(4) Read some good parenting books*; watch a good parenting video series; talk with others about parenting approaches and methods that have worked for them and their children. Don’t duplicate, but use these ideas to create the method you’ll use with each of your children.

There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. A technique that is touted as "working well for every child" will inevitably have to be tweaked or retooled completely to be effective with yours. The Alpha role means that you take charge of this process with deliberate intention and that you keep trying until you find the solution of loving balance that satisfies both your child's soul and needs and yours.

(5) Don't ever back down where an issue of control essential to the deepest good of your child has been engaged. Your three-year-old CANNOT win a battle over whether to dart into the street at will. Your fifteen-year-old CANNOT win a battle over whether to take the family car keys and go on a solo joy ride. Street drugs CANNOT be allowed in your home. There is an internal penalty that is paid in the relationship every time these control issues are engaged: hostility is generated that must be expressed. Finding creative, preemptive ways to defuse situations before they escalate to this level is what "child whispering" is all about. Being willing to pay whatever price is necessary when these (hopefully, rare) issues are engaged is what having a backbone is all about.

You’ve heard it a hundred times: choose your battles wisely. I only wish I got to choose all of mine! All too often I've found that my battles chose me. It will likely be the same for you. You’re not in control of most of the world, many circumstances and much of the input into your child’s life or your own.

Agendas can be set for your relationships with your children by lots of outside influences over which you have no control. Decide ahead of time which issues (the one you presently know about, because there are going to be plenty that are complete surprises!) are going to be worth fighting over.       Look at how much time you spend fighting with your children. What is the fighting producing other than tummy aches and tears and more terrible behavior (and that’s just in you!)? What does the fighting tell you about the success of your present parenting strategies? What cues, clues and needs are you missing?

A real child whisperer sees the needs on a child’s developmental horizon and makes preemptive adjustments. The best child whisperers learn how their children’s special languages of touch and words and body cues send important messages for the Alpha-parent to act upon before a real need unmet (but often unexpressed in words) becomes the source of needless relational conflict.

Timing in inspired parenting, the kind that seems to communicate to the deepest part of a child, is paramount. Parenting techniques undertaken under the "inspiration" of fear and anger are shouts to the child’s mind that dull his ability to detect the whispers of consistent, loving messages that can nurture the behaviors we hope will take root and flourish.

We can learn from the Father who whispers into our own hearts His corrective measures and guidance in messages we can comprehend, with impeccable timing that finds us ready to act, and with a patient consistency that reassures us we are loved. ****************************************** *My favorites: the whole "Parenting with Love and Logic" series by Cline & Fay; The Five Love Languages of Children by Chapmann & Campbell; Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy! by Dr. Michael Bradley; Like Dew Your Youth by Eugene Peterson; and the books by Dr. Stanley Turecki about the atypical, challenging child. (I figure we’re all atypical one way or another, so found his nurturing, reality-based approach very helpful.) ****************************************** (You may publish this article as it appears with the byline below intact.  Please advise me by e-mail if you use it.)      After 30+ years in public ministry as missionary, pastoral counselor, homeschooling mentor, writer and editor, Georgia Ana Larson now focuses on an internet-based ministry and business founded in grace and expressed through mentoring others who have a similar desire to work from home, nurture a family, build a business and stay faithful to a deep interior Call to have a life of devotion expressed in service, no matter what context. You can read more of her articles at her home site:  www.aBrighterCandle.com

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