Taught at a calm moment
Explain it. Show it. Practice it together. Let your child try it. Have him teach it back to you.
Nine Skills
The nine places family life goes wrong, and what to teach your child for each one.
Aimed past the house.
Obedience holds up peace, and peace holds up a life lived on mission: Loving God and others.
You know that
kitchen floor.
Around four in the afternoon you run out of what you have, and the house asks for more anyway.
By nine at night the same sentence arrives: I am overwhelmed, and this is a long way from what I pictured.
Who I built this for
Some afternoons end with you sitting on it.
Then you get up.
You refuse to live there. You work hard and you are willing to work harder. You love Jesus, you love His Word, and you love the people He put in this house. What you are missing is a plan, and a missing plan is a fixable problem.
That is the reason I built this.
The problem is that you are guessing.
You have been blaming yourself for something that was never a character problem.
Nobody ever taught you how to do this.
I bought an IKEA bookshelf and had a baby in the same week. The bookshelf came with a 47-step manual. The baby came with a nurse who rolled me out to my car and said, "You've got this."
From that day forward you are teaching a person how to be human. How to listen, how to speak kindly, how to share, how to handle being told no, how to settle a fight. Nobody handed you a method for any of it, so you piece one together from blogs and books and reels, late at night, on your own.
Some of that advice tells you to get tougher and others say softer. But here's what you've found: Domineering parenting hands you order at the cost of warmth. Gentle parenting hands you warmth at the cost of order. You want both, because connection is what you are actually after, and both belong together.
You are carrying
two questions
A mother should never have to figure this out on her own.
You give the same correction for the ninth time before lunch.
Your child runs off in a parking lot and your heart stops.
You spend the days managing your children instead of enjoying them.
How do I stay close to my children and still parent them well?
How do I teach my children to obey, and also teach them faith, love, service, compassion, and grit?
You are confident in almost every other room of your life. Motherhood is the one place you second-guess yourself all day long.
The idea everything rests on
The hard moment is a terrible classroom.
You teach the parking lot at the kitchen table and the sibling repair on a Saturday morning, and your child holds the skill before he needs it.
Here is the reason parenting still feels this hard: nearly all of it gets taught mid-tantrum, mid-fight, mid-meltdown. High emotion makes for poor teaching conditions, so those lessons mostly evaporate.
Children learn when the stakes are low, the parent is joyful, and the practice feels like play. So we move the teaching earlier.
Nearly every hard hour in your house belongs to one of these nine.
What you will learn to teach
The course teaches all of them, in order, beginning with the one that holds up the rest.
Two minutes. You find out where God is meeting you right now, and you get skill one taught start to finish.
01 Attention and response
You say his name once. He stops, looks at you, and waits. Teach this one first, because the other eight get easier once it is in place.
04 Independence
Children who take care of their own things and help run the house.
07 Staying close and safe
Parking lots, crowds, and the child who bolts.
02 Transitions and flexibility
Turning off the screen, leaving the park, moving from one thing to the next without a fight.
05 Respect and tone
The words he chooses and the tone he uses with the people around him.
08 Daily routines
Mornings, bedtimes, the scaffolding that holds a whole day upright.
09 Relational formation
Sibling conflict, repair, forgiveness. The goal the other eight exist to serve.
06 Social awareness
The behavior outside of the home at grocery store, the restaurant, a room full of adults.
03 Emotional regulation
the meltdown that runs its course and ends, without taking the afternoon with it.
The training runs two directions
Steady what is coming apart. Train toward who they are becoming.
Both directions run on the same nine skills.
01
Steady what is coming apart
Start with the hour your day falls apart, and train the skill that holds it together. The meltdown at the store. The child who runs off. The correction you give nine times before lunch.
02
Train toward who they are becoming
Then ask who your children are growing into, and train for that on purpose. You start from the home you want and work back, so the training reaches past the problem standing in front of you.
What every session rests on
Four pillars hold the whole method up.
01
A child learns from someone he trusts. Everything else sits on top of this.
Connection and safety
Joyful proactive teaching
02
You teach in the calm, ahead of the moment, while everyone is in a good mood.
Role-play and repetition
03
He practices the skill as a game until his body knows it.
Life-giving encouragement
04
He hears what he did well, so the next repetition costs him less.
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6, ESV
The word God uses is train. Training means showing someone how to do something, and then practicing it with them until they can do it on their own.
The language of obedience we teach
First. Fully. For love.
First.
Fully.
For love.
We obey the first time we are asked.
We obey completely, holding nothing back.
We obey because we are deeply loved by God, and our obedience answers that love.
A child learns that obedience rests on trusting the One who loves him most. Love comes first, and obedience follows.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14:15, ESV
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18, ESV
Who I am
Hi, I'm Meg.
My peers agreed with everything and offered nothing. The generation above me told me to cherish it. The books gave me theory. The courses gave me tools with God left out. The church gave me depth with no answer for five o'clock.
So I built it myself, over many years, raising seven children and documenting everything along the way.
What I found is that the hard moment is a terrible classroom. Children learn when the stakes are low and their mother is joyful, which means the training happens ahead of time, on purpose, in nine specific skills.
I am obsessed with this because a mother should never have to figure it out on her own, and because the most ordinary days are doing the most eternal work.
Mother of seven. Married to Matt. A pastor's wife for more than twenty years. Sixteen years building and testing this method in my own home. Communication degree with an emphasis in conflict resolution, University of Oklahoma. Trained through the Soul Care Institute. Finishing coaching certification. Author of With All Joy. Featured by Focus on the Family, The Courage, and FaithIt.
Featured in
Mothers are guessing at how to raise their children. I teach them the nine skills a child needs, at a calm moment before the hard moment comes, so a home runs on a plan and a mother's eyes come up.
Where we start
We start with you.
Before I hand you a single parenting tool, I want to take care of you.
When a mother is running on empty, she starts needing things from her children. She needs them to obey so she can feel steady. She needs the day to go well so she can feel like she is doing a good job. Her children feel that need, and it lands on them as pressure.
The problem there is what you are running on, rather than who you are.
A mother who is full gives differently. She has patience left when her four-year-old needs it. She forgives quickly. She can be kind to the child who has been unkind to her all morning, because she is handing out what she already has plenty of.
That filling comes from time with God before the day starts.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. —Psalm 23:5, ESV
So the course starts with you, and it turns toward your children from there. That order holds through all ten sessions.
Three steps, in order.
how this works
Here is where the journey takes you
01
Hard days
Shrink your world down to the walls of your house.
02
Training
Takes the hard parts out, one skill at a time.
You are ready
05
For whatever God asks you to do next.
04
And start seeing the people outside your door.
You look up
03
And you start enjoying your children again.
Your hours return
Two minutes. You find out where God is meeting you right now, and you get your first skill taught start to finish.
1
take the free assessment
Four minutes a day, played as a game, while everyone is in a good mood.
2
Teach that one skill this week
All nine skills, in order, with printed workbooks and other mothers doing it alongside you.
3
Take the full course with me
What I promise you
Here is how I will treat you along the way
- Everything I give you can be used the same day.
- I will ask a lot of you, because I am certain you can do this.
- You matter here as much as your children do. You are a soul being formed alongside them, and every session treats you that way.
- Jesus is in the middle of every lesson, rather than added at the end.
Real mothers. Real change.
what other mothers say
Four mothers finished the first Intensive group, and the next one is filling now.
She pointed us back to Christ every single time.
It gave me direction as a parent, with encouragement and practical tools I can actually use on a normal day.
Kinsey H.
First Intensive group
four children
Teaching my children turned out to be fun instead of exhausting.
Every conversation with her leaves me wanting more for my home. More joy, more peace, more laughter, more purpose.
Vanessa S.
First Intensive group
four children
She taught me to reach my children's hearts, not just their behavior.
She is right there with you in the hard parts, full of practical tools, and she gave me hope for who my children are becoming.
Lindsey D.
First Intensive group
five children
This was discipleship, rather than just information.
It changed how I follow Christ, how I love my husband and children, and how I see the whole job of being a mother.
Natalie O.
First Intensive group
four children
Community-first brands
Belonging with very little instruction
You have been to everyone else already
You have tried six versions of this already.
What you found
Where it stopped
Truth and encouragement brands
Comfort for the feeling, silence on the ordinary morning
Practical parenting brands
Better responses to problems already underway
Formation and discipleship brands
Heart posture with the tools left out
Emotional health and mentoring
Your inner world tended, your afternoon untouched
Biblical conviction with rhythms
Conviction and a schedule, with the skill still missing
The practical, the spiritual, and the relational held together in one place, organized as a method you can actually run, aimed at something far beyond a well-behaved child.
Everyone else helps you respond. I train you before.
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
These years are going to pass either way.
A mother who keeps guessing spends them repeating herself, and reaches her child's tenth birthday still having the same arguments.
Teaching a skill at four takes a fraction of the effort it takes at eleven. At four, your child is delighted to practice with you. At eleven, he has seven more years of habit to undo.
You are changing too. The woman you become in these years is the one your children will remember.
The full course
The Signature Method
All nine skills, taught in order, with the exact words to say and the games to play. It starts with you, because everything else depends on a mother who is steady.
$199 as a founding member, or two payments of $110. The price goes to $249 when this enrollment window closes.
10 teaching sessions you keep for life
Printed workbooks to write in
The Family Mission Statement Builder
All nine skills, taught in order
Try it for 30 days. If your home looks the same, email me and I will refund you in full.
Ready for something smaller first? Try the 3-Day Reset.
The questions I get most
Before you decide
Every year you have left is workable. A skill trained at four costs a fraction of what it costs at eleven, and it still costs far less than another decade of the same conversation. Start with attention and response, and build from there.
Four minutes of practice a day and one teaching session a week. It replaces hours you already spend on repetition.
This trains a mother in a skill rather than applying a technique to a child. That is why it transfers across temperaments: it starts with attention and response, which every child can learn.
Common, and workable. He is welcome on any live call. Most couples find the shared language does more than the shared rules.
where this is going
God has work for you outside your house too.
You were made to carry the gospel to the people around you. The lonely neighbor. The exhausted new mother at church. The friend in a hard season. A mother who is overwhelmed every single day has nothing left for any of that, and she runs short at home as well.
She looks well to the ways of her household. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
Proverbs 31:20, 27, ESV
Right now
Bracing yourself for the day. Repeating yourself. Piecing together a disconnected parenting approach late at night, on your own.
A mother guessing, by herself.
A year from now
Leading your day. Teaching your children before the hard moments. Following a plan you trust, with hours back in your week and enough left over for other people.
A mother with a plan, who knows what she is doing.
Some things in life matter a great deal. Much of what fills our days does not. Learning to tell the two apart is where the name Mattering Things came from, and it is part of what I will teach you.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
—2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
Come, it's right here. I have walked it, and I'll walk you through it.
Every skill in this method removes friction, and friction is what keeps a mother's eyes on the floor. Take the friction out and her hours come back. Her eyes come up.
The whole point of getting your head above water is what you do with the view.
Build the home you pictured. See what it's for.
What all of this is for
