How Do I Teach My Kids to Handle Peer Pressure?

Dennis and Barbara Rainey

Outside the guidance we continue to have at home, nothing will influence our children as much as the choice of their friends. The Bible speaks pointedly about the power of the people we spend time. Paul wrote: "Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals'" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

The opposite is also true: Good company guards against the development of bad habits. Many parents are so afraid of peer pressure they seldom use "good" peer pressure to their advantage.

For years I taught a sixth-grade Sunday school class, and one of the highlights was the "bad apples" demonstration. Surprisingly, most youth today have not heard the old saying, "One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel."

On a Sunday morning early in the nine-month class, I would bring some apples. I called them my "buddies." I usually had one beautiful, shiny red apple and a couple others that looked nice but had at least one bruise.

"These two apples with the bruises represent a couple of buddies you should not spend time with in junior high," I would say. "They have a dark side to them, a compromised area of their lives. This good apple represents you, a good Christian teenager. The good apple sees no problem with the bruised apples. He says to himself, these are my buddies. They wouldn't do anything to hurt me. They're not that bad."

Then I'd put the apples together in a plastic bag and say, "These three apples are going to become close buddies for a few months. I'll put them in a closet, and we'll check on them in a few months at the end of the class and see what happens to the good apple."

In the last class of the year, I would read 1 Corinthians 15:33 and then invite a member of the class to come up and pull the plastic bag out of a paper sack.

It never failed—the two bad buddies had really made an impact on the good apple. The identity of all three apples had been lost; the bag now contained discolored, mushy apple soup. This lesson demonstrated how bad company can corrupt and even consume the best young Christian.
Do not expect your child to have the discernment to choose good friends and withstand peer pressure without your help. Training is needed.

Eight Strategies for Helping Your Child Deal With Peer Pressure
First, encourage your children to trust in God. Our most important responsibility as parents is to teach our children to believe God, trust Him, base their convictions upon His Word, and obey Him with their entire heart. For many children, peer pressure is an important test of faith; when they are encouraged by friends to do something contrary to God's Word, they need to remember the words of 1 Corinthians 10:31, which tells us to "do all to the glory of God."
It is God's Spirit who gives them the strength to say no to friends and yes to God. As Proverbs 29:25 tells us, "The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted."

Second, make sure your home is a harbor in the storm. The world is often a hostile environment for children. The family must be that safe haven that always welcomes your teen back. No matter what the world says to them, they know they can find love there. We often tell our children, "Nothing you can do will make me love you any more and nothing you can do will make me love you less."
Children need to be needed at home. They long for approval, sense of belonging, significance, order, and security. If they do not receive these things at home, they will seek them elsewhere and from other people.

Third, don't relinquish your right to influence and even control your child's relationships. You are the parent. Realize that maintaining control of those who influence your children is within the bounds of your authority and responsibility before God. As friendships take shape, steer your children in the direction of positive peer pressure and away from negative influences. We have made it difficult for our children to spend time with friends who do not provide the kind of influence we desire. In certain cases, we have even declared certain friends off limits.
Here are some pointers:
Encourage your children to invite their friends over. Make your home the place to be. We particularly encourage our children to invite those friends that we know are good influences. If all the apples are at your house, you can check the quality of the fruit.
If you can, get to know the friend's parents and get some idea of their values, beliefs, and convictions. You can get to know another family by picking up their child when he or she is invited to your house or offering to take him or her home.
Be careful about where you allow your child to spend the night. That is one setting where peer pressure can be intense—to participate in ungodly conversation, watch movies, or play games that do not meet your standards.
Be observant. If you see subtle changes in dress or appearance, find out what is behind the new look.
As your teen grows older you will need to explain your decisions more frequently. On one occasion we explained to our son Benjamin (then fifteen) that we did not feel a certain friend was a good influence on him—the boy's life reflected a home that was very unstable. It was clear that his influence on Benjamin was greater than Benjamin's influence on him. He felt we were being unfair, but we carefully explained our concerns. Then we prayed with him for protection and wisdom in handling this friendship.
You must handle this carefully, because if you are overly controlling, you can drive your child away from you and directly to the relationships that concern you. When we eliminated a relationship our child enjoyed, we stepped in and aggressively spend time with our child and met his needs. Ultimately, of course, as your child grows older he will increasingly choose his friends on his own. These earlier times of teaching can influence those choices.

Fourth, use positive peer pressure to your advantage. You may want to challenge one or two of your child's friends to be a good influence on your child at the same time challenging your child to be a positive influence on them.

Fifth, help your child anticipate the pressures he'll face at different ages. Talk to your preadolescent about the challenges he will face from peers in the next couple of years. Peers will pressure him to look at pornography, to swear, to drink or take drugs, to rebel against "dumb" parents, and more. Often, because of what friends are pressuring him to do, your child will face difficult choices on a daily basis.
One technique we've used to help our children anticipate the pressures they will face is the "Decide in Advance" game. Only two are needed to play—one child and one parent. The parent comes up with a list of peer-pressure situations. For example: "You are at a friend's home. No one else is in the house. Your friend produces a pack of cigarettes and asks you to join him for a smoke. What would you do?"

Sixth, applaud your child's good choices. When your child does make the right choice, put on your cheerleader outfit, grab the megaphone, and go crazy: "Way to go! Give me a high five!" We often get too excited about the wrong things. We should give a standing ovation for those choices our children make that reveal their convictions and character. Trophies tarnish; character does not. Character glistens. Character is what lasts and is passed to the next generation.

Seventh, when failure occurs, make sure you talk through the situation and gently help the child articulate in his own words what went wrong. Your child will make some mistakes and succumb to peer pressure. With a force this pervasive and powerful, this is to be expected. As you deal with these failures, remember that some good testing of convictions is exactly what you want to occur when your child is still at home—where you can guide, correct, and instruct.
Role-play the situation to help the child understand how a better choice could have been made. Although discipline may be required, balance it with forgiveness and encouragement. Being a young person is very challenging. He needs to know you are on his side.

Finally, do not always try to rescue your child from loneliness. Nothing has saddened us more than watching our children make right choices, and then have to stand alone. Every one of our children has experienced different levels of loneliness in junior high and high school. It also carries over into young adulthood and college as well. With the wide range of standards in the Christian community today, sometimes they will not have the support of other Christian teens.
You will be tempted to think you are being too harsh by encouraging your child to stand alone against the herd. The pain of loneliness may be what God uses in your child's life to embed convictions, courage, and a stand-alone faith. God may use pain to turn him into an adult who makes an impact on our culture. The very pain that we want to rescue our child from may end up being what He uses to grow our child into a strong warrior for Christ.

Adapted from: http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3873537&ct=4639665&notoc=1

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Becoming a Family of Purpose

by Dennis and Barbara Rainey

When was the last time you thought about how your family can grow in Christ and make a difference for the kingdom? Don't wait any longer. Now is the perfect time to step back and evaluate what your life looks like and to implement changes that can help you and your family grow stronger together. I would like to challenge you to start out by making eight changes that would help you to become a family of purpose. These ideas won't cure every problem that you have, but if you take them seriously and commit to do them, they will help you refocus. And as a result, positive change will take place in your home.

MARRIAGE
Pray with your spouse every day. This is the single most important investment you could make in your marriage. Why? Prayer is one of the most intimate forms of communication God gives us. It knits your heart together with your mate's. For Barbara and me, practically speaking, no other spiritual discipline has done a better job of placing Him at the center of our lives and marriage. Prayer says, "You alone are Lord of my life. There is none other."

Never say the word, " divorce." Our society has convinced the majority of the people that divorce is the cure for marital problems. It's not! It only creates more problems. There are only two things that will mend your marriage, and they are hearts that are grounded in Christ and hard work. This year, make a commitment to your spouse never to say the "D" word again. And together decide that divorce is not an option, no matter how tough times get.

Study your spouse. You may think you know your spouse, but have you really gotten to know them inside out since you first got married? People change and so do their needs. In the next weeks and months, determine your mate's top three needs. Do they have an emotional need, a need for conversation, or for romance? Write down at least three things that you know will show your love to your soul mate—then make them all happen as soon as possible.

PERSONAL
Have a daily quiet time each day. God gave us His Word to help us survive in a hostile world. As Psalm 119:105 says, "Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path." His Word is truth. If we are to experience change in our families, we must admit we are lost and need to find our way to the truth of God's Word. I often hear Christians complain that the Bible can't be read in public schools. But do we faithfully read it in our own homes? The Bible cannot light a dark pathway if it's lying on an end table in the family room covered with dust.

FAMILY
Fast from television for one month. I want to challenge you to take one small step towards slowing down your life by taking one month and "fasting" from TV. I know this won't be easy—especially as central as television is in our culture, but fasting from TV will limit isolation in your family and give you time to do all those little things you have been putting off. It will cause you to take a close look at the amount of time your family sits in front of the TV and to think through better ways to use that time.

Get to know your neighbors. I believe the needs of the family today will not be met by relying only on professionals and counselors, government officials, ministers, or parachurch organizations. The need is for Christians who have growing marriages to begin to reach out and influence other families. Many couples have started Bible study groups like the HomeBuilders Couples Series® right in their own neighborhoods and invited people they would otherwise only occasionally see. People who have no religious affiliation or background feel comfortable in these groups because they are formed around the felt need of marriages. But none of this can happen if you don't get to know your neighbors first.

PARENTING
Hug and kiss your kids. As a child grows up and develops physically into a young woman or man, a concern may grow in you about how much physical affection should be given to your child of the opposite sex. The tendency is to think he is grown and doesn't need the affection. Don't stop lavishing your child with physical affection; he needs those hugs and kisses more than ever! A mom hugging her son and a dad hugging his daughter will send the message to both—you are a young man or a young woman who is worthy of attention and affection from someone of the opposite sex. How many times have you heard young women say that they sought affection from boys because they never received it from their fathers? Don't make that mistake with your child.

Date your kids. Pursue a relationship with each of your children. Rules without relationships can make children angry. That's why the Apostle Paul admonishes fathers in Ephesians 6:4, "And, fathers do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." If our children are to receive our "discipline and instruction," we need to build and maintain a relationship with them. One way to do this is to take each of your children on a date. By doing this, you not only give undivided attention to that child, you show him that he is important to you and that you are willing to sacrifice your time to be with him.

Becoming a family of purpose is not easy. It begins with individual sacrifice. It's time to return to God's Word, experience Him on a daily basis, and change the way you are living. If you can implement these ideas in your home and in your personal life, you will see a change in your family that would spill over into the lives of your children and the lives of their children. I pray that the Lord gives you strength to fulfill the task that He has set before you.

Adapted from: http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3842489&ct=4639681&from=hpflash1

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My Mate Is Not My Enemy

Dave Boehi

I have a confession to make.

I act like a spoiled baby when I'm sick. I whine and moan. I check my temperature every 30 minutes. I park myself in front of the television and expect my wife, Merry, to wait on me hand and foot. Never mind what plans she has for the evening—when I'm sick, her job is to take care of me.

But what happens when the roles are reversed, and she's stuck in bed with nausea, or vertigo, or a sinus infection?

I act like a spoiled baby. I whine and pout. I glare at her. How dare she get sick? Doesn't she know what plans I have? Doesn't she realize the pressure she's placing on me?
At some point during the evening, God convicts me of my selfishness, and I realize that I need to make a choice: Am I going to see Merry as my enemy? Or will I recognize again that God has given her to me as a gift … and stop moaning just because that gift has a fever and can't cook dinner?

You may not realize it, but you make the same choice on a regular basis. The choice confronts you when you argue … or when your spouse doesn't respond to your romantic overtures … or when you must decide who puts the kids to bed at night … or when you want to bake a batch of cookies and your spouse makes you feel guilty about your weight. Is my mate my enemy? Or a gift from God?


A life-changing perspective
If you've been to a Weekend to Remember® marriage conference, you probably recognized the phrase I've been using: "My mate is not my enemy." It's one of the key concepts from the conference, and I've always been intrigued by the number of people who mention this statement on their evaluation forms after the event is over.

One person commented, "We were able to see each other differently …. We were able to recommit our lives together to God. We were able to address a long-time unresolved, silent, stuffed conflict with the hope of continued work on forgiveness and growth in our marriage together. I learned that my mate is not my enemy."

And then there was the husband who wrote, "Wow! My wife is not my enemy after all! I am actually made complete in her—she is God's manifestation of His idea of what is absent from my life. I cannot question anything about her because she was custom built just for me. God loved me so much that He gave ... me Joanna."

My mate is not my enemy. It's a perspective that will change the way you look at your marriage. And it's a choice spoiled babies like me face in some form nearly every day.

Adapted from: http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3842489&ct=4638191&from=hpflash2

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10 Ideas: Creative Ways to Celebrate Easter

Mary Larmoyeux

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Easter?
I really want to answer this question by saying, "the Resurrection of Jesus Christ." But in reality, my thoughts drift to the beautiful Easter baskets that my grandmother gave me as a child. They were filled with an assortment of colored eggs, wrapped chocolates … and sometimes even a beautiful doll!
You probably agree that Easter is more than Easter baskets—much more! Here are ten ideas that will help you celebrate its real meaning:

-Ask your family the following questions: "What is Easter? Why does it matter whether or not Jesus Christ rose from the dead?" Then read and discuss John 20 as a family.

-Take some time to consider what Jesus' death on the cross means to you. Encourage other family members to do the same. On a sheet of paper write down the ways that you have sinned against God. Thank Him for dying on the cross for your sins. After spending some time in prayer, destroy the paper—knowing that Jesus' death on the cross paid for your sins in full.

-We are told in Luke 7:47, " ... her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." As you approach Easter, are you harboring unforgiveness for anyone? By faith, release any bitterness to God and let Him be the judge. You may want to read one of the following books: Forgiveness: Healing the Harbored Hurt of Your Heart by Bill Elliff, or Choosing Forgiveness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

-Read 1 John 4:14-15 with your children:
We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
Then do the following craft to help your children understand that Jesus' death on the cross provides the only way they can have a relationship with God:
Cut out a cardboard cross for each child. Explain that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that He wants us to accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Help the children write some examples of their sins on their crosses.
Then cut them into puzzle pieces. Discuss how Jesus' death on the cross totally paid for a believer's sins, and put the puzzles together—as an illustration of how Jesus wants to put our lives together again.

-Ask your children to pretend that they are news reporters witnessing the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They can either present a "live broadcast" to the family, or write a newspaper article of their observations.

-Download FamilyLife's Resurrection Eggs® Activity Book. This complete guide will help with the planning and preparation of your own event with activities, coloring sheets, and games for pre-school and elementary-aged children. (You'll want to have a set of Resurrection Eggs to use with this fun workbook.)

-Make a batch of Resurrection Cookies.

-Discuss with your spouse and children/grandchildren, how your family can share the hope of Jesus Christ. Do you have an elderly neighbor whose day would be brightened by a batch of Resurrection Cookies? Is there someone who you could pick up for church or include in your Easter dinner?

-Hold an Easter Sunrise service for your family (if possible, outside). Start just before the sun begins to rise—talk with the children about the darkness. As rays of sunlight appear, explain that light permeates darkness—that The Light overcame the darkness when Jesus rose from the dead.
Assign every family member a part in the service. Dad could give a brief Easter message, others could read Scriptures, sing, prepare a special handout for the family sunrise service, seat family members on special chairs, etc.

-Bring the joy of the Resurrection into your everyday life—not just during the Easter season. When you and your family members see the sun rise throughout the year, you may want to remind one another, "He is risen … risen, indeed!"

He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said.
Come, see the place where He was lying
-Matthew 28:6

An article taken from: http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3781317&ct=4637909&from=hpflash1

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Strengthening Friendships With Parents and In-Laws

Susan Alexander Yates



We are admonished to honor our parents (Exodus 20:12). If we are single, our responsibility is to our own parents; but if we are married, our responsibility is not only to our parents, but to our in-laws as well. It is true that when we marry, we marry a family. Part of becoming one in marriage involves the sharing of all things, and that includes our parents.
The great Bible story of Ruth and Naomi illustrates for us a tender example of honoring one's mother-in-law. Facing a famine in Judah, Naomi fled with her husband and two sons to the country of Moab. There they raised their sons and saw them married to Moabite women. When her husband and both sons died, Naomi decided to return to her native country of Judah. Although she encouraged her daughters-in-law to remain in their own country, Ruth chose to go with her, saying: "Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).
Ruth's faithfulness to her mother-in-law resulted in her marriage to one of Naomi's kinsmen and having the honor of being the great-grandmother of King David and a direct ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah.
God has called us to serve our mates and to honor our parents. These two foundational principles are vital in building friendships within the family. It will not always be easy. It may be inconvenient and costly to honor your parents. And you will not be able to please everyone. Your ultimate job is not to keep everyone happy, but to be faithful to God's calling, which is to love your spouse, to nurture your children, and to care for your parents.

Six Ways to Nurture Friendships with Parents and In-Laws



1. Expand the Positives
If we asked ourselves, "Whose approval do I most desire?" our parents and in-laws would rank somewhere near the top of the list. We want our parents to be proud of us, and we long for their approval. This desire can cause us to be overly sensitive to them, especially in the beginning of a new season of life.
As a newlywed, you decide to change your hairstyle. Your close friend says she thinks it looks best long. You take that as good advice. But if your mother-in-law says she'd like it long, you take it as interfering. Or, your toddler is misbehaving and your good friend says he needs a "time-out." You may welcome her insights, but if your mother had been the one to say that, you might have taken it as criticism of your parenting skills: "How can she be so critical?" Or, you work hard to clean your house before your folks come over. They fail to comment on how lovely it looks, so you assume they are displeased.
It's so easy to overreact or to give too much weight to our parents' comments or lack of comments. Becoming critical of their responses, we begin to dwell on the negatives when we ought to expand the positives. Even if there are genuine problems, we have to decide whether we are going to focus on the disappointments or choose to accentuate the positives.


2. Learn from Them
No matter what our parents are like, they possess two things that we don't—age and experience. With age comes experience and wisdom. And the older one becomes, the longer he has had to develop personal gifts and talents. Each of us can learn from our parents. They have lived a life different from ours, in a world different from ours.
We can ask ourselves several questions about our parents.
"What are their gifts?"
"Do they have wisdom?"
"Do they do something well?"
"Do they have a unique talent they could teach us?"
Some time ago, my husband, John, was struggling with a personnel problem in his office. He was really stuck and did not know how to handle the potentially explosive situation. He desperately needed wisdom and felt that he didn't have much! So he picked up the phone and called my mother. This was perfectly natural, because one of my mother's gifts is wisdom. She has had much experience with people, and she has an unusual ability to see clearly in the midst of a mess. She listened and was able to give my husband several insights that helped him decide what to do. It was mutually beneficial. He was helped by her insights and she was encouraged by being needed. And their friendship grew a little deeper because of his trust in her judgment.


3. Initiate Activities and Show Thoughtfulness
It's so easy to expect our parents to initiate activities with us. After all, they are our parents. We've grown up responding to them. So we wait, longing to spend time with them and wondering if and when they'll make a move toward us. Could it be that they need us to reach out to them? Yes. We can't expect our parents to continually take the initiative for getting together with us.
Jodie has had a difficult relationship with her dad, and yet she longs to grow closer to him. As we chatted one day, I asked her, "What does your dad like to do?"
After thinking for a moment, she replied, "Well, he often takes walks."
"Ask him if you could join him for a walk," I suggested. "Go with him with no agenda other than to enjoy being with him. And go as often as you can. It may feel awkward at first, but if you persist, you'll be surprised at how much more comfortable you both will become. Walks are 'his thing,' and you need to go where he is comfortable. You'll be amazed how a simple gesture like a walk can open the doors to a deeper relationship."


4. Care for Them When They Are Old and Ill
How you do this will vary with your circumstances. As we remember our two essentials—consider what is best for your own family, and consider how to honor your parents.
What are their needs? Where do you live in relation to them? What extended-family support is available? What resources such as financial, health care, housing, etc., are available?
Then, consider the needs of your immediate family. If you are struggling with toddlers or both husband and wife are working in careers with little flexibility, your options will be limited. If you are single or do not have children, you may be in a better position to help.
Communicate clearly with your extended family as you make decisions about your aging parents. Working together to solve problems could become an opportunity for brothers and sisters to deepen their friendships.
You must be willing to sacrifice time, space in your home, and financial resources to care for your parents. It won't be easy. Caring for older parents can be inconvenient and time-consuming. But just remember, you weren't easy to care for as their baby. You were hard to raise and often exasperating. You demanded sacrifice. Now it is your turn to honor them and sacrifice for them.


5. Maintain a Sense of Humor
Sometimes we feel like the children and our parents feel like our parents. Then, suddenly, they act like children and we feel like the parents. The relationship has turned upside down and it feels very strange. It's difficult to find oneself parenting parents.
Trish is a single parent in her fifties. Her daughter, Wendy, is 27 and lives with her. One evening Trish went with a blind date to the theater. She expected to return home right after the show, but she and her date were having such a good time, they went out for a late dinner. When she opened the front door, it was 1 A.M. Suddenly the hall light came on, and there stood a very sleepy, very concerned daughter.
"Mother," she exclaimed, "where have you been? You are later than you said you would be. And I didn't know anything about your date. You could have been in real trouble. I was about to call the police."
As Trish stood on the steps, she experienced a sudden flashback of herself in the same position years earlier! After Trish apologized to her daughter for causing concern, the two had a good laugh about their role reversals.


6. Prepare for "No Regrets"
When our parents and in-laws die, we want to look back with a sense of gratitude rather than a feeling of regret. "But you don't know how bad my relationship with my parents has been," you might respond.
That's right. I don't know ... but God does. And He has been there with you even in the most painful times. No matter how difficult your family relationships were, you must believe that your parents did the best they could, given what they themselves came from. Hardly any parent sets out to do a bad job of raising his own children. The good news is that it is never too late to do what is right, to get things straightened out, to ask for forgiveness, and to start over.
Pat was raised in an abusive home. Her only brother adopted the gay lifestyle, and she became estranged from her father. Recently, her brother was diagnosed with AIDS. The same week her father was told that he had terminal cancer. Pat longed to minister to both her brother and father, but she knew that in her father's case, she needed to forgive him before she could help him. It was painful and difficult, but with God's tender mercy she forgave her dad, and just before he died, he gave his life to Christ and asked for His forgiveness.
Then as she nursed her brother in his final days, he too surrendered his life to a loving heavenly Father who understands pain and who is able to forgive and restore relationships.
Pat's story is one of gratitude for relationships redeemed instead of regret and bitterness for relationships lost. Each of us must do all we can to live with "no regrets." We don't know what the future holds, and we don't want to look back and say, "I didn't get to tell him I was sorry," or "I wish I had told her I loved her."
Sometimes it's helpful to look ahead and ask ourselves, "How will I look back on this time in a few years?" We may realize that we need to forgive or to ask for forgiveness, we may need to write a letter expressing love, or we may need to give the gift of our time to sit with a parent who is ill. Whatever we must do, we should do it now, for we may not have as much time left as we think we do.


Excerpted from A House Full of Friends by Susan Alexander Yates. Copyright © 1995 by Susan Alexander Yates.

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Stress

by Edward R. Dayton

We all need relief valves. They can save a lot of time that we would normally take cleaning up the mess caused by personal explosions.
When we installed a new hot water heater, I discovered a local ordinance that says there has to be a relief valve hooked up somewhere in the water system. If for some reason the thermostat doesn't turn off the gas under the boiler, and the boiler is so hot it is ready to explode, the valve will pop off, and pressure will be relieved. Things may stay just as hot under the boiler, but at least it won't blow up all over the house.
One of the most effective, long-range relief valves is to recognize what causes the buildup of pressure. If you see by your calendar that you are in for a few heavy weeks or too many late nights, block out some relief-valve time. This might be a half-day, whole day or extended weekend. Take yourself out of your normal situation. Place yourself in a situation in which past experience has shown you can forget what is going on. This may mean a day alone at the beach or the mountains, a day with your family, or a weekend away with your husband or wife. It's a big help if couples will discuss their future schedules together to identify where the overload problems are and schedule in breaks in the routine.
In addition to the count-to-10 pressure reliever with which most of us are familiar, there are some others:

Staying ahead of your work is a good way to relieve the pressure of schedules. By scheduling a completion time 10 percent to 20 percent ahead, you have the peace of knowing there's time to recover if things go wrong.

Doing the hard things first, particularly if they have a great deal of emotional content, will relieve the subterranean emotions that tend to plague us in different situations.

Getting enough sleep is a must. Know how long you can get along with a reduced amount.

Do the difficult tasks in phases. Often a "first draft" will get you 80 percent of the way along. Time for "topping off" the finished product can be better foreseen, and meeting the deadline seems less of a task.

Have planned recreation and hobbies. I am a wood carver and a carpenter of sorts. Setting aside time for this activity helps me relax. Other people enjoy different methods of unwinding. One of my close friends has a way of announcing to his secretary when he will be finding some relief. If he says, "I'm going to inspect some real estate at 3 o'clock," you can be sure that you'll find him on the first tee at the golf course.

Admitting and verbalizing the causes for your own irritations (be they lack of sleep, overworking, too much stress or what have you) helps [keep] others from getting emotional with you and triggering unexpected explosions.

Facing up to the fact you really can't do all the things you scheduled and that some of them need to be postponed is probably the best relief valve of all. This can be a humbling experience, but the rewards in personal well-being are great.

Excerpted from Tools for Time Management by Edward R. Dayton, published by Zondervan. Copyright © 1974 Zondervan Corporation.

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The Upside and Downside of Anger

Is righteous anger ever justified? Know the difference between selfish and selfless anger.
by Ed Chinn

As almost everyone knows, we live in a conflict-driven culture. Various factors – political marketing, 24-hour cable news, talk radio, etc. – have Balkanized our society into a kaleidoscope of interest groups. They relate to each other through turbo-charged suspicion, shotgun blasts of opinion and open hatred.
In such an environment, anger has become a "virtue."
Many stand-up comics express their brand of comedy through profane and seething anger. One of the contributions of punk rock was the celebration of anger. You can also watch producers of daytime reality shows (like Jerry Springer) coax participants to, "Let it all out. Get mad. Tell her what you really think. Don't you really want to slap her?"
Very clearly, we have crossed a river. In the "new media age," political issues – immigration, the war on terror, global warming, abortion – can only be discussed in anger. The old-fashioned form of polite discussion of the issues of the day has deteriorated into a shouting match.
The one common denominator of all this cultural anger is a relentless and self-serving "worship of individualism." It is all about "me." Anger is directed at protecting the cherished terrain of my rights, my ideas, my feelings and my indulgences.
This worship of individualism has become the god of modern culture.
Is Anger Ever Unselfish?
As far as I know, the Bible reveals only two angry moments in Jesus' earthly life. One was when he threw furniture in the temple because mercantile interests were perverting the House of God.
The other episode was when He healed the man with the withered hand. Mark 3:1-6 paints the picture; Jesus encountered a serious human need. Unfortunately, surrounding that need was a religious system which could not even see the man or his infirmity; it was only focused on rules and preservation of an old order. Incensed, Jesus gazed into the face of that Pharisaical order and "with anger" at their "hardness of heart" reached out and healed the man.
Jesus – our pattern – got angry. In both cases, His anger was a response to barricades which blocked God's salvation and kindness from reaching into and touching the deep need of human lives. Jesus was not reacting out of a sense of being threatened (the usual earthbound cause for anger). Rather, His divine sense of justice was offended. He was angry at the perpetuation of illness, sin and oppression.
In a very similar way, when my anger is projected at injustice or oppression, that is usually a sign of healthy anger. When my anger revolves around my self-interest, it is more likely to be selfish and unhealthy.
So how do we know the difference between good and bad, "upside" and "downside," selfish and selfless anger?
Selfish anger will usually cause strong, disproportionate-to-the-situation, physical and emotional sensations: heart palpitations, trembling and louder and faster voice, shortness of breath, using bad language, etc. It can also leave us with the residual effects of insomnia, anxiety and depression.
Righteous anger tends to be slow, thoughtful and controlled. It leads to the formation of a plan rather than hasty and wild actions.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Chinn.

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