As Christmas approaches my thoughts are drawn back to the memories of Christmas past. When our children were young Christmas was a magical time of the year. The memories are sweet and comforting. One in particular comes to mind of many years ago. This was when my oldest daughter was 6 years old. I cracked open my old journal this morning and read about the experience and felt like sharing it with you. Here is my journal entry from Christmas Eve 1990:

Christmas Eve – what a night! It was a lot of fun for me and Lisa to see the excitement in the kids’ eyes. We sang Silent Night and then read the Christmas story in Luke. The kids wanted to get to bed so fast. Neil kept telling everyone to stop talking so we could get through our scripture reading.

After family prayer and scripture reading we sent them off to bed. Soon after that I went outside and rang the jingle bells outside the kids’ window. Later, when I went into their room to check on them, they were so excited to tell me about hearing the bells.

Erika had written a letter to Santa and left it by the tree. She asked several questions like; is there really a red nosed reindeer and how does he know if you are awake and how do reindeer fly? She also left a banana and a glass of milk for Santa on the fireplace mantle.

So I decided Santa should write her back. I sat down at the kitchen table and began writing her a letter from Santa as I ate the banana and drank the milk. I used a red pen and wrote in a very fancy script. I was halfway through the letter when I looked up and there was Erika, standing by the table staring at me! I about died on the spot! She wanted a drink of water. I quickly covered the letter, got her a drink and then chased her off to bed.

Later I went back into her room just to see what she would say to me or what kind of questions she may ask. I was worried about how much she may have seen. Luckily she hadn’t noticed what I was doing earlier or at least didn’t say anything about it. That was a close one!

Later Lisa and I were wrapping presents and I was hauling them upstairs. I decided to check on her again. She was still awake at 12:15 a.m.! That little rascal! She is so excited. It’s 1 a.m. and I hope she’s asleep now. It will be so fun to see the excitement on the kids’ faces in the morning.

And it was exciting, as all Christmas’s were back then. There is nothing quite like having Christmas with small children. They had a way of bringing back the magic and excitement of my own childhood. Now my daughter has two children of her own and she has begun the cycle all over again of experiencing the magic through them.

I’ve heard criticism from time to time of people who “deceive” their children with the whole Santa Clause thing. Frankly, I’ve not seen any negative effects from it with my children. In fact it’s been quite the contrary with my experience. Now, when my children gather at our home they love to talk about the great Christmas memories of their childhood.

We can talk about tips and techniques for mastering our family relationships but sometimes the answers to our problems are so simple. Sometimes all that we need is to spend time together having fun and building memories. Christmas traditions build wonderful memories with your family that will last a lifetime. It’s part of the glue that holds a family together. May you take the time to build memories with your loved ones this Christmas season. The dividends and blessings will continue to come year after year.

What are your Christmas memories? What is the glue that holds your family together? Please share!

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Well, one day my wife and I went out for a while and left our 14-year-old daughter Kimberly to watch them while we were gone. Kimberly happens to be an exceptional babysitter and is in high demand in our neighborhood as a babysitter.

When Lisa and I got home our son Preston was anxious to tell us that Kimberly yelled at Carter because he wouldn’t stop crying. I said, “She yelled at him?” and he said “Yeah.” Well, this disturbed me a little bit.

So when my daughter walked into the kitchen with her friend, I said to Kimberly, “So, I hear you yelled at Carter.”

She was very defensive and I kept asking her questions about why she yelled at her little nephew. From what I could tell she didn’t like me saying what I said, but of course who would? I didn’t detect any huge emotional upset. After a minute or so her friend left and Kimberly turned around and went downstairs to her bedroom. I didn’t think anything more about it.

Well my wife, who was standing right there the whole time, turned to me and said, “Kimberly’s very upset about what you said to her. And she’s especially upset that you did it in front of her friend. She’s probably down in her room crying.”

I said, “I don’t think that at all. I didn’t detect any emotion in her face. I didn’t see any indication that she was upset.”

Lisa said, “I’m a woman, I know these things. I have intuition. You’re a man” and basically you’re clueless. She didn’t say those last words but I got the message.

I’m thinking “Oh brother! Don’t pull that one on me again about this supposed Women’s Intuition!”

I said, “I just don’t believe it. I didn’t see any sign that she was upset or mad or sad about what I had said. I just don’t believe it.”

So I started going about my business. Then I started thinking, “I’m going to prove to my wife that she’s wrong. That upsets me that she would think that Kimberly’s upset. I’m sure she is just fine.’

So I went downstairs to her bedroom. I found her curled up in her bed crying. Of course, it was exactly as my wife had described. She was upset that I had confronted her, mostly because she was disappointed with herself that she had gotten angry with he nephew Carter and that she had lost control a little bit. She was also upset that I had confronted her in front of her friend. It couldn’t have been more accurately described by my wife.

I was totally amazed at how I had missed all clues of this. I didn’t see it in my daughter’s face. I didn’t detect it in her emotions. I just didn’t see it. It made me wonder just how much I don’t see. And is it a man and a woman thing? Do women have the ability to feel and detect these kinds of emotions and men don’t? It was very embarrassing to me. I had to eat crow as I came upstairs and admitted to my wife that she was right.

I realize now as I review the situation that I was kind of harsh. I confronted her in front of her friend. She already knew that she didn’t handle the situation like she should have and already felt bad about it. She’s a wonderful daughter and a wonderful babysitter and I felt bad that I had done what I had done. So while I was downstairs I apologized to her and tried to do damage control as best I could but perhaps that damage was already done in our relationship.

Hopefully I will learn from this and realize that I need to handle things a little differently. I need to learn that maybe my ability to detect what other people are feeling is limited. Maybe my DNA or my male hormones or whatever it is that distinguishes a man from a woman does make a difference in our innate abilities in dealing with others.

Another thing that my wife said to me which kind of stung and which I had no response for was the comment, “See, you never believe anything I tell you.”

That kind of hurt! I thought, “Gee, is that how I am with her? Is that the feeling she gets when she tells me things and I brush it off or I doubt her?”

So there are several lessons here. The first is to trust my wife more – to trust her intuition. The second is to realize the difference between men and women and their ability to assess and judge a situation when it deals with human emotion and personality. The third is to look at my own approach to the way I deal with people and use a softer, more sensitive approach. And fourth, never confront or embarrass my children in front of their friends.

It was a humbling experience to learn that I have so far to go in my quest for self-mastery. Sigh!

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Years ago I used to have regular Father’s Interviews with each of my children. I was thinking lately that I ought to start doing that again with my three youngest children who are still at home. Well, this morning I read an entry in my journal about the first time I had Father’s Interviews with my children and it was quite amusing and interesting. It convinced me that I need to start that practice again in my home. Here is the journal entry. Read it and tell me what you think:

Sunday May 23, 1993

I decided this afternoon to have personal interviews with the kids each month starting today. So one-by-one I had a visit with my three oldest children. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.

What a delight it was to visit with each of my children. First I spent some time telling them what I liked about them.

I told Erika I liked the way she played with Neil and Bryce and how she tries to be fair with them. I told her how pleased I was with her piano playing. I told her I liked how she did her chores so good and fast.

I told Neil I liked the way he took care of Kimberly and loves her so much. I told him I loved it when he smiles. I told him how I thought he was very coordinated and could do things well like ride his bike or do flips on the tramp.

I told Bryce how I liked how he is always so loving and how he comes up to me and hugs me and tells me he loves me. I told him I liked how he was so funny.

I then asked each one some questions – not all the same but mostly. The questions were:

1) What is the best thing you like about our family?
2) When are you happiest?
3) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
4) If you could change one thing about our family, what would it be?
5) My greatest fear is….

Some of the answers were quite interesting. For number 1 both Erika and Neil mentioned that they liked our family because we try hard to be a celestial family and we try to make it fun.

For number 2 Erika and Neil said they were happiest when they were with our family and we were all happy. Bryce said he is happiest when he is on a daddy-date with me.

For number 3 Erika said she would change herself so she would never fight with Bryce and Neil. Bryce said he would make himself so he could fly!

For number 4 Erika and Neil both mentioned changing our family so there would be no fighting. Neil also said he would make it so we all would go to heaven. Bryce said he would change our family so we would all love each other and that we all could fly.

For number 5 Erika said her greatest fear was doing things in front of a crowd. Neil said his greatest fear was being stolen! I didn’t ask Bryce that question.

After the questions I let them talk about whatever they wanted to. I was surprised and pleased when Erika confessed to me that she lied about being sick one day so she could stay home from school. She didn’t study for a geography bee and was so afraid of disappointing her teacher.

Then I had each child think of two goals for them to work on from now to the end of June and two goals for me to work on for the same time period. This is how they went which was an eye-opener for me:

Erika:

     Personal Goals:

     1. Practice piano one hour a day
     2. Work harder at being nice to her brothers – be a peace-maker

     Goals for Dad:

     1. Don’t get so mad so often
     2. Look more for the good and not the bad in Erika

Neil:

     Personal Goals:

     1. Practice piano ½ hour every day
     2. Do a backwards flip on the tramp

     Goals for Dad:

     1. Play baseball with Neil as much as I can after homework and chores
     2. Be nicer and not yell so much when the kids do things wrong

Bryce:

     Personal Goals:

     1. Talk nicer to my brothers and sisters
     2. Don’t play when it’s time to do chores

     Goals for Dad:

     1. Don’t get so mad when the kids do things wrong
     2. Spend more time playing with the kids

When my three oldest children tell me that I need to quit getting so mad I guess I better listen! I love my children so much and it was so good to meet with them. I feel so blessed!

(End of journal entry)

After reading my journal entry, it made me realize the value of taking the time to have a personal interview with your children on a regular basis. I hope this made you think about possibly doing the same with your own children. Let me know what you think.

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

My answer to that is that there has to be exceptions at times but they should be few and far between.

For me last night was one of those exceptions. The only time there should be an exception is if there is a higher priority at play here that supersedes the lower one. For example, a higher priority would be my family and my relationships with my children. In this case it was attending a performance that my son was in.

Let me just explain what it was about. My soon-to-be 17-year-old son is a member of the local high school marching band. He plays the sousaphone. (Yes, that’s him in the center of the photo.) I thought it was called a tuba but apparently a tuba is played sitting down such as in a concert. A sousaphone is simply a version of the tuba used by marching bands. Anyway, my son and his band have worked extremely hard on their performance. For those of you who have never been involved with marching bands, they actually have competitions where many marching bands get together and compete. Each band puts on a performance that includes a number of elements. They have judges who judge the competition and they give awards at the end. This is a huge event that begins in the early afternoon and goes on until after 10:00 at night.Of course we wanted to be there to support our son and watch how his band did. My son’s band was scheduled to perform at 9:15 p.m. After they performed there was one more band to perform and then the tallying of all the judge’s scores and then the awards ceremony which lasted quite a while. (Incidentally, our son’s high school band took first place!) Anyway, following the awards ceremony we stayed to help clean up the stadium. So we didn’t get home until around 11:00 p.m.

Now here my goal was to be in bed by 10:30 p.m. What do you do in that situation? Well, you have to have priorities. I can’t, for the sake of my goal to get to bed by 10:30 p.m., ignore my son and not support him. There has to be reasonable exceptions. Those exceptions should only be for events and things that are of a higher priority than the goal of getting to bed on time.

I think there were two lessons learned from last night. The first was one is what I just talked about: Only allow higher priorities to cause exceptions to the rule.

The second lesson on self-mastery that I learned from the band competition last night can be divided into two parts. The first one is to simply watch the performances of these high school kids and see the self-mastery that they have achieved in the performance they put on. It was amazing the way that they learned to work together, to stand at attention, to march in unison, to flow as an entire unit together as a small part of a large whole. To me it was an amazing display of self-mastery to watch these marching bands.

The second part was even more amazing. A storm had been blowing in most of the day. We watched the dark clouds gather and the wind pick up as this competition went on. By the time my son’s high school band performed it was pouring rain. Not just rain but cold, pouring rain. Remember that it’s October. You would think in most situations that they would cancel a big event such as this because you wouldn’t expect anyone to stand out in that rain and put on these performances. These are huge marching bands all dressed in uniforms, carrying their instruments.

I asked one of the organizers of the event if they were going to cancel it. He said there was only one thing that would stop one of these shows and that was lightning. If it begins to lightning only then will they stop the show. Other than that, regardless of whether it’s raining or snowing or windy, the show goes on.

I was amazed at this fact that they go on no matter what. I was astonished as I watched these kids standing there at attention, not flinching as the rain was pouring on them. It was incredible self-mastery. And then to watch them go through their performance, totally ignoring the rain and playing these magnificent songs and marching their complicated formations – it was wonderful and showed supreme self-mastery.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Here is my journal entry from July 2, 1988:

Dear Neil,

Today you turned three years old. You have grown up so fast. First of all, Neil, I just want you to know how much I love you and care about you. You and I have had our struggles lately though. We don’t always see eye to eye on things. But you have a big heart and you are a very loving boy. You love your little brother Bryce and you enjoy playing with him so much. You also are constantly trying to keep up with your big sister Erika. You get so frustrated when she leaves you behind or walks too fast for you.

You and Erika and her little friend from across the street spend a lot of time playing together. You love to go visit Grandma and Grandpa Woodland who live at the end of the street. They have adopted you as a grandson. They think you are the neatest little boy in all the world. They just may be right.

Neil, I pray that you can grow up with a desire to do what’s right. I pray that you and I can always be close and that there will never be a barrier between us. Neil, we’re not as close right now as I know we ought to be and I know that’s my fault. I just haven’t spent enough one-on-one time with you.

I want you to know that I am not a perfect father and I make many mistakes and have many weaknesses. But I try every day to improve myself and do better.

Neil, I love you and hope I can be a better father to you.

Love,
Dad

Well, there you have it – my thoughts and feelings about my young son 19 years ago. I am glad to report that I did work on my relationship with him and we do have a great relationship today. It wasn’t always easy and we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. But he has grown up to be a great young man who I love very much.

Why am I sharing this with you? Perhaps you are now where I was then with your children. My advice is to keep working on your relationships with your children. The payoffs in later years make all the struggles worth it. Houses, cars and jobs come and go but your children will ALWAYS be your children. They are what’s really important. Never lose sight of that fact. Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson