Susan Merrill

Do you ever feel guilty saying “no” to your kids? I do. But if you never said “no” how could you teach your children self-discipline? Think about it. If we as moms never say no to our kids, how will they learn to say no to themselves (and others) later in life?  Self-discipline isn’t self-taught, it’s learned through experience. It’s up to us to show our children how to deal with their emotions when the answer is “no”, and how to handle using the word “no“ with wisdom and responsibility.

So say “no” to your kids without guilt. Be confident in the knowledge that instant gratification won’t help your children learn to make wise choices, but learning to accept – and to say “no” to themselves will build character and self-discipline.

These children were given the opportunity to exercise self-discipline in the Marshmallow Experiment (see below). This would be an interesting experiment to try with your child. Knowing how your child handles a tempting situation will help you in training them for their future.

Can’t view the video? Go here.

If only it were that easy.  Here is a look at a dorm, and a few ideas on what we should have done, year one, with our oldest.  Plus, we have put together a list of what your college student might need to take with them.

Can’t view the video? Go here.

One of my children definitely lives and dreams outside the box. Her individuality became obvious to me her first week of pre-K. She was sent to the wall twice before the end of the first week. My other children had never been sent to the wall, ever, so I was…panicked!

“Honey,” I said, “Merrills don’t get sent to the wall.  What did you do?”

Her response the first time was, “Mommy, Arial Mermaid was playing in my head, and I just had to sing it out.”

Her response the second time was, “Mrs. S. passed out the Play-Doh and I tasted it.”  “Honey,” I said, “I’ve told you that all Play-Doh tastes the same.” “I know, Mommy, but it was a new color and I wanted to make sure.”

To her it made perfect sense and I confess it did to me, too (closet out-of-the-boxer that I am).  However, being the mom I think I need to be, we worked at conforming and she never went to the wall again.

That makes me kind of sad.

It took five years before I let go of conforming and embraced the fact she was born to live outside of the box. And to live outside the box she shouldn’t be sent to the wall; she should be allowed to walk through some walls. Walls that some people don’t understand because their child is focused solely on academics. Walls that some people look down on because it seems too artsy. Walls that some people think are un-cool because it doesn’t involve sports.

She is becoming a fascinating young woman with such diverse potential.  School still gets in her way. It boxes up a lot of her time. But this summer we are going to spend some time dreaming and pursuing dreams. I’m committing to helping her strategically break through walls – pursue ideas – of what she dreams her world could be.

What is your child dreaming of pursuing this summer?  Do you put off their questions and dreams because you are too in the box to consider what they are dreaming? Small dreams when a child is little can lead to big dreams later.

Oh, and my daughter… she’s still singing out whatever plays in her head. She’s the one in red.

Up until recently I would have said sex,  based on what most teen girls are watching on TV. Most popular television shows being viewed by teenagers portray sex as a commonplace activity.  Shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Gossip Girl support the cultural trend for “open relationships” or “friends with benefits.”  For those unused to these terms, they both loosely refer to just that – being  loose (or so we used to call it), or sex without a relationship or commitment of any kind.  In these television shows targeting teenagers, the message is that it is normal for girls today to have sex early and often.  They suggest that physical pleasure is what you dabble in first, and if a relationship develops – well, that’s a bonus!

Recently however, I would have to give love some thought, based on what a lot of girls are reading.  With an estimated 40-50 million copies in circulation, the book Twilight and its three sequels has become a phenomenon that tips the love/sex scale when weighing what girls want. The first three books – over 400 pages each – detail only a handful of kisses and nothing more.  The main characters, Bella and Edward, do eventually have sex in book four, but only after they get married – at his insistence.  Why do they wait? Because Edward loves Bella and has put her moral and physical safety above their desire for physical pleasure.

Here are some excerpts …  I’ve added notes in brackets for clarification.

Edward: “Do you get the feeling that everything is backward?” he laughed in my ear.  “Traditionally, shouldn’t you be arguing my side [getting married], and I yours [premarital sex]?”

Bella: “That’s it isn’t it?” The short laugh that escaped me was more shocked than amused.  “You’re trying to protect your virtue!”  I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle the giggle that followed.  The words were so… old-fashioned.

Edward: “No, silly girl,” he muttered against my shoulder.  “I’m trying to protect yours.  And you’re making it shockingly difficult.”

Bella: “So that’s it.  You won’t sleep with me until we’re married.”

Edward: “Now, I want to do this right.  Please, please, keep in mind that you’ve already agreed to this, and don’t ruin it for me.”

Bella: “Oh, no,” I gasped as he slid down onto one knee.

Edward: “Isabella Swan?” … “I promise to love you forever – every single day of forever.  Will you marry me?”

There is no doubt that there is a market for Edward. Girls love him. He has all the ingredients of a television teenage heartthrob with one exception – he is a virgin and plans to keep it that way.

So, what do girls really want?

Could it possibly be that girls who read have a higher IQ and therefore make better choices than girls who watch TV?  Just joking.  Could it be that we are learning something about girls that media would prefer not to portray?  Perhaps a sitcom about love and purity with sacrificial romance could be as hugely popular as 90210. Or are sex and drama the only way to win ratings?  Author Stephenie Meyer has proved that sex is not the only way to sell books.

Time magazine recently featured an article called The Truth About Teen Girls, which directed some of the blame for what girls watch at us – the parents.

Middle school counselor Julia Taylor of North Carolina had a conversation with her sixth-graders last year that worried her. “A lot of them were watching The O.C.,” she says. “I just remember the show’s multiple sexual partners, the cocaine use, and then at the end, they drink, they drive, they set fires, but all is well! There are never any consequences.”

Taylor understands the media better than many. Her sister Mary is a producer who has worked on MTV shows including ‘My Super Sweet 16’ and ‘Spring Break.’ “I’m messing them up, and she’s fixing them,” says Mary jokingly.

But Mary also suggests that if nobody were watching the shows or buying the products that are advertised on them, they wouldn’t succeed. “We’re not ‘Little House on the Prairie’ anymore,” she says. “The world is different.  If parents said, ‘You can’t watch this,’ and the ratings dropped, maybe we would change things.”

So what does your daughter want – the physical pleasure of sex, risks and all, without emotional baggage like commitment, or does she want to wait to have sex with the man who will love her and commit to her for life? Find out, ask her, advise her and then support her in making her dream come true.  Unless of course she wants to go the sex-for-any-reason route – don’t support that.  Tie her up and work on an arranged marriage!  Just joking.

Either way, I read a great book that may help you talk with your daughter about sex. It’s called For Young Women Only: What You Need to Know About How Guys Think by Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa A. Rice.

TELL US: If you think your daughter is too young to know what she wants, what are you preparing her to want?  How do we prepare them when everything they see is advocating premarital relationships?

I’ve always wanted to adopt. I think my desire began at age 15 while I was working with underprivileged kids. There was a boy named Jason that I had the hardest time sending home every night. I just wasn’t ever sure what kind of condition he’d come back in.

I had three children before my 6th wedding anniversary. I still wanted to adopt. My husband, however, didn’t quite share my desire. We did, after all, have three healthy children. I think it is that way for a lot of people. You’re either very passionate about adoption, or it just doesn’t quite register.

I failed at several attempts to interest him. To be honest, failing is putting it mildly. I took him to some adoption classes and that convinced him we definitely shouldn’t adopt.

Plan B kicked in – I prayed for the Lord to take action. I believed it was possible. I shared with my sister that the Lord was going to have to drop a child in my lap.  A year later, she called on the phone and asked me to go look out my living room window. I said why?  She said “Do you see the church from your window? That’s your lap. They are planning a camp for 30 older children who are coming over from Russia and are available for adoption.” The church was looking for host families for the kids.

My girls and I decided to volunteer for the camp. We played with kids who came over from Russia. Of course, my girls aged 13 and 11 fell in love with two little girls a blonde and a redhead, aged 6 and 5. They begged Mark to go meet the girls in case their host family didn’t adopt them, so that we could. He finally relented, met the girls and while he thought it was crazy to agree to a 5 to 2 female-to-male ratio in our home, he agreed we couldn’t let them go back to Russia permanently. The door began opening!

And then it closed. The family hosting the girls decided to adopt them, so we signed up for the next camp. This time we would host two children, because if we were going to adopt, it would be more fair not to have three biological children and just one adopted child.

When I got the information on the children we would host for the camp, my heart sank. They were exactly the same ages as my youngest daughter and son. It would never work! I would have two girls turning 13 within the year, and all five would be teenagers at the same time! I told the agency that day that we would like children younger than ours. But wouldn’t you know, it was Mark who came home that night and said “Well don’t you think we should at least meet them?” What could I do? If my husband, who hadn’t even been interested in adopting was open to it, who was I to say no.

We agreed to host Yulia and Yura. They arrived a few days after Christmas on a Sunday night and looked pitiful. They came with nothing but layers of winter clothes on. We had bought them clothes and I even chose smaller sizes knowing they would be small, but still missed. Yulia was 12, but size 6x. Yura was sick with a cough and I was already consumed by guilt. What if this didn’t work. The camp was only three weeks and we had to make a decision by Friday so that they could find other families to meet them if we said no.

I woke up Monday morning in a panic. All was quiet.  This was miracle number one, as my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew were staying with us – putting the house total at 11. I sat at my kitchen table in an attempt to get a grip on the panic that threatened to choke me and opened my Bible randomly to Hebrews 11…By faith Abel…by faith Enoch…by faith Noah…by faith Abraham…by faith Isaac…by faith Jacob…by faith Joseph…by faith Moses… I’m not stupid; in other words, by faith I needed to walk through the next four days and see what God revealed. If we decided not to adopt – by faith I would have to trust that God had another plan for these children. Panic gave way to peace.

On Tuesday I took Yulia and Yura to see a friend who spoke Russian. I was dying for a little communication after just 24 hours with them. She chatted away and they were so excited to find someone who understood them. She asked about their parents and how they came to be in the orphanage and then she got a little overexcited. There were 3 more siblings – all younger.

“Where?” I asked. Yura said when he was in the hospital, his sisters came in to get a medical exam because they were going to Florida. That was the only time he had seen them in over a year.

“Florida! What do they look like?” I asked. One had blonde hair, one red.

“What are their names?” They had the same names as the two girls we had fallen in love with in the prior camp. After much excitement and identification through pictures it was confirmed that Yulia and Yura were the older siblings of 2 girls already adopted and living one mile from us.

The agency never guessed they were related; the children had different last names, and were in different orphanages two hours apart. But both sets of siblings were chosen to attend camps in the same city on the other side of the world!

We adopted Yulia and Yura, now named Hannah and Grant. They no longer live hours from their sisters – just one mile away! And, across the street from their two sisters, another family adopted the last child in Yulia and Yura’s family – the baby. It still amazes me that all 5 children are in the same city and I ponder at times what this new life will bring all of them individually and together.

Adoption is an amazing opportunity for a new life.

- Susan Merrill

Scroll down for Susan’s oldest child’s perspective on adoption.