As first appeared on The Joyful Life Magazine blog.

As I pulled into the garage after running my son and daughter from activity to activity one evening, I was tired. Before I had even put the car in park, they were unbuckling and itching to get out. The warm weather had us driving around with the windows down, so I instinctively pushed the automatic buttons to roll them up as the vehicle lurched to a full stop.

Suddenly, my 9-year-old son began screaming for me to stop. Stop what? My mind had not registered that his arm was still out the window. Soon my daughter began to panic on his behalf, and chaos ensued. I released the button but the window was already squeezing his arm tightly, forcing his body to stand in the backseat to the height of the window.

I tried to reverse the window, but it would not retract. The fear and pain from my son were agonizing to hear. I turned to comfort him and assess the situation then tried again to lower the window, finally freeing him from being wedged between the glass and door frame. Thankfully he was fine physically but repeatedly asked why I had done that to him, assuming ill intent. I reminded them of past warnings not to put their arms out the windows while driving. They reminded me to check before rolling them up. Everyone was tense and pointing blame. ‘Horrible’ doesn’t begin to explain how I felt at that moment.

To read the rest of the story and the three tips, hop on over to The Joyful Life Magazine’s blog here!

Sometimes we need to slow down in the moments of frustration with our children to pause before we act. The Bible refers to this as being long-suffering or “long of nose”. A deep breath can give our emotions time to cool and our brains time to think on good and right things. I have created a resource for subscribers in my member archive that can be printed and put on your refrigerator or somewhere frequented often with verses to pray through when patience with our kids is tested. We have all been there at some point! Click on the graphic above or scroll to the bottom of the page to enter your email.

There is also a parenting series based on 1 Corinthians 13 that you can check out! I hope it encourages you in your parenting journey. Thank you!