How To Raise A Strong Will Child With The Motivate Your Child Action Plan

      I am a mom of four boys and one girl. The oldest(girl) is 25 and the youngest is 7 so I have been raising kids for a while. In my years of raising my children, I have discovered each child is different in so many ways including their behavior. Each child has required different styles of guiding them to make good choices. My oldest son and my youngest son have been my challenging or strong willed children. They are the ones that require me to seek help from parenting books to to help them to have good behavior. I love my children and I want what is best for them so I seek out books that help me raise them with God in the picture. I want the best for my kids and that means raising them with strong morals so they can be good examples of Christ. I want my children to be able to do what is right without being told. I want to raise my children with a solid Christian foundation.

    I reviewed Motivate Your Child { A Christian Parent's Guide To Raising Kids }earlier this year and really enjoyed reading it. The authors of that book, Dr.Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN , have published another book to go with Motivate Your Child. Their new book Motivate Your Child Action Plan is a follow up companion book that helps parents develop a heart-based strategy plan to help their child with behavior. I love that this book shows parents how to change their child's behavior with biblical resources. 

         The Motivate Your Child Action Plan is a step-by-step guide that helps parents to identify the specific problem and then define a solution that is tailored to the child. I love that the solution involves the input of the child, including them in the plan. I find this works well for my strong willed child as it makes him in control of his behavior and me the parent as the guide. The book has examples of many children with different types of behavior problems. There is also bible verses and work sheets to help the parent and child to be able to make the needed change.

     This picture shows my two youngest boys, the one with the goofy smile is my strong willed child. I was able to use lessons from the book to work through behavior problems with him. My biggest frustration right now with him is his need to always be touching his brother. His touching to him is the way he shows love and excitement but unfortunately it is more like tackling thus hurting his brother. The book has helped me be able to talk to my son, instead of yelling, when he shows this behavior. I enlisted my son in the plan of how I can help him to change the behavior. We can up with a solution together and now I use that plan to help him redirect when he gets rough with his brother. My son and I will be working together to help him be more gentle with his body actions so his older brother will not be hurt. 

      The other day my strong willed child was being mean to his brother and my husbands reaction was to say to him "why are you always so bad!" I discussed with my husband how we should help him instead to change his behavior with the plan that I learned in the book. Later on when my child was being mean again I heard my husband talking to him and helping him to redirect his actions. I love that this book has Christian scripture and worksheets to help me help my child change his behaviors.

     The Motivate Your Child Action Plan helps parents develop a plan that is unique to the child and through teaching, prayer and coaching you will be able to find a strategy to move the child from where he is to where he needs to be. The book helps you to identify an area of weakness and then naming the character quality that needs to grow in your child’s heart. This book will help to build strong relationships with your children and give you tools you need to be able to parent your child in the right direction. The book can be used on all ages of children from toddlers to teens.

The Motivate Your Child Action Plan includes a website that has 12 thirty minute audio sessions that go with each chapter to give you more help with your plan.

Visit their website for more information about the Motivate Your Child Action Plan book.

https://www.biblicalparenting.org/actionplan/default.asp