The Challenge is..

Well, New Year's is upon us. I am facing a variety of challenges, improving my soul while wearing me out. I have taken up a challenge to be physically fit and have started seeing a personal trainer 3 mornings a week. I have taken up the challenge of helping Emily's Christmas puppy potty train. Mainly because I have to clean up if training does not go well. And I am considering taking up a challenge to rock my adoptive children 15 minutes a day. Right now, 5 minutes seems impossible, but I REALLY want to. The attempts so far have met with enormous enthusiasm.

 Many of us are mothering children who came to us with broken hearts; it stretches us and sometimes we doubt our ability to help them become whole.  In the nearly four years since our adopted children joined our family, we have sought many avenues of healing for them.  One of the simplest and most profound means of encouraging attachment we’ve found is rocking our children in our big “Ugly Chair.”

On December 20th I began a personal challenge to rock Honeybee 15 minutes each day.  It has not been easy, in fact, some days it is quite difficult — but I am hopeful.

Join me in the Rockin’ Mama Challenge!
(Rockin’ daddies also welcome)

• Join the challenge by clicking HERE.
• Rock your child for 15 minutes each day for 28 days.  If possible, these should be consecutive days, but don’t let that stop you!  Since starting the challenge, I have already missed two days.  The perfectionist in me is tempted to give up, but the benefits of rocking cannot be denied, even when days are missed.
  Some children cannot tolerate being touched and held for 15 minutes.  You may want to try five minutes at a time with a goal of fifteen total minutes per day.
• Rock  your child alone. Honeybee says, “no other kids allowed!” No phone, no books, no computer, no distractions.
• Keep a daily journal of rocking.  All you need is one line to say how many minutes, what time of day, what you did – did you sit silently, sing, eat a cookie together, chew gum? Record any impact or change you see in your child’s behavior — and in your own, even if it is negative.
• Email me once each week or so to share what you are learning; email it tochallenge@onethankfulmom.com.  You can send a copy of your rocking journal, excerpts, a summary, or a one sentence observation.
• Start today, start New Year’s Day, start whenever you can.  It is never too late to join the challenge. I will officially close the challenge on February 14th (time to start holding your hubby), so that I can collect the lessons you shared with me.
• Please share this link ( http://bit.ly/hWiC2O ) on your blog, twitter, facebook, etc. Encourage others to join us.

I will gather our experiences into one document that will be available on my blog. If enough peoplejoin us, maybe we will publish an ebook.  Wouldn’t that be great?!

Let’s rock our children and give ourselves deeply to loving them and bringing  healing to their hearts.

Lisa 

Life has been less than storybook perfect. I realized recently that the solitude of homeschooling was damaging the relationships between the kids, as the adoptees were miserable being away from structure and herds of children. So we have returned to public school. 

There HAVE been many tears as the kids adjust and I hope that this last challenge will bring some comfort, that they will know they have an ally in this house and country.

Any of MY readers up for this challenge?

http://www.onethankfulmom.com/best-of/rockin-mama-challenge/