What Every Parent Ought to Know About Sending Your Child Off to College (Part 1)

With the approach of summer comes warmer weather, BBQ’s, season ending shows of our favorite TV series, and graduation announcements. Each year we receive many cards in the mail proudly announcing another high school graduation. In recent years those announcements have taken on new and more creative looks… but the message is the same, after twelve years of hard work a significant chapter of life is coming to a close. Of course we’ve sent out our share of those same announcements. In fact if you count the kids we’ve taken in over the years we’ve announced and hosted more than a dozen graduation parties. Uncharacteristically we get this year off, but I can’t help but reflect on things we’ve learned about graduation.

All smiles as we celebrate Jordan’s graduation!

• Graduation is called commencement for a reason; commence… to begin, to start. While it’s true our kids are ending a chapter in their life, just as true, a new chapter is beginning. The more we can help everyone, including the graduate, focus on that reality the better for everyone moving forward.
• Everything changes and that’s a good thing… things will never be the same for you or your child but that’s something to celebrate. Even if your child isn’t heading off to college, graduation from high school changes the dynamics in the family.
• Some things never change… one of Kelli’s favorite sayings is, “Whoever said just get them to 18 was high on drugs.” While everything changes, one thing stays the same; you will always be their parent. Only now instead of worrying about skinned knees or missing homework like you did when they were eight, the stakes get higher. This requires us to change how we parent our young adults. Hopefully this change has been happening gradually, but if it hasn’t, then life will force this relationship to change, especially if your kid is moving out. We become much more of a coach… they won’t be waking us up at night to let us know they are home… they won’t be checking with us before making a date with a friend… they won’t be eating the meals we put in front of them. Our best hope is to be a trusted source of counsel and wisdom. Say these words to your kids… “You can’t always trust what we say is right… you can’t always trust what we say is the best… but what you can trust is what we say is coming from the man/woman that loves you more than any other man/woman on earth.”
• Ask lots of questions… in our role as coach, this is the season to ask questions rather than provide answers. Obviously there is a time for both, but work hard at asking questions… what made you decide to do that? How is that issue going to affect you? These should be questions of interest that help your child consider their options and thought processes… not questions of interrogation or mistrust. The goal is for your child to see you as the best place to come if they need help processing through a decision.

Dani celebrating with some of her siblings!

Even if your child isn’t quite yet graduating, these principles begin taking shape much earlier in their life. Consider how you are engaging your teenage child. It’s best when this change from parent to coach happens gradually over time. When our kids are young we get good at addressing behavior. If they are biting kids, or being disobedient, or unkind to siblings, we correct the behavior. As our kids get older we move from simply engaging behavior to engaging their minds and their emotions… “What do you think about that?”… “How does that make you feel?”… Our goal is to raise a self-governing child, but in order to do that we must address more than just behavior.

Next week, we’ll offer part 2 of “What Every Parent Ought to Know About Sending Your Child Off to College” including tips for those of us left behind.

Koffee with Kelli

Good Morning Friends!!

Welcome to “Koffee with Kelli”, I guess that means coffee with me!!  I’d be so honored to have you join me each week; pour yourself a cup of coffee and let me share a short morsel about mothering and our families! My desire is for you to be encouraged and excited to be with your kids! Thank you for inviting me into your lives!!

Enjoying the summer with some of my kids!

After spring vacation  each school year we start counting “get up days”(the number of actual days that we have to get up for school) at our house. This accomplishes a number of things for our family: 1) it reminds us all to finish strong…if we are a little behind, we have time to step it up and finish well or if we are really on top of things, then just keep it up until school is out!! 2) It is a subtle way for me to tell the kids, “I am soooo excited that summer is near and I get you all to myself!!” I always say “I had you to be with you!!”  and 3)We all gear up for a change of pace…some down time…some margin from “get up, go to school, get ready for practice, eat dinner, make lunches, get your homework done, go to bed” kind of schedule!

I want our kids to know we are happy school is out!! Some are advocating for year round school and others do not look forward to kids being home because it creates problems logistically for the family. I understand there are valid reasons for both these thoughts.  But, I want my kids to remember I was as excited about summer as they were…yes…it does cause some problems…the house does not stay as clean, people want to eat all the time and boredom sets in quickly because kids are not used to entertaining themselves. But I still want them to know how fun it will be to have them home!!  So, how do we prepare for a season that has the potential to be very awesome or to unravel and ruin all that is wonderful about summertime?

A little Slip N’ Slide

Here are just a few thoughts from my 25 years of kids and summertime:

Celebrate the last day of school!!!  One year I picked everyone up with all the windows down blaring the song from High School Musical, “School’s Out”!! Go out to lunch, have a picnic, or surprise them with a special activity!

Have a family meeting right away with great treats. Kick off talking about how everyone wants the summer to go… technology privileges, chores, sleep, reading, field trips, jobs, money,  calendar of events, friends, school shopping, serving the community, workouts, devotions etc. Listen to everyone’s input and get excited about making it a great 11 weeks!

Give everyone a chance to do some research about what is going on locally that is inexpensive and fun. Here are some examples of what we’ve found over the years:

• We have taken a city bus field trip (yes with all 8 kids and the stroller and lunches).
• We’ve joined the local library’s summer reading program.
• Our community does free concerts in the park during the summer and they also have several festivals that are fun!!
• Lowe’s does a great woodworking project on selected Saturdays.
• Around the 4^th of July we do some teaching about America and the importance of knowing our country’s history. One of our favorite ways is to use Adventures in Odyssey.
• We plan for spontaneous (how’s that for an oxymoron) Smore’s nights
• We try to have our swim stuff ready in case we get invited to the lake.

This particular summer is unique for us. We need to do some catching up with our new children in the areas of reading and math facts. It is really interesting because they don’t want school to be over!! They love school!!  We encourage lifelong learning and lifelong reading in our family so we all try to keep our minds challenged. We have tried many ways through the years to tie technology privileges with reading time or other work I may have children do.

Also, I recognize many parents work through the summer and makes this conversation  different… the planning and managing of schedules changes. In that case, you get to maximize your evenings with them. Our church runs a great VBS program in the evening each summer. Kids can stay up a little later with parents without the pressure of a school day schedule.

We try to come up with a summer schedule that allows us to be flexible and fun but still gets the work done at home as well as the learning, the reading or the enrichment activities.

Some fun at the Seattle Center

Mostly, summer is a great time to let everyone change gears and enjoy family time, BBQ’s and the sound of kids laughing while they play on freshly cut grass!! Please invite your family into a great summer…it doesn’t always go exactly as you plan, sometimes it’s way better and other times we run into the unavoidable and have to adjust.

Send the message loud and clear to your kids ~ You are excited to have them home for the summer!

Adding Triplets

OK – we didn’t actually add triplets, but January of 2012 we did add three kids to our already large family through the miracle of adoption. One year ago we were able to bring them into the United States and their forever home. Below is an excerpt from a blog we posted a year ago about our experience. It was a fun reminder of how blessed we are in the Pritchard home! We’ve added a few current thoughts in parenthesis within the text.

Adoption Moment Feb 2012

On January 31, 2012 the Pritchards became a family with 11 children!! Mesellu, Asefa and Dejen officially became part of our family!! After a twelve hour flight from Washington D.C. to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Monday, January 30 we drove 2 hours to the orphanage in Adama to meet our children. We went to lunch with them, bid them good bye and drove back to Addis to spend the night. Tuesday morning started early with breakfast at our guest house, coffee with Abebe (YWAM’s in country representative), and final court in order to appear before the judge and finalize the adoption. We then drove directly back to the orphanage to pick OUR children and spent the rest of the week with them!!

Timo, Malia, David, and Dejen’s

first trip to Sunnyside Park

 Mesellu. our new daughter,  is the same age as Sina who is 12. She is tall and thin and has looked out for her brothers for a long time. She is shy and seems worried about her lack of formal education. Her favorite color is pink and she wants to work with orphans when she grows up. (Today we call her Malia and she has really come out of her shell!)

Asefa is 10 and his favorite color is green.  He wants to be a driver like his dad when he grows up. He is a great swimmer and the most confident in the water of the three. He likes playing on our phone but loves the legos we brought him and helped with the puzzle when he was sharing the phone with his brother! (He now goes by the name Timo. He has adjusted well to life in our crazy family)

Dejen is 9 and his favorite color is orange. He also wants to be a driver. He is the most active of the three children and loves technology the most. He and Asefa seem more confident in English and trying to learn it. (Dejen continues to go by Dejen! He is the most confident and outgoing of the three. He’s also grown 5 inches this year!!!)

Malia, Kelli, Dejen, and Timo

shortly after getting home in May of 2012

David sums up our trip as pretty perfect as far as traveling across the world with an 11 hour time zone change. We were so blessed by our new friends we have in Ethiopia. Africa, all of sudden, has become near and dear to our hearts. We will be forever changed by this trip and the way that our family has been transformed!

Here is a video of our first time meeting our kids at the orphanage: http://youtu.be/3_yFRlZbZmU

 

Remembering Dad on this Memorial Day

I was that kid! I remember sitting in our living room getting ready to watch the football game on television as they prepared to play the national anthem. My dad loved his football and I can still see him sitting in his big chair in anticipation of the game. As soon as the drum roll began and the cameras panned to the American flag I’d jump up next to my dad’s chair, stand at attention and salute as the band played the Star Spangled Banner. No I don’t make my kids do that today. And yes it makes me laugh and maybe even turn a little red thinking about that scene some 40+ years later. It’s some of what I remember most about my dad ~ his love for God and his love for country. He never took either of those for granted and I suppose his own childhood shaped that commitment as much as anything.

My dad as a young soldier

Dad grew up in a small village on the western side of American Samoa and wasn’t united with his biological father, and that half of his family, until he was a teenager. Maybe in his struggle to figure out his identity in the “family” he forged his identity in Christ. I do know by the time I came along, he was a soldier in the U.S. Army with an abundant trust in God and a desire to share his faith with other young Samoan men, especially fellow soldiers. That particular passion would eventually lead him to start and pastor the first Samoan church at Ft. Lewis Army Post. Growing up in American Samoa my father developed a respect for his homeland of Samoa but also his governing country of America. At the time, the United States operated a small naval station in Pago Pago harbor and my father joined the Navy as part of the Fita Fita guard made up of locals. This eventually led to my dad moving state side and enlisting in the U.S. Army where he served for 28 years!

Around my house the bible was to be honored and the American flag was to be shown respect. If you wanted to get my dad talking, bring up God or bring up America and he was ready to talk. Notably the other two “top four” loves for dad were family and his native island of Samoa… but that’s for a different blog post! Each year when Memorial Day comes around I’m reminded of my dad’s love of country. Both mom and dad were faithful to visit the graves of soldiers that were no longer with us. Sadly a practice I have failed to pass on as passionately (although this is a new year and another opportunity!). The high school my children attend has made it a little easier. For the last seven years some teachers and a group of students have created a replica of the Arlington National Cemetery on the front lawn of the high school. It has provided a solemn and powerful reminder of the cost of war. We have watched the last seven years as the small white sticks, each with a name, each name representing a fallen warrior, has over taken the front lawn. It’s a sobering experience to take the kids and walk among the replica headstones, knowing children, dads, moms, friends are no longer able to spend time with those whose names we read.

The Arlington National Cemetery Replica at Clover Park High School

Why do it? For me it’s important my children know that freedom isn’t free. Our spiritual freedom in Christ came at a great cost to our Savior and the freedom we enjoy in our country comes at a great cost to our nation, especially to those honored in Arlington and on the lawn of Clover Park High School. And besides… my dad would have been the first to be there.

Our daughter considering the cost

Fresh Beginnings

Some of you have been with us for a while. You know everything is different. Our website is different, our blog is different… it looks and feels different than our old site. New things can be frustrating and even irritating, but new also means fresh beginnings… a chance to start anew. Growing up we would play a game on the playground (it didn’t really matter what game). When it was your turn, if you messed up you’d ask for a “do over”. A chance to wipe the slate clean and get another chance. It’s actually a great metaphor of what God did for us when he sent Jesus on our behalf, but that’s for another blog! This fresh start is a do over for us. We hope to do some things different – better! Here’s what you can expect:

*Regular weekly blogs – you will hear from us each week as we discuss marriage and parenting issues that confront us today.

* We will have a regular feature, “Coffee with Kelli”… grab a cup of coffee and read some practical tips for moms from Kelli.

* Short video messages – we plan to share an occasional video short

* Re-posts – unfortunately with the change we were unable to transfer over all of our old blogs, so we will periodically re-post some of our favorite old posts.

* And more… we have hundreds of questions on marriage and parenting collected from messages and our live conferences. On occasion we will answer those questions here. We would also like to hear from you… what would help strengthen your marriage… what would bless your parenting? Let us know.

This past year we’ve added three new grandbabies – fresh beginnings! Nothing cries hope like a newborn baby. Today we feel like we are birthing a new baby with our new website and blog. Our hope is you will visit us often and consider subscribing to our blog. Our prayer is to be a blessing to you and your family.

Our website is http://www.pritchardministries.org or email us at pritchardministries@gmail.com.

May the Lord bless you and keep you~

David & Kelli

Welcome to Pritchard Family Ministries

Welcome to our Pritchard Family Ministries Blog!

Our MISSION ~ to help couples and parents grow Godly homes that influence and change our culture.

Our VISION – to reclaim the hope and belief in what God has ordained.

Our PHILOSOPHY is based on three basic foundational principles:

• God is in charge
• Marriage is God’s idea
• A child’s best chance is with mom and dad as their primary mentor

May God bless you in your great calling,

David & Kelli