The heart of a Duggar...

Michelle Duggar came to speak in our Bible study class yesterday.  I have been looking forward to hearing her speak for weeks and was so excited to hear what tips she had for moms.  I have had several people ask me about what tips and tricks she had so I decided to blog them!

The normal Bible study class with Michelle and her daughters.

The most important thing I brought away was to have JOY in being a mom and doing the day to day things.  Michelle said that was the most important quality to her for a mother's heart.  I think that is right on and so important.  I always want my girls to feel how loved they are and to know without a doubt that I love being with them. 

Another thing that challenged me was that they do not yell at their kids...not one of the 19!  It can get stressful at times with my two (!) and lets be honest, some days there are alot of meltdowns or talking back!  But I am going to make an effort to not raise my voice in anger.  I don't want my girls to think of me and remember a yelling or nagging mom!  Her saying is "Once I say it, you obey it"!  I have been trying that out with Ryne and she said that maybe if I gave her candy each time she obeyed she would do it the first time!  lol!

Another goal that I have is to make sure that I praise 10x for every correction.  Again, that can be hard especially on those days when meltdowns abound and back talking flows free!  But I think it's a good goal to strive for.

She also said her 3 most important character qualities for kids were attentiveness, obedience, and self-control.  She has a few training tricks to help with those.  For the first two she starts when the kids are very young.  She will call them in a sing-songy voice like "Josie, come here please".  Josie will hear her and answer "Yes mam, I'm coming" then stop what she is doing and run as fast as she can to her.  Of course she will give her a ton of praise and just makes it fun.  The idea is to get the kids in the habit of listening, answering, then obeying.  Her training for self-control is to have a child sit for 5 minutes (not time-out).  She will sit with them at first but then just let them sit by themselves.  If they make it for the allotted time she praises them. She does it so it is just a game but they are practicing using self-control.

She also gave hope to all us moms with strong-willed kiddos.  She said that there is no doubt that they can be harder, but if you get them going in the right direction they will be awesome leaders.  We have always said that Ryne's strong willed nature might drive us crazy now, but it will hopefully allow her to do some great things when she is older.  Jeremy has said that based on our girls personalities we might have a future President and next Mother Teresa!  :)

Michelle brought 5 of her daughters - Jana, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy Anna.  She also brought her daughter-in-law Anna and her baby Michael.  They were all so sweet!  Her older daughters came up to help with question and answer time.  After it was over they stuck around for a group shot and any individual ones.

I snuck a picture on my phone!  I didn't think to bring a camera. :(

 I had to duck out pretty soon after the group shot.  I had a certain little cutie pie that was about due to eat!  :)  Daddy hung out with Reese and Ryne went with me.  She normally goes in Bible Study with me and is a perfect little angel, I just didn't want to chance it this time.  So she had some one on one daddy time...and was a perfect little angel of course! :)