Duties as a Parent

For sunday school I'm attending the Marriage and Family Relations class offered in our ward.  The first couple of lessons we've discussed The Family: A Proclamation to the World and how we are applying it to our lives.  Today we discussed the duties as a parent on what and how we are to each our children.  In Relief Society we had a lesson on Repentance.  Here are my thoughts during these discussions.

 

• Our children belong to us under our stewardship as we live here on Earth.
• We are to teach them the principles of the Gospel that can bring eternal happiness. We do this by example. 
• We are to Love them, care for them, provide for physical/spiritual needs, teach them, serve them, observe the Commandments and abide the laws of the land.
• These attributes help me see my children as the Lord sees them -- precious spirits who deserve our unconditional love
•  "Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. "
• As I ponder back on this week, I can remember when I've lost my temper a couple times with them.  I hear myself raising my voice, I see my children tearing up, I hear myself disciplining and teaching the correct way to do something.  But as I ponder about what my duties are to them, I see how much the yelling hurts them.  Such tender and innocent feelings don't need to be hurt by unnecessary yelling bc I was too short on patience. 
• Coincidentally, the Relief Society lesson today was on the steps of repentance.  First one being recognize. I recognize that I need to be more patient with my kids.  After all, they are just kids being kids.  Albeit clumsy, selective hearing and curious...I must love them unconditionally like our Heavenly Father loves us. 
• I talked with my daughter about this today.  I told her about the lesson and the different steps of repentance.  We discussed how when we ask for forgiveness and try to forsake the sin, that we cannot always do it by ourselves. That sometimes we need to ask for help.  I told her that I was praying for help from Heavenly Father that I can use a more calming voice and that I also needed her help.  I asked her to help remind me.  She then replied that we needed a new rule: We must use inside voices...except on birthdays! (Her words: Then we can shout for joy).  So we agreed that we would only use inside voices towards each other.
• That is my goal this week -- to improve on my patience and use a more calming voice when I try to discipline my children. A comment in Relief Society helped me better understand what forsaking means.  It means you try to not repeat that sin.  I don't know about you, but NOT ever repeating the same sin (forsaking it completely) just seems impossible. The thought that helped me was this:  We inherently are not perfect so we will make mistakes.  Although if we make the same mistake what matters is how much progress we are making in 100% forsaking the sin.  Perhaps last week I had only 5% patience for my kids, but this week I managed to have 10% patience for them.  Even though I may not be perfect at patience, I am diligently seeking to improve on it.  That made me feel better about myself.   Making small improvements on it until I can conquer patience...now that is possible...a journey to master it.  That seems more realistic. 
• Even though I haven't blogged about my reading the BOM, I am reading it.  And I am seeing it in a whole new light.  It is weird to have this experience every time.  It seems that each time I read it, the words are more and more urgent in their pleadings for us to REMEMBER, to be THANKFUL/GRATEFUL, to REPENT.