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It happens to all of us. We cozy up with our kids and a good book expecting a blissful Morning Time of family learning when all of a sudden, “He hit me!” erupts from the couch. How are we supposed to focus on truth, goodness, and beauty with bickering, punching, and yelling are going on in our living room? Is it even worth the effort when all our kids want to do is duke it out in Morning Time? Let’s get some strategies and talk about that very topic today with our guest Lynna Sutherland.

Pam: This is Your Morning Basket where we help you bring truth, goodness, and beauty to your homeschool day. Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 109 of the Your Morning Basket podcast. I’m Pam Barnhill, your host. And I am so happy that you are joining me here today. On today’s episode of the show, we are dealing with one of those things that we all deal with. Every single family that homeschools every single family that does Morning Time, we all have issues sometimes with our children bickering and fighting when we are trying to do family learning. And that is exactly the thing that we’re going to be talking about on today’s episode of the show. Now I have my good friend, Lynna Sutherland here from the sibling relationship lab, and she’s going to be talking about some strategies you can use to reduce the number of times that your kids might fight and bicker, and then ways that you can reach their heart and Morning Time as well to get to the heart of some of the issues that are really going on when the fighting and the bickering happen. So I think you’re really going to love this particular episode of the podcast. 

Now, also today’s show is brought to you by our free month of Morning Time sample Morning Time plans. So come on over to Pambarnhill.com/month and download our free sample of Morning Time plans and start adding just a little bit of truth, goodness, and beauty to your homeschool day. We have planned everything out for you. We’ve laid it all out to make it super easy. You can get the plans and just start with one or two things and slowly, gradually build your Morning Time into a habit that you and your entire family will love. That’s at Pambarnhill.com/month. And now on with our interview.
Lynna Sutherland is a mother of eight, always homeschooled kiddos. She loves encouraging moms in the freedom of homeschooling and the blessings of gospel-centered relationship building. Lynna writes at siblingrelationshiplab.com and is the host of the Sibling Relationship podcast.
Lynna, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks for having me, Pam. It’s good to be here.
I am so glad that you are here because I need help with the topic that we’re talking about today. Not just because people ask me about it because we need help in my family. And so today’s topic is all about kids that don’t get along in Morning Time. I have people ask me all the time. I want to do Morning Time. This is something that I think would just be great for my family, but my kids are always fighting. They’re always bickering with each other. I just want to quit. How do I make the bickering stop? Is it something that I’m doing wrong?
No. Kids are human beings, right? So they’re gonna have their own struggles, just like we do. And one of the things I was thinking about as I was getting ready to come on here is how frustrating it can be when you’re trying to do Morning Time and they’re fighting. In our minds, Morning Time is we’re just going to soak in the true and the good and the beautiful, and it’s just going to be like this Sonlight catalog moments in our homeschool. And we will just begin our day so inspired with all these things. And so to have that be a time of tension and people are fighting, everything can be super discouraging, but I’m glad you mentioned that you have that struggle. I’ve definitely had that struggle. So I think first thing is to remember that this is pretty typical, even I’m sure the moms in the Sonlight catalog, their kids fight with each other. So it’s not, if you’re having kids that are bickering, it’s not, oh, I missed the memo or page two was missing from my instruction manual. Or I somehow don’t know the secret that all the other moms know, because this is something that we all deal with from time to time and in different phases and seasons of parenting.
Yeah, I do. I think it, there are times when I notice that it’s worse in times when it’s better. And I think for years and years, I think one of the things that really helped us was we moved to the table and did Morning Time at the table. And when my kids were younger, just that kind of giving them a space there where they were occupied with something else with their hands really helped.
Now that they’re surly teenagers, they don’t necessarily want him to be sitting there doing something with their hands. And so I think we fall into the idle hands are the devil’s workshop kind of area.
Yeah.
So I have, now that you say that I have seen it come and go with seasons and, but yeah, I think it’s good to hear it’s not just one person. It’s not just me. It’s not just you, everybody struggles with this from time to time. Yeah. Okay. So is it bad? What can we do about this?
Yeah. So I think the first step is, is step back in, evaluate if there’s something that you can do practically, just to eliminate unnecessary struggles.
So what you just mentioned, oh, we’re going to sit at the table and everybody’s going to have something to do with their hands. Yeah. That doesn’t touch on the heart issues. It doesn’t fix characters, but that’s okay. Not everything has to be a lesson that you take all the way to the extreme in every situation. Sometimes you just eliminate struggles.
So if you’ve got, I know some moms use binders for Morning Time where they have the memory work or the songs that they’re singing. If two kids are sharing a binder and they’re tussling over it. Get another binder, just little practical things that you can do. There’s no shame. I know some moms have said, oh, I feel like that’s cheating. I should make them learn how to work together. Like mama, you will have infinite opportunities for your children to learn how to work together. It’s okay to say, the same thing when moms say, well, they always fight over who sits where in the car, if you’re in a hurry on the way to church, you say, you sit there, be quiet. We’re going to church. Like not everything has to be a, let’s make this into a big relationship experience where we talk about our feelings and we work out all the character issues that we have going on. So if you can eliminate little things like that, another one that I’ve noticed, and this might be relevant, especially as you said, if you’ve got older kids, I got to the place where people’s bodies were different. So they were sleeping and waking up at different times. So my kids range in age from 16 to four, right? So the little ones are up at six and ready to run a marathon. And the 16 and 15-year-olds would like to sleep until noon. And so trying to get everybody into one place at one time was challenging because I’m trying to herd along the older ones, wake up, eat your breakfast. Did you brush your teeth yet? Do your chores. And the little ones I’ve already been sitting there for 10 minutes and they’re starting to lose it. And we haven’t even started Morning Time yet. So what we ended up having to do was to switch to a different time of the day, where everybody was into their day. And I could just grab them and say, come on, let’s do this. And then you can go back to your thing. So there wasn’t this big discrepancy of who was ready and who was awakened friendly and ready to be around other human beings and little tweaks like that, that you can do are just, just practical things that can help to ease the tensions.
And another thing with the sitting at the table, I’ve noticed with sometimes having individual chairs versus the sofa situation. Because again, just like clear boundaries, this is your seat. This is not your seat. Whereas when you’re on the sofa, like his toes are on my seat. He’s I’m supposed to be in. Or I know Amy Sloan has talked about how the kids were fighting over, who sits next to mom. Okay. We’ll make up a rotation, just rotate through again, it doesn’t always have to be like, oh, we’re going to deal with the heart of the issue. And we’re going to have a character growth moment. Like it’s okay to just make use of as many different practical strategies as you can to help this be a calm, smooth time and like with anything else, I think if you’ve gotten into a rut and I would say this, if it was math, I would say this. If it was any other area of homeschooling, pull back, do as much as you can do successfully. So even if that means you have a five-minute Morning Time, right? We’re all gonna get together. We’re all going to say the Lord’s prayer. And then we’re going to sing the song that we all like, hooray. What a lovely Morning Time have a nice day guys. And that’s not to say you have to stay there forever, but sometimes especially if the kids are like, oh morning, okay. We kind of need to reset that a little bit like the schooling, but you’re having to do that in your own homeschool, pull back, do just what you can do to feel like you’ve ended on a happy note, send everybody on their way. Like what Sarah Mackenzie says with reading books, stop at the end of the chapter. If they want more good, don’t read anymore. Tell them like, oh, now you’re looking forward to it for tomorrow. You have to come back tomorrow for the rest. So yeah, those are some kind of the practical strategies you can.
I’d love that. I love the always leave them wanting more. It’s so important. And then I love that. You’re like, it’s okay. It’s okay to focus on the practical. We don’t have to always be changing hearts here. Sometimes we do need to get through our day and that’s completely okay. And then you mentioned the going to church that made me think about a couple years ago, my kids would, we would be going to music lessons and it was always a thing. It was always a thing of who’s going to go first. I had two kids doing music lessons and it was always, who’s going to go first and who’s going to go second. And we tried to do a rotation. Now I realized music lessons is not sitting next to mom, but we were trying to do a rotation. And finally, I just got tired of the rotation. It was a constant, I did it first. Last time I did it. And I just said, you go first every week. And that’s just the way it is. Sorry. That’s just one of those things.
Like one of my husband’s favorite, one of my husband’s favorite lines, I believe this is a quote from Ben Franklin, but I might be misattributing, but the quote is “be governed by God or by God, you’ll be governed.” If you have the maturity to work this out on your own, that’s fabulous. You guys can trade. Who goes first? You guys can take turns sitting next to mom, whatever. But if you’re not going to demonstrate that you’re able to handle that level of responsibility, sorry, I gotta be the boss and be in charge and make the decision.
Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And some, and it’s okay. It’s okay to just make a decision. You are not going to scar your children for life, right. And making a decision and saying, this is what you’re going to do at this time. You’re talking, maybe think about our couch and how it’s horrible. That the people who make couches, they make three cushions on a couch. And I have two children who need to sit on the couch and there is no way to divide those three cushions fairly and equitably.
I just need like custom couch. Do you want this space divided into five cushions? Four cushions, two cushions.
Yeah, exactly. It’s always a struggle. And so finally I just looked at him and said, you’re the biggest person. You get two cushions. And you’re the small person. You get one cushion. I’m sorry, it’s over. We’re not talking about how much room.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. I love that. Okay. So other than our practical issues, what if we’re doing our Morning Time and all of a sudden tensions start to escalate as the mom, I’m sure this would never happen with anybody else other than me. But as the mom, I feel myself getting all tense inside, and maybe dragon yelling mom is about to come out or maybe even I’m fairly calm and I need to call my kid what are some things that we can do?
Yeah. So actually, one of the things that I think is really wonderful about homeschooling is that we all are going to see each other struggles, which doesn’t sound super wonderful. But one of the things I’ve talked to moms a lot about before is what do I do if I have this one kid who has this struggle and how do I talk to the siblings about it?
And I think that there’s this sense of, I don’t want to gossip. I don’t want to talk bad about one kid to another kid. And there’s some wisdom there and being careful how you talk about your other children. But when we see our yuckiness on display in front of each other all the time, it’s not a matter of gossip. It’s that this child struggles with getting very upset when they think someone’s laughing at them or that this child struggles with being cheerful first thing in the morning, we don’t have to pretend like it’s a super big secret what everybody else’s struggles are. And we have an opportunity to observe that. And it’s a great time to practice even just reminding kids. One of the things I’ve been talking a lot about recently is surprise. So oftentimes when we have a conflict in our house, it’s not because something like super evil and terrible happen. It’s because there’s some surprise. I thought I was going to sit in that chair today, but someone else is there. It’s just, you’re caught off guard. And so then you have these emotions that kind of are erupt because you’re like, oh, I didn’t know that person was going to sit there.
I didn’t know that we have to do this. And Morning Time video. I thought we’re going to do something else or whatever those emotions can come up. And so they tell you if you’re angry, count to 10 before you say anything, that’s a really good strategy to use when someone else is upset too. So this child is just sitting in a chair, someone else walks in, discovers that they’re in the chair they thought they were going to get from Morning Time, and day react. And so the child who’s already in the chair can be helped to learn, instead of just saying, no, this is my, see, how is he? Okay. Obviously, this child has had a surprise and they’ve got some feelings that happen all of a sudden, just give it a second. Might need to calm down for a moment. And you can also encourage what the other children like. Okay. So we’ve got some big feelings. What do we do when we’ve got big feelings, we can count backwards from 10. We can breathe.
Have the kids do something with their hands, the fold, your hands, and then move your fingers one at a time. Just something that kind of gives them a chance, something else to focus on so that they can cool down for a minute. And as you said, Pam, sometimes we’re experiencing those same things. And I think one of the best ways ever to talk to our kids about emotions and struggles like that is to use ourselves as an example, because nobody wants to sit in a room where you’re dressing down one person. They’re the bad example in the story. But if you’re using yourself, then nobody else feels like they’re being called out. And it helps them to remember that struggling with feelings or being kind to somebody when they’re not doing what you wish they would do. It’s not something that you stop struggling with because you turn 18 or because you’re a grownup sized body or something like we all are continuing to struggle with this. This is normal. This is growing in this world. This is learning to live in love with other people who are human and sinful, just like we are.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So some really great strategies there. I want to unpack. I love the fact of, like you said, describe it. You said the reason the person gets upset is because it’s a surprise to them. And I think that’s a great way to describe it to other kids because they’ve all felt that way. They’ve all been in that spot where they didn’t really intend to be upset this morning. They just came downstairs and somebody else was drinking out of the blue cup and they had been wanting, or somebody ate the last of the Honey Nut Cheerios. And they had really been wanting Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. And so now they’re surprised by it. And I think that’s something that everyone can relate to. But I also love the idea that if it’s the other person who’s surprised and upset, you count backwards from 10 because that’s often what happens in my house is it’s the one, it’s the one person who gets upset, and then it just, they fall like dominoes and everybody gets upset.
If you can stop and think about counting to 10 before you get and just, Hey, that other person was surprised. Let me just step back for a minute. I think it could really be helpful in cutting the tension actually as a mom, I’m thinking, oh yeah, Let me count.
I know it’s definitely my MO that I have to fight against when I see a child being angry like that. I want to step in, no, this is not how you respond. This is, and if I had just given 10 seconds, they might’ve been able to come to that conclusion themselves. They might’ve just been able to cool down a minute and go, oh, okay. That person wasn’t really doing anything malicious or intentionally unkind. It just happened. Circumstances worked out such that I didn’t get the thing I thought I was going to have.
Yeah. Yeah. I had one come up to me the other day and apologize for being grumpy at the beginning of Morning Time. So this was at the end of Morning Time. And they came up at the, at the end and apologize for being grumpy at the beginning. And I’m like, wow. And that the reasoning was I’m sorry. I just, I wasn’t able to go to sleep last night and that’s not how it started. It didn’t start with this explanation of, my teenage body is so out of sorts, I wasn’t able to fall asleep. It started as really grumpy talking back kind of stuff like that. But it ended with, I’m sorry that I was like that. And so we do eventually get there.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s ideally what you want in the long run, because even if you can, with the eyes of a mom, look and go, I know exactly what’s going on here. They didn’t sleep well last night, now they’re taking it out on the siblings. Like I could explain this to them A to Z. And they, I could show them exactly where they went wrong and what choices they made and blah, blah, blah. But if they don’t see it, then they often just wind up feeling picked on or like you’re being unfair to them. And so if they come to the place where they can see for themselves, oh yeah, this is the connection and this is how I handled it.
What do you do? Like you’re passionate about Morning Time, and it’s really important to you. And it seems every time you try it, it is just not worth it. Should you keep trying?
I think this is the same with anything else in homeschooling, we hear about something and we think, yes, this is good. This is important. I really want to do this in my homeschool. And then you have to put boots on the ground. So what does that going to look like? What am I going to include? How am I going to, and then we get down the road where Morning Time is now this thing, it’s these six activities.
And we do this. And, and we get so focused on doing those things that we forget the why. Why did we originally start this? What was our original goal? And if your goal is, I really want my children, I don’t want homeschooling to be about them, just checking boxes and getting the next lesson done and finishing the third-grade book and whatever I want them to love learning.
Then, you know, if Morning Time truly is making them hate learning, then yeah. I think you need to step back from it if you’re impeding your original goals. But I think oftentimes what’s happening is it’s not Morning Time itself. That’s making them hate learning. We’ve just gotten stuck in a rut or something. We need to change things up a little bit, but what really helps us cause that, you know, again, you think A, I really want my children to love learning and to observe the true and the good and the beautiful, what is that going to look like B, it’s going to look like we do these things. Well C those things are, we’re getting into a lot of conflict and people are unhappy.
And instead of going back to A, I want them to enjoy these things, to appreciate beauty and truth and goodness, how do I do that? We go back to B, I have to make, B work. Instead of saying my original goal was this, is there just a different way to do that right now?
Oh, I liked that.
Yeah. I like that a lot. Okay. So a little bit off script here. I’m going to throw something at you because this happens sometimes. What happens if Morning Time is great for 90% of the family and there’s just the one kid.
Yeah. And I think actually I was going to say a lot of times that’s what’s happening and we can, as moms, we can be like, oh, Morning Time is awful. But if you lay in bed at night and you’re thinking like, oh, I got to wake up tomorrow and do Morning Time is gonna be awful. The thing about it is it really like, what’s awful about it or what’s making you dread it because sometimes it really is like just one kid who is having a really tough time.
It’s not really like everything of Morning Time is failing, but that kind of dark cloud settles over your you’re thinking about Morning Time. And you’re like, oh, Morning Time is awful. But no, it’s just this one, this one piece, or this one child who’s really struggling. And I would say that’s a good time to have a conversation with them independently.
And depending on their age, if they’re little and you need, you may need to do some problem solving for them. Okay. You’re just going to sit in the high chair and play with Play-Doh during this time. Or maybe you have to do something for awhile, just do Morning Time in a room where most people can sit, but one person can, the little person can run around and play or something like that. But if it’s an older child, who’s able to articulate what their concerns are. Then I think that’s a really good opportunity to bring them along the path of not just do it because I said, but like, why are we doing this? What’s our goal, and help them to see your vision for homeschooling, I don’t want homeschooling to just be filling out worksheets for you. I want you to have the opportunity to engage with big ideas and think about things and appreciate the beauty of God’s world and creation. Whatever’s driving you to do Morning, time, help them to come on board with that and then see if there’s anything they can share with you about why is it difficult?
So maybe it’s a teenager. Who’s just having a super hard time wanting to sing hymns at seven in the morning, or maybe it’s a child who’s feeling really anxious that I’m not going to get my schoolwork done. If I have to keep sitting here and other people are taking too long to get here and it’s wasting away my day and I wish I could, whatever. Then maybe you need to readjust expectations for that child. Or maybe they can do their handwriting work while you’re singing songs and Morning Time, or just something where you’re acknowledging like, okay, I hear you. I get why this is frustrating for you. How can we do this? So that we’re achieving the goals that I think are important, but also acknowledging your particular needs or what challenges this is posing for you.
Yeah, I know that’s a big thing that comes up a lot. When moms are trying to start Morning Time later, they discovered the practice. They’ve fallen in love with the idea that it’s everything they really wanted their homeschool to be. And then you have this. I always pick on the 11-year-old boy. I’ve had two. So you have the 11-year-old boy whose mom, I really just want to get done and go outside and ride my bike. Please don’t add on more things. And we always try to get them to say, Hey, first of all, choose something that, that 11-year-old boy is really going to enjoy doing first, don’t start with Shakespeare or poetry, but get like architecture or something. Really.
There’s a lot of beauty in that. But then also Morning Time is not always just about adding more things on. It’s also about replacing some other things well. Or my 12-year-old boy likes to pull out his cursive book during Morning Time. And just go ahead and get that box checked for the day. And there’s nothing. There’s nothing that stops him from doing that. It’s something he can practice that copy work while we’re reciting. So I think, yeah, being aware of their time and being mindful of their time and I’m searching for a different word and I’m not finding it respectful of their time, maybe even as well.
So we’ve talked a lot about kind of these coping strategies for Morning Time, but let’s talk about Morning Time as an opportunity for really fostering some of these sibling relationships. Because I like to say all the time Morning Time is about relationship. That’s a large part of why we come together and learn as a family because we do have these wonderful jokes as much as we fight. Okay. They fight. I don’t fight as much as they fight. There are still some great laughs that come out of Morning Time and some wonderful discussions and shared stories and just things I wouldn’t trade for the world. That’s what makes it worth it for me to do it. If we’re going to get there, can we use Morning Time as a way to shore up some of these sibling relationships that need to be nurtured and how?
Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of thoughts there. First of all, you know, we say in homeschooling in general that you need to be a student of your child. And we typically think of that in terms of, oh, what’s their learning style or what time of day do they have the most focus and attention or things like that? We think of it academically. But of course, that’s especially true with our children in terms of their hearts and what they’re dealing with. Because I think as moms, as homeschool moms, especially we’re super good at like troubleshooting.
Okay, we’re having this issue. We’re going to rearrange the schedule. We’re going to do this thing. We’re going to, as we said before, find to use practical strategies, but we have to slow down in our thinking enough to observe our individual children. And where are they struggling? What are they working on? What are the things that they’re conflict we think about happening in between two people, but there’s nothing there’s only air between two people. Conflicts really happen in one heart and in another heart. And if we’re really going to get to the bottom of the conflict, where especially if there’s like a repetitive conflict, that’s coming up over and over again, like we see these two kids are always fighting about this thing. Then going back to what’s going on in this heart and what’s going on in that heart and helping them to understand that.
And it might not be something that you talk about with them in Morning Time. But again, like you’re all there together. As a family, mom is observing this. You’re seeing these patterns and these interactions, and it’s helping you to understand what’s going on or what might be the particular temptation or struggle that’s driving some of these conflicts. This is a great opportunity to pray for one another.
And I don’t mean make it weird. Please help Johnny be stopped, being such a jerk. Please help Susie to care about her school work and work harder. If you can ask them to request something that they’d like prayer for, and it doesn’t have to be deep. It doesn’t have to be, they don’t have to be aware of their character issues or whatever, but just by requesting prayer, I hope I can play with my robot mermaid today. Then they’re just hearing each other’s needs and interests. And it’s really powerful to hear your sibling pray for you. Something that you’ve said is important to you. And then dear Lord, please help Paisley a lot to be able to play with her robot mermaid today. Just it’s just an opportunity. It’s a simple way to serve one another to show that you care for one another.
Morning Time is also probably the best time to talk about relationship things because we know with test anxiety, you can understand something, but then the anxiety of the moment and being tested on it can put it all out of your head. And you’re not able to remember recall what you know, and all that. The same thing is true about being able to teach our children big lessons when they’re in the moment of a conflict. So when they’re in conflict and they’re afraid they’re going to get in trouble, or they’re afraid they’re not going to get to sit in the front seat or whatever it is they’re tussling over is really not an ideal time for them to learn big life lessons and think about their emotions and all that, that really needs to happen outside the time of conflict. And so if you can do some of that during Morning Time, it doesn’t feel like, you know, oh, we’re just having this discussion because just pull the sister’s hair. And so now we have to have a big family meeting and talk about kindness. And yet it’s something that you fold in as a regular part of your day, and talking about emotions or talking about relationships or smoothing versus ruffling. Think about a feather when you have a feather on a bird and you can smooth versus ruffle. So if you have to talk to somebody about something hard, or if they’re upset, are you, is your language smoothing or is it ruffling? So you’re doing this, not in a way where any one person feels like they’re on the spot. It’s just a regular part of the conversation. And even just a regular part of the conversation to talk about your inner thought life and your emotions, because in some families, that’s not like a regular thing that kids are used to thinking about. Yeah. What was I thinking when I did that? Or what, what emotions were driving that decision. It’s just not something that’s regularly discussed. So Morning Time can be a great time to just sprinkle in some of those discussions.
Books are a fabulous way to do that. One of my favorites is Wonder because it does such a great job of you see the story from one person’s perspective. And you’re like, oh, he’s the bad guy. And then you read further and you’re like, oh wow. He was dealing with something we didn’t realize. And you’re looking at the same scenario from different people’s perspectives and learning essentially empathize that different people are dealing with different issues. That’s causing them to have different reactions.
Yeah. Yeah. I liked that idea of using the books and the literature or something like that, feather just, which are, maybe you’re doing nature study. Maybe you’re not, maybe you just pick up a feather one day and say, see, I’m going to do this and this, and it’s not okay. Now we’re going to have this big lesson on kindness. But using those little object kinds of things or literature to spark that conversation and bring it up. Yeah. So I do like that.
That, that’s a really great suggestion,
Lynna, thank you so much for coming on today. I have a prediction that this is just going to be a really big listened to episode because I know this is something that not just I struggle with, but lots of other people struggle with as well. And you have given us some wonderful suggestions and another way that you can bring these kinds of conversations into your Morning Time is through some devotionals. Lynna has her Sibling Investigations Devotionals, which you can find on her website at siblingrelationshiplab.com. These are a great fit for your Morning Time, because they’re a little devotional that you’re going to be able to do and have some of these conversations and ask your kids some questions away from the conflict. And if you use the code Basket25, you can get 25% off any of these until February 28th.
So do go over and check some of those out and add, maybe add one or two of those to your Morning Time. So it’s good to know I’m not alone. Thank you for coming today.
Definitely not alone. Everything I’ve shared here today is right out of the trenches, right? Like how do I have all these thoughts? These are things I’m dealing with in my homeschool every day and scratching my head and what should I do about this?
Awesome.
Thanks for having me.
And there you have it. Now, if you would like links to any of the resources that Lynna and I chatted about today, you can find them on the show notes for this episode of the podcast. That’s at Pambarnhill.com/ymb109. And also over there, you can find a link to our month of Morning Time at sample plans that you can download absolutely free.
I will be back again in a couple of weeks with another great homeschooling interview. I hope you join us until then keep on seeking truth, goodness, and beauty in your homeschool day.

Links and Resources from Today’s Show

A Month of Morning Time Ready-Made PlansPinA Month of Morning Time Ready-Made PlansSibling Relationship Lab PodcastPinSibling Relationship Lab PodcastWonderPinWonder

 

Key Ideas about Why Kids Fight in Morning Time

Everyone has challenges with their kids in Morning Time. It’s part of normal family life. If we step back and evaluate the root of our Morning Time struggles we can find ways to eliminate them.

You don’t have to use every sibling struggle as a learning experience. There will be plenty of opportunities in parenting to address heart issues in our children. Sometimes, it’s better to settle the conflict.

One of the other advantages that we have in homeschooling is the ability to see each other at our worst. Though this isn’t easy, it’s an opportunity to learn to love others, even when they are at their worst.

You can use Morning Time to talk about heart issues with everyone outside of a specific conflict. If we as moms are taking the time to reflect on what is going on in our children’s hearts we can address those things in a non-threatening way during Morning Time.

Find What you Want to Hear

  • [2:25] Meet Lynna Sutherland
  • [5:03] What Do We Do About the Bckering in Morning Time
  • [10:41] When Tensions Get High
  • [16:51] When It Doesn’t Feel Worth It
  • [22:19] Building Relationships in Morning Time
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