But it can backfire.

Big.

All people have at their fingertips the ability to do wrong. This is what we risk in every relationship, but the closer we grow, the more we risk.

The closer we are, the more accurately we can aim our weapons.

And, oh, the more it hurts.

This is a call for caution.

Some people are broken and do not know how to be a friend. Befriending them will always be a lopsided venture, more give than take, like dancing with someone who doesn’t know the steps. Befriending them will always carry risk. Befriending someone who might backfire is a noble calling, not a picnic.

As long as we remember each of us is able to fail, as long as we dedicate ourselves to befriending and not to collecting fun people, we can proceed. We can gently and lovingly share the truth in hope, not that the friendship will one day benefit ME, but that it will one day bring glory to God.

And that is where we all should be.

Comments? Read more?

BE the friend she needs, instead of collecting friends. Be the adult in your friendships!

Believe it or not!, Cats, Coffee-ism, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

To Befriend or NOT to Befriend . . .

Posted on September 14, 2011October 25, 2018 by Katharine

Okay, you know her name and that she has three children and came from Peoria, and she attends your church when she bothers with attending.

You even know what she and her husband argue about. She lives just down the street, after all.

You just do not feel very close. Oh, sure, you’ve given her a ride when her car was in the shop, you watched her children while she painted a room, and you took her some soup when they all had flu. She lives just down the street, after all.

She is what the ancient Hebrew called anesh-shalom and the ancient Greek called hetairos. These words referred to acquaintances that we work with, live with, even depend upon, but yet are not necessarily of our choosing. Examples are Jeremiah 38:22 and Matthew 20:13.

It would not yet be wise to trust her, but how do you befriend her?

You take food to her, help with her children, and give her rides; that’s how.

While you are at it, show interest. If you are only a helping hand, she will feel like a charity case. A person usually cannot open up to another unless there is a trade, a give and take, like a dance. If, over coffee or tea, you ask to see the paint job, ask her for a ride in return, or ask if her children would feed your cat while you are gone, you will deepen the relationship.

You will earn closeness that allows you to ask better questions than, “How are you today?”.

Questions like:

“You look tired—bad night?”

“So, how do you like the neighborhood? Are you meeting folks?”

“It was good to see you Sunday—Have you decided to join us, or are you still looking?”

Her answers will open doors for new conversations that are more meaningful. Conversations are the building blocks of true friendship. Slip in a hug, when appropriate, and you add the cherry on top: You add value to her person.

Realizing that each person on this earth is needy is the key to all relationships.

We once lived next door to the wealthiest family in town, totally out of our league. The wife one day asked my permission to help plant my rose bushes. The part she really wanted to do was pick the grass roots from the soil, so it would not grow back so quickly. Her daddy, she said, used to make her do that chore and she seldom got a chance to show her expertise at it, anymore.

When we got thirsty, I brought out ice water in my old jelly glass tumblers. We sat on the edge of the terrace, on a railroad tie, and chatted as if we were just a couple of women who liked playing in the dirt, in our grubby clothes. We talked about our mothers-in-law and about the neighbor’s cute grandson. You know, normal stuff.

She needed to feel normal.

And haven’t we all been there.

Comment?

Texas and California Have Disappeared.

Posted on August 25, 2011January 19, 2014 by Katharine

Note: I wrote this long ago, but it is still true, today, except the number now is 55,000,000. That’s 55 millions. Look around you, folks; who’s missing?

Twenty-seven years ago, our Supreme Court nullified enough states’ laws that it effectively provided for the killing of the equivalent of 52 million US citizens. What kind of number is 52,000,000?

Try thinking about 17% of us missing.

Nearly the entire populations of California and Texas.

Gone.

More than all of New York, Florida, and Illinois.

Wiped out.

All of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Eliminated.

New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, Indiana, Arizona, Tennessee, and Missouri.

Disappeared

Or, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Iowa.

ALL GONE.

This is about whole states missing. All the people who built, spoke, taught, laughed, cried, worshiped, drove cars, doctored, nursed, grew trees, or developed technology, gone from more than one state. A wilderness, untouched by man, not even one firefighter to combat the effects of lightning.

And we don’t really notice.

They were enough to have replenished our teachers 2 or 3 times, our doctors, 78 times.

And lost tax revenue? $153 billion.

We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

Believe it or not!, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom, Womanhood

Missing Children Found!

Posted on August 24, 2011November 10, 2018 by Katharine

How many children would you guess are homeschooling in the US, today?

Two Million.

That’s one in every 25 kids of school age.

empty desk What this means is that in every classroom that holds 25 children, one is missing. And it’s because of homeschool.

The schools don’t like us home educators very much because of it.

They feel they are losing too much money because of it.

But they forget two things.

They forget we don’t get that money. Their argument is with their own bought-and-paid-for legislators, not with us, if anything is amiss or missing in public education.
They forget abortion.

Abortion has killed far beyond 55,000,000 since Roe vs. Wade.

That is more than EVERY child in EVERY classroom currently in America.

Missing.

Dead.

We’ve killed that many.

Look around you.

Every child ages 5 – 18 has at least one counterpart who is missing. because he or she was aborted.

They could have doubled their money, had they thought about it.

Related articles

People can be complicated.

That is more than EVERY child in EVERY classroom currently in America.