Food for Thought: Raising Confident Kids One Conversation at a Time

By Kim Moog

"As parents, we all want to raise happy kids who grow up to be confident adults.  The problem is that kids aren’t born with instruction manuals, and no one shows us how to raise them like that.

Character training isn’t like the spelling test that you forgot to study for in school. You can’t cram for it!  It’s more like playing a minuet on the piano or hitting a homerun.  A person's character has to function at a subconscious level and that level of unconscious competency has to be developed piece by piece, layer by layer—and in the case with our kids—conversation by conversation over time. 

Food for Thought is designed to equip parents to start those conversations.  It is a series of open-ended questions laid out in a calendar format to help parents have conversations with their kids that will help shape them into the adults we all hope they become."

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973696476

Kim Moog

Kim Moog, an author and speaker, is a BTCL graduate and works as a mentor through Re:New Ministries. She and her husband of thirty-one years, Michael, have three daughters, two sons-in-law, and two grandchildren and live in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. Moog is the author of The Debt-Free Diet and When the Storms Come Early. She and her husband spend their free time volunteering in both their community, church, and with their large, extended families.

Book preview

Food

for

Thought

Raising Confident Kids One

Conversation at a Time

Kim Moog

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Copyright © 2020 Kim Moog.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International

Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,

Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9646-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9647-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020914237

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/10/2020

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For Laura, Sarah and

Savannah, I am honored to be your Mom, and I love each of you for the incredible woman you have become.

Contents

Introduction

•   January

•   February

•   March

•   April

•   May

•   June

•   July

•   August

•   September

•   October

•   November

•   December

Addendum: Questions for Preschoolers

Introduction

As a parent, trying to raise successful adults, besides faith, what is the greatest asset you can build inside your children? To me the answer is a confident voice.

I remember one particular summer day many years ago when I sat in my bedroom alone feeling defeated after just having had a screaming match with my oldest daughter, Laura, who was eleven or twelve at the time. While I sat on the bed lamenting how poorly I had handled the situation with my daughter, I noticed all of the parenting books that I owned on the shelf directly in front of me. They made me feel even worse. I realized that I had read them all, but none of them had managed to show me any practical ways to apply the concepts they taught to the everyday interactions I had with my children.

I had purchased and read all of those parenting books because I’d believe that, as parents, we are given the privilege and carry the burden of creating the world’s greatest commodity—productive adult members of society. I had also taken to heart the realization that the only thing my children will get to take with them to heaven is their character.

The dilemma I was facing was that I understood that character training is not something you can cram for. Like typing or playing the piano, your character has to work at a subconscious level; lasting character training has to be absorbed slowly, in small bite-size pieces. I felt like I had never found the time or opportunities to feed