Parenting a reasoning child through this season brings the great reward of deep relationship between parent and child.
The revelation of your child’s heart motivation helps guide your parenting so you can discern how to supply what your child truly needs by coming alongside your child.
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In 1997, when my son was around four, he spent many hours drawing. Nothing looked beautiful. It was just a kid's work, but he really enjoyed putting pencil to paper. So my husband and I were willing to come alongside him and simply get him more pencils and paper! He also liked to look in books at how things, like ships and submarines, were drawn. So we got him more books through our library system. He began tracing those drawings and then drawing them on his own. He thoroughly enjoyed drawings all sorts of ships, and I thought perhaps he would want to join the Navy someday.
One day we went to the beach for the first time in his life. He put his toe in the water and ran away towards me, afraid. I said, "Darlin', I thought you loved the water. You draw all those ships. I thought perhaps you might want to go on one of those ships." He said, "Mom, I don't want to go on one; I just like to design them!" Bingo! The light went off in my own head—my son's heart motivation is design.
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After those early years of bringing him alongside me, he liked to work in the kitchen with me, helping me to bake. He made lovely designs on the pie crusts and made intricate little cookies, which took him hours of detail work. We his parents came alongside him and got him the tools he needed to improve his design skills: rose nails, cake design books, icing colorings, icing bags with tips. He would make beautiful designs on the tops of our dinner salads using veggies and beans. We his parents came alongside him and bought him new kinds of beans and veggies for his salads. He also designed things to help his younger brother remember his numbers—like a figure 8 racetrack. We his parents supplied him with pencils, markers, and plenty of construction paper. He liked to watch me sew and would try to use the scraps from my sewing to design animals. We his parents gathered scraps of materials in bags from which he could choose. He would use butcher paper to design roadways on which to run his cars. He used boxes to design space shuttles. We his parents found supplies of butcher paper and kept mailing boxes, cereal boxes, egg cartons, and anything else we thought he might find helpful. He used the computer to design all sorts of pictures. We have a CD full of his designs. We his parents let him use the computer for his projects. In summary, he liked to design. We observed what he did and supplied what he needed.
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We his parents supplied what he needed: cake recipe, fondant icing mix, rose nail, tiered baking pans, and our original wedding cake topper. It took him six hours to bake the cake from scratch, roll out the fondant icing, make each rose on his rose nail, and put our original wedding cake topper on as the grand finale.
He also worked on building ponds in the woods near our house!
My son would design them, and he and his brother would spend hours digging into the hillside with shovels. My husband supplied the know-how and showed them how to make dams on the sides so when it rained, the ponds wouldn’t overflow the banks.
They made a rather large pond with a bridge over it (not for walking on but just for decoration), and then they made boats out of egg cartons and floated them in the pond.
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I have one of his pictures hanging up in a frame (photo to your right); it's just so realistic.
Now in his teens, he also designs Lego figures and sends his designs with a written composition to Lego Company, although nothing has been published so far. He takes photos of his Lego designs and uploads them to a Lego Club page. Then when he became interested in more detailed drawing of the human figure, I showed him how to access our local library through the internet, and he began ordering books on drawing. In 2007, even at age 14, he still sat for hours drawing during our family reading time.
When he became interested in putting his drawings on the computer, I let him use my card design software. The three drawings above are of three of his siblings as superheroes. Now he is more interested in learning about how computers work. As of 2009, he works independently on computer programming. Then parents will be encouraged and blessed
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My son's heart motivation is design, whereas my older daughter's is discovery. My son likes to work through things until they are complete; my daughter seems to leave things undone. But what I learned through her process is that her projects are NOT undone to her. She discovered what she wanted to know, and thus her project is complete based on her heart motivation.
God revealed this to me in 2000 when my 10-year-old daughter was trying to teach herself to knit and crochet. She had oodles of swatches of different knitting stitches. I thought, "Why doesn't the girl make something?" One day she showed me about 20 or so swatches of the different knitting stitches she had attempted. She discussed how she spun the yarn for this one (we have sheep she shears and spins the wool into yarn), and how she found this pattern in a book and attempted to try it.
I asked her to put her swatches in a book so she didn't lose them. And that's where they are to this day: in a book. She was satisfied to discover those stitches and what they were used for. That's all she wanted to know.
Now in 2009, at age 19, she loves the discovery aspect of biophysics and advanced mathematics, her majors in college. Whoever thought developing her interest in the discovery of knitting would be connected to the discovery of physics?
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My younger daughter has always enjoyed drawing, and as of 2007 at the age of nine she began enjoying composing stories. Her drawing had improved tremendously over the years. She has taught herself italics penmanship in 2007 as well, just by practicing from a workbook. She also enjoys photography. I am so excited to see where these interests may lead her.
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Neither my husband nor I can draw a straight line, nor do I enjoy animals (although my husband does) or superheroes, so these interests are truly our children's, not our own. When children are young, if we parents bring them alongside us and show them how we enjoy learning new things, our children will not fear tackling things on their own too. We parents can support our children’s interest by supplying what they need; i.e., coming alongside them. Then if we simply give our children lots of time, we will be amazed at what is in them, put there by their Creator. What an awesome God!
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Waiting on the Lord for those heart motivations to manifest can sometimes panic mom; but as she abides in Christ, she will be content to wait on Him while developing relationship with her children.
He loves to serve and enjoys helping his dad in the garden, mowing the lawn, and being very physical. He is also quite a compassionate young man and cares for all the hurt critters he finds.
I know the Lord has super-duper plans for him... just like He has super-duper plans for each of your children. We just need to learn to see with His eyes how He created our children and tap in to what God already knows.
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Tapping into your children’s heart motivations requires three things:
that You have placed in each of their children.
Help moms to see what You already see,
Help them to
~Psalm 34:8 Other articles in this Discipling Reasoning Children series:
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After that revelation, I began to notice that he designed a lot of things.
When my husband and I 
He also went through a period of drawing various ships over the centuries. I used our library system to supply him with photos and drawings of various ships.
As of 2008, my 12 year-old son's interests have yet to manifest as a tangible product.
