Gems of Motherhood

Latest Episodes:

Worth Repeating :: Teaching Children the Importance of Loving Thy Body :: Nancy Pearcey Mar 08, 2021

Show notes

In this podcast episode, Nancy touches on a very important subject matter. It’s important to teach our children to love their bodies. If we don’t, they may pick up misperceptions and wrong teaching from the culture. Issues, like homosexuality and transgenderism, are infiltrating school curriculums starting as young as preschool. As Christians we need to stay on top of these hot topics and equip our children with knowledge about their body to be able to combat the destructive teachings (i.e. secular ethics) readily accepted in schools around the country.

The best way to talk to children about sexuality is to stay positive. It is easy for Christians to be negative, launch into stereotypes and be easily typecast as judgmental, yet it is always better to present the Christian ethic free of “christianese.” Simply saying something is wrong or sinful is not helpful. Rather, Nancy shares if we explain, using examples, how secular ethic demeans the body it can serve as a bridge to understand Christian’s foundation of authenticity and love. a bridge to understand Christian’s foundation of authenticity and love.

“Kindergarteners are being taught that their bodies tell them nothing about who they are, it’s not authentic self. And that’s when as Christians we have a wonderful opportunity to say, God made your body and what God makes is intrinsically good.”

Nancy shares that gender dysphoria, the technical term when you feel out of sync with your body, starts at a young age and is currently especially prevalent in teenagers also known as rapid gender dysphoria.

“Genuine gender dysphoria is a long painful haul. It’s truly a deep psychological issue. But with God’s help, we can let our child know it’s okay for them not to live according to the stereotypes.”

Nancy encourages Christians to change the language they use to exude positivity which allows our children to see who God created them to be and gives them a glimpse into God’s intelligent design for their identity.

“We are meant to respect our body, to live in harmony with the creator’s design. We are meant to live consistently with our biological sex.”

What we chat about

Gender dysphoria

Rapid gender dysphoria

Examples of stories – Interviews with parents of transgender teens, homeschool parent, and more

Impact of social media

How to speak to children about loving their body

The impact of school and gender identity

Preparing children about loving their body

Darwinism

Connect with Nancy

WEBSITE: Nancy Pearcey

FACEBOOK: Nancy Pearcey

LINKED IN: Nancy Pearcey

Teaching Children About Beauty :: Abbie Sprunger [EP37] Mar 01, 2021

Show notes

Beauty… a subject matter that is hardly addressed especially when it comes to motherhood.

Anytime moms are around something that delights our senses it reveals what captivates to our soul. This is further proof of God’s vast array of images and what is true beauty. Abbie defines true beauty as something that awakens us to God.

“The message of beauty comes from the stamping of God’s image from the beginning and the continual attraction that draws us back to His beauty”

Abbie shares that the definition of kingdom beauty is something that we can’t purchase or bargain for, it simply flows from the beauty maker. At its core it resides in each of us from the moment we’re born. It can’t be masked or hidden.

“Beauty can be overused at times… I’m not sure if that does a service to God because the World’s beauty is more external than what God calls beautiful.”

She also shares her story, struggles with accepting her beauty, and in turn, how to teach our children to be confident understanding their true beauty and affirming them in it.

What we chat about

True beauty/Kingdom beauty

Challenges that girls face

Tearing down lies and deceptions

Affirming children on true beauty

How to Help Children Handle their Emotions :: Sissy Goff [EP36] Feb 22, 2021

Show notes

The rate of depression and suicides continues to climb. And anxiety is now considered an epidemic in children. My guest Sissy Goff tackles this topic in How to Help Kids Handle their Emotions.

Sissy shares that there is a tremendous difference in how children of different sexes deal with anxiety. While girls experience anxiety twice as much as boys, boys are more likely to be taken to therapy. “I have never seen girls face as much pressure as they do now. I think they are feeling pressures from all areas to excel.” Sometimes parents end up inadvertently reinforcing the very things that are symptoms of children’s anxiety and missing what really going on. How a child develops emotionally often dictates who he becomes as a spouse, friend, co-worker, and even, someday, a parent.

Sissy emphasizes that children lack coping skills and this has only been exacerbated today by the isolation. In her book, Raising Worry Free Girls, Sissy breaks down the coping mechanism of understanding, help, hope and encourages parents to teach children how to cope with their emotions while still young. A list of emotional milestones helps us gauge if children are where they need to be emotionally, spiritually and socially to thrive into adulthood.

What we chat about

Anxiety

How to help children cope with their emotions

Understanding emotional milestones

Six Discipline Mistakes Parents Make :: Ginger Hubbard [EP35] Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

Do you find yourself threatening, repeating your instructions or raising your voice in an attempt to get your children to obey? We’re glad you’re joining us today as Ginger Hubbard talks about 6 Discipline Mistakes Parents Make. Her talk encourages us to take a more biblical, heart-oriented approach to training our children.

“Children should be taught to obey because it’s right and it pleases God.”

We must remember our goal is not merely get our children to outwardly obey, but to reach their hearts with the gospel of Christ. When we adopt faulty child-training methods aimed at behavioral modification only, we miss the heart issues and the point of biblical discipline in the first point.

“Use heart probing question to help them to evaluate their behavior for themselves.”

Ginger shares examples of different scenarios based on the six discipline mistakes. Here are a few pitfalls we must guard against:

Bribing

Threatening

Appealing to their emotions

Repeating or going back on instructions

Counting to Three

Reasoning with small children

What we chat about

How to reach a child’s heart

6 discipline mistakes

Effective parenting

Balancing Motherhood :: Esther Ibanga [EP34] Feb 08, 2021

Show notes

Being a mother is no easy task since we are natural caregivers. And balancing marriage, motherhood, and ministry is no small task. In this podcast, Esther Ibanga will speak to us about Balancing Motherhood.

“It wasn’t easy. A lot of times, I found myself torn between my family and ministry.”

Pastor Ibanga shares about her calling and how she has had to navigate it between her family and ministry. While she has always been a church leader, she made sure that she honored her husband by displaying respect both publicly and privately. This required lots of wisdom from God and submission to God’s order.

She also shares about the importance of leading by example. Her children were her greatest test tools. She imagined being their friend and not portraying a supermom who did it all by herself. No, Pastor Ibanga honestly speaks about having plenty of help at home and not falling into the trap of many women who try, in vain, to juggle everything at home and ministry.

“What helped me navigate those tough waters was actually alot of help that I received.”

Pastor Ibanga further talked about Proverbs 31 and how even the Proverbs 31 woman required a community to survive. Without the Holy Spirit, women fall into the hype of supermom and performance. The supermom mystique puts incredible pressure on women to perform and causes them to stop depending on the Holy Spirit. Instead of relying solely on God — and the community of believers He provides to help — moms rather struggle keeping the facade up when they can relax knowing God got them covered.

What we chat about

Challenges of motherhood and ministry

Core values to exercise as mothers

Balancing marriage and family

Proverbs 31 woman

Teaching Children to Keep Close to Jesus in the Storms of Life :: Naghmeh Panahi [EP33] Feb 01, 2021

Show notes

Adversity! We all go through them. Naghmeh Panahi has experienced many storms in her life from persecution to abuse, yet she always knew God was with her. In this week’s podcast, Naghmeh talks about keeping close to Jesus during the storms of life. She shares that problems may persist, turmoil might worsen over time, but God is in control working in the midst of the storms!

When Naghmeh first had her children, her biggest fear was raising them by herself. Her struggle with this persistent fear made her anxious. When it happened that she became a single mother, she was struck by the loneliness of having to do it alone, but her personal suffering drew her closer to Jesus.

“As a mom, I don’t know what’s ahead for my kids… They’ve already gone through a lot. But learning how to stay close to God and finding lasting peace and exemplifying it to my children is important.”

Rather than focus on her abuse, anxiety, fears and loneliness, Naghmeh instead chose to trust God each and every day. Even as she felt like a shell of herself while experiencing abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, she never questioned God’s plan for her life.

“I was an empty shell. I was broken. I felt sorry for myself. I wasn’t mad at God. But I realize I found myself caught up in idolatry.”

Instead, she knew God was there for her, and uses these traumatic experiences to teach her children to keep close to Jesus.

What we chat about

Handling adversity

What happens when you don’t see God in the midst of the storm

Teaching children to handle adversity

Life verses

The Power of Questions :: Stacy Bellward [EP32] Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

Now we all want well behaved children, but kids often misbehave. Having difficult conversations with children is hard. Yet, In today’s podcast, Stacy Bellward talks about The Power of Questions.

She shares concerning the importance of asking questions. The opposite of asking is telling. And telling does not work. We often get into these patterns in our homes where we just tell… and telling turns into nagging and sometimes even into yelling. And sometimes it’s almost like a tug of war.

“If we were to boil down our job raising our kids, the two important things that we want them to exercise is wisdom and responsibility.”

Stacy talks about breaking patterns of defensiveness and how the power of curious questions creates productive conversations. She also talks about asking effective questions as well as type of questions to avoid in an effort to get the best results in correcting our children’s behavior.

What we chat about

The power of questions

Effective questions

Bad questions

Setting our kids up for success

Teaching our children to cooperate

Building our children’s character

Connect with Stacy

WEBSITE: Connected Families

INSTAGRAM: Connected Families

FACEBOOK: Connected Families

LINKEDIN: Stacy Bellward

YOUTUBE: Connected Families

LINKS MENTIONED

The Power Of Questions Online Course **GEMS20 gets you 20% off

Disciplining a Strong Willed Child :: Karen Stubbs [EP31] Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

Most parents think that their strong-willed child may be deliberately driving them crazy. Sometimes disciplining them can become a challenge. However, having a strong willed child may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Karen Stubbs shares her experience with a strong-willed child and provides some positive ways to discipline them. She encourages moms to teach their children how to be good leaders, not dictators.

“It especially helps when you give a strong-willed child choices. All your strong-willed child want to feel like they are in control. Always give them choices.”

Karen also shares that mothers should be consistent, equitable, set clear boundaries while avoiding a battle of wills with their strong-willed child. A strong-willed child’s core desire is to control his or her environment because they are natural leaders, yet if you give them something to control they won’t control you — mom! They need to have a sense of control, loyalty, appreciation and credit, but simple interest in them by asking a question makes them stop, think and get a sense of self.

These are the four key needs of a strong willed child.

What we chat about

Positive ways to discipline a strong willed child

Key needs of a strong willed child

The importance of questions

Teaching them to listen

Connect with Karen

WEBSITE: Birds on a Wire

INSTAGRAM: Birds on a Wire

FACEBOOK: Birds on a Wire

Grace Based Parenting :: Karis Murray [EP30] Jan 11, 2021

Show notes

God refers to Himself as our Father and the Word teaches that we can see God as our father. God relates to us - His children through grace. And we know grace is simply unmerited favor; getting what we don’t deserve.

Karis shares from her experience of teaching children about obedience, and dissuading children from lying. How do we parent from grace? By first understanding that God pursues our hearts in order to teach and correct us.

“This relationship that we have with God, is one where He has standards and He expects us to obey, but He knows we won’t. But He still pursues our hearts even when we don’t.”

Karis shares that like us our kids will never perfectly obey, yet moms need to love their children through discipline. Godly discipline is grace-based, and not fear-based. And it strives to let go of unfair unrealistic expectations.

“We need to release the tyranny of perfection on ourselves and our kids.”

Grace doesn’t necessarily mean being nice or being easy going or being a push over or having an absence of rules and consequences, it simply means approaching it God’s way. That boils down to upholding God’s standards and rules, modeling His authentic love and expressing His love in everything we do.

What we chat about

Meaning of Grace

Grace Based Parenting

Obedience, Spanking, Lying

Actionable tips on grace based parenting

Best of 2020 - Our Most Inspired Mom Encouragement [EP29] Dec 21, 2020

Show notes

In this week's podcast, we reflect on the most downloaded episodes of 2020 to see what we learned.

Being a Purposeful Mom with Rachel-Ruth Wright

Talking About Sex with Children with Mo Isom Aiken

Finding Hope in Despair with Kariss Farris

Strength in Identity with Missy Robertson