I am asked dozens of questions about what we did or didn’t do as parents. I am amazed that God has allowed us to raise the two young men we have in our house, but there were a few principles we practiced consistently.

Here are three principles for parenting I think all parents should consider:

Be intentional – Parenting is hard work. Don’t try it without a plan. It’s amazing how we tend to plan for everything in life, but seldom for our parenting. I know men who have a plan to improve their golf game, but nothing to help them grow as a father. If you want to be a great parent, you must be intentional about that role. Have an overall plan for your parenting and an individual plan for each child, depending on their needs at the time.

Shape the heart – The Bible is clear that we should “Above all else guard the heart for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) I believe in firm discipline. I also believe in extending much grace. More than anything, however, the parent should learn to know, protect and shape their heart of their child. It is that heart, which will determine the decisions and directions the child eventually makes in life.

Enjoy the ride – Children are children for a very short time. Enjoy those days. Be a fun parent, balancing love with discipline. Laughing together with your children will help relieve the stress of your life and keep them wanting to be close to you well into the difficult teen and early adult years.

For my complete parenting philosophy see THIS POST or read other parenting posts HERE.

Which of these do you most need to improve upon as a parent?

(Speaking of principles, be sure to read my disclaimer post about them from yesterday by clicking HERE.)

In case you missed it, I’m in Africa this week on a mission trip. I’m sharing some of the top posts I have written, according to the activity they have received.

Here are the top posts on parenting:

Teaching Children Honesty
Teaching Children Cooperation
Having the Sex Talk with Children
7 Tips for Surviving the Terrible Threes
Building a Lasting Connection with Children
Building Spiritual Maturity in Your Home
10 Principles for Effective Discipline
Parenting by Grace: A Model
10 Easy Steps to Spoil a Child
7 Things I Should Have Taught My Sons

What is your greatest current leadership challenge?

I said at the beginning of this message on parenting, delivered at Grace Community Church, that I could not answer the entire “how to” questions about parenting.  My desire was to offer a paradigm of principles for effective parenting.  I really do believe if you follow these principles you will truly live out the Biblical principle of “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6)

The four principles are:

Be there

Be intentional

Be relational

Be consistent

I also shared this diagram.  To understand the diagram and apply the principles, you’ll have to listen to the message.

For the audio version, go HERE

I’m working on some blog posts, messages, and eventually a book on the impact of fathering. I’m especially interested in addressing the absence of a strong father figure in a person’s life, since I see it as a huge scar in many people’s life.

You can help me with this part of my ministry. Please consider completing my survey on fathering. It’s quick and easy and all responses are anonymous. I understand in advance that just answering questions about your father may be difficult for some, but your responses may help others. Thanks!

Click HERE to access the survey. Feel free to send others here to complete it also.

Also as a part of this post, I would love for you to add your public comments on fathering and the impact it has on your life, either as a father or by your father as a comment on this post. What difference has being a dad made on your life? What influence did your father have on you? Who knows, your comment/story may make it into a book some day!

Thanks!

Here’s a quick message to my two boys.  Jeremy and Nate are 21 and 18 years old. (This picture is a few years old, but it’s one of my favorites.)  Jeremy just graduated from college last week. Nate finishes his first year of college next week. They are tremendous young men, but I realize they have some incredible opportunities ahead and I don’t want them to miss anything God has for them, especially not because they were unprepared.  I wish someone had given me this advice when I was their age. (Perhaps you need to hear it as well.)

Boys:

I’ve messed up many times in life…

Please learn from my mistakes…

I’m not perfect now, but at least I’m headed in the right direction…

I wish I had started this path earlier in life…

Don’t wait to build your character, discover your life purpose, and chase your dreams…

Head your life early in the direction you want your life to eventually end…

Start today…

Do you need that encouragement today?

I’m curious: At what age did you start heading your life in the direction you ultimately want to go?

Read a letter I wrote to each of my boys HERE and HERE.

When our boys were in middle school, we did not allow them to roam the mall on their own without an adult in the building.  I know, call us bad parents, but we believed their safety was more important than their coolness with other children.

Once when our school system was closed because of snow, one of our boys spent the night with another boy his age.  He told us they were going to a gym and would be home afterwards, but before he returned home, we received a call from another friend that had seen him at the mall.  He was BUSTED!  What was worse for him was when he found out that we would have been fine with him going to the mall, because the parent was going also.  That was a huge lesson for him in honesty.  Years later, when this same son had another situation that required honesty, he told the whole truth and nothing but the truths…so help him, God.

Scripture is very clear for the believer about how we are to approach honesty.  We are told to “let your yes be yes and your no be no”.   Honesty is a value, however, that is shared by believers and non-believers.  It’s sort of a baseline moral standard of expectation of society.  Raising our children to be honest, therefore, is an important part of our parenting.

With that desire in mind, here are some suggestions to encourage your children to be honest:

Model it – If your children see you being dishonest, even on the telephone with the telemarketer or with your employer as to why you are not going to work, they are learning bad habits.  Be honest with your words and your time.

Teach it – The Bible is full of great stories about honesty.  Spend time reading and discussing them with your children.  A few suggestions are stories such as Joseph and his brothers, Esther and her situation with Haman, and the story of Jacob and Esau.  Obviously, you will need to study them first so you can discuss them with your children.  Ask questions to see if they understand and what their values are towards the issue of honesty.

Enforce it – There are some issues that should be handled more strongly than others in parenting.  Enforcing honesty is one of them.  If you allow even little actions of dishonesty to go unchecked, you are building a negative principle into your child’s life that you will one day see again and regret.  Of course, the punishment should always fit the age and the severity of the wrong, but the issue of honesty is one area where zero tolerance should be a part of your disciple plan.

Encourage it – Honesty should become an aspired value in your home.  Find examples of honesty around you and talk about them with your children.  When you see good news of this value being demonstrated, whether in the news, the church or community, make sure your children are made aware of the positive effects of honesty.   Again, ask questions to make sure they understand the importance of being honest.

Reward it – When your children are found being honest, reward them.  Our boys were told consistently that if they told us the truth we would respond much differently than if we had to figure out the truth on our own.  Make being honest a big deal to them, even something to celebrate.

Working to establish honesty in your children early will help ensure they live honest lives as adults.  Even though honesty is a shared value, most of us would agree, our level of trust in others has diminished in recent years.  As parents, we play a large role in raising the level of honesty in our society, one family at a time.

What are some tips you may have for teaching children to be honest?

(I originally wrote this article for Clarksville Family Magazine.)

I’ll never forget the first “sex talk” I had with our oldest son. The “talk” occurred at my office at the company we owned at the time; after hours when no one was in the office but him and me. It was a very scary moment, but I’m glad I did it then. He had already started to make comments and ask questions that indicated he needed an “education”. He was about 10 years old at the time. I recognized that helping my children live pure and healthy sexual lives would be a challenge in a culture that is often defined by sex. I began with a few principles, which has helped me to continue to have open and honest dialogue with my boys, even in their teenage years.

Start Early - The key here is that you want to be the primary and first source of information for your child. The old saying is true, “If you don’t tell them, someone else will.” You want to make sure they are getting the correct information about sex. With the oldest it was about 10 years of age, but with the youngest it was about 8 years. It will depend on their surroundings at school, the dialogues they are having with you and others, and their maturity level at the time.

Share in Stages – A four-year-old needs to know that there are boys and there are girls and they are each different, but that’s about it at that age. Share information based on the child’s interest, maturity and ability to understand. I don’t believe one “talk” will be enough for most children. Make sure children feel freedom to discuss anything with you as they have concerns or questions.

Answer questions – If your child is willing to ask a question it is because they want an answer. Many parents make the mistake of telling children they “don’t need to know yet”. There are no bad questions. Again, they will search for an answer and the wrong ones are the easiest to find.

Teach according to truth, not culture – The fact is that today’s culture is mostly wrong about the issue of sex. Culture has tried to redefine what sex is and the purposes and values of sex. Sex is not to be seen as dirty, cheap, or easy. Don’t be afraid to teach your children to be different from everyone else in culture. Help them understand the healthy role sex can play in building a strong marriage. Help them also understand that in the right context, sex is a wonderful gift from God. (It’s okay for them to look forward to something…even sex!)

Deal with the emotional as well as physical – Our children should understand the emotional aspect of sex and the damage, which can be caused by sexual activity, as much as they should understand the physical aspects. The emotional pain caused by early sexual experiences is usually the most damaging aspect later in life.

Get help – There are plenty of resources on teaching children the Biblical perspective on sex. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This is another great reason to have a mentoring couple in your life!

My two boys called it “The Talk”. We even began to label it with parts. I think by high school we were on at least “The Talk, part 31”, because they kept having questions as they matured. I don’t believe my boys would be as open talking about such a difficult subject regularly and honestly if I had not established that freedom and practice at an early age.

Are you delaying the discussion because of fear? They will talk about it somewhere…go first!

What was your experience with this delicate parenting responsibility, either as a child or an adult?  Did your parents give you the “talk”?

My boy’s can “fondly” remember the time we drove from our driveway heading to an undisclosed location on vacation.  I decided in advance not to tell them where we were going, but to let it be a surprise.  We were actually heading to St. Louis, but to complicate the situation, I decided to drive all side roads.  We went through what seemed to be every back road between our house and the hotel.  What should have been a four and half hour trip ended up being an eight-hour trip.  The boys complained frequently, which I expected, but when the trip was over, they realized we had experienced a great time just being together.

Why did I put my boys through such misery?  Am I a bad dad?  Well, the jury may still be out on that answer, but my logic was simple.  I wanted us to enjoy the day together as a family and I knew if I told them in advance what I planned for us to do and how we would do it, there would have been no cooperation on their part.  As it turned out, we had a great trip, saw things we wouldn’t have seen on the main roads, and enjoyed the time together. In addition, it gave us a lasting memory and joke of a time when they were “miserable”.

How many times as parents do we wish our children would just go along with the plan? Are there days we simply wish they would cooperate, because we know in advance that if they will, everything will be so much better? Do we want our children to cooperate with others, maybe even others with whom they do not agree on every issue?

We are each born with natural tendencies towards selfishness and independence, but families work better when everyone gets along and cooperates.  Teaching your children to cooperate should begin at an early age, as they first begin to play with other children. Once a child reaches elementary school there is a certain expectation, that he or she knows how to cooperate with other children.  Learning to cooperate with others, however, is something in which each of us continues to mature throughout our life.

If you are struggling with instilling the value of cooperation in your children, here are some suggestions:

Do not make your children think they are the center of the world.  Sometimes we mistakenly give our children everything they want, refuse to see their faults, and never allow them to fail.  The danger is that when they become adults they expect equal treatment from the world.  How is that working for you as an adult?

Model cooperation with others. Let your children see you getting along with other people, including people different from you.   If you are constantly complaining or arguing with your spouse or other family or friends, your children will be more inclined not to cooperate with you or others and they will have learned it from you.  Do you need to reconsider how you talk to people around you?

Do not provoke your children.  Ephesians 6:4 is our encouragement here, where it says, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children”.  I was probably pushing that limit with the illustration above, but I kept it light-hearted and I knew my limits.  Don’t make your expectations for them be so high they can’t live up to them.  Remember they are children you are teaching how to be mature adults.  Are you placing too high of expectations on your children for their age?

Be a giver. Let your children see and participate in opportunities to give to others.  Find ways they can observe you being generous with others and look for family activities where they can help you bless other people.  What’s is a way you could lead your family in a project to give back to others?

Live life with other people. One of the benefits of being in a healthy church or playing on a local sports team is your children get to be around other people and are often forced to figure out how to get along with each other. Find ways to allow your children to experience different cultures. How have you exposed your children to people different from them?

(I originally wrote this as an article for Clarksville Family Magazine.)

What ways have you taught your children to cooperate?

I debated posting this and then I asked for feedback and was overwhelmingly encouraged that this was a legitimate post. This morning Cheryl was the first to tell me that our youngest son , now a student at Moody Bible College in Chicago, had written a new blog post…and the subject was me. (The picture with this post is of him speaking recently at our student service.) She gave me time to read it and then came with heavy tears to get my reaction. She said, “This is what you’ve been living for…”

She was referring to a comment I have made many times as a father. I have stated that the pinnacle of success for me would be to one day receive one of those sappy, mushy plaques that talks about what a great dad I am…from children that really mean the words. I guess in this modern age of social media, today I received my first plaque.

Here’s an excerpt of Nate’s post:

Through my time the past month in God’s word I’ve come to have a much deeper appreciation for my dad. So many things I’m learning about God and His heart I remember watching my dad either experience or try to teach me, and I can’t explain how much that strengthens my faith. As I continue internalizing faith for myself I become so much more thankful for a dad who was willing to be open about his faith with his kids. (And just for the record, my dad doesn’t know I’m writing this. This week I’ve just been so overwhelmed by encountering Biblical truth I’ve seen modeled in him that I feel burdened to share.)

I want to list just a few things I can remember my dad doing with me that I think ultimately helped shape my faith. I don’t really know what readership I have here at Moons From Burma, or if I have any at all, but if you’re a parent or want to be a parent someday and desire that your kids love Jesus more than anything else, I think you should apply some of these to your parenting.

To read the remainder of his post and his points, click HERE.

For the record, I have two awesome sons, both that are respectful of me and genuine friends, but one blogs and the other one doesn’t (yet). The older did send me a very appreciative email recently that I may share (with his permission) in a future post. I love my boys.

Just curious. Is it okay for me to brag on my boys, as long as I realize without God in my life and theirs, we would be nothing?

But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years. Luke 1:7 NIV

How would you like to be known as “barren Elizabeth”? It was considered almost a curse in Bible days to not have children. It was assumed there was something in a person’s life in which God was not pleased. Zechariah and Elizabeth were good, Godly people, yet they had no children and they were past the normal age of childbirth.

In our ministry, Cheryl and I have many opportunities to hold babies. It is always, however, somewhat bittersweet. As wonderful as it is to rejoice with one couple, someone is always in mourning, because either they recently lost a child, or they have been unable to have one. We have learned it is a miserable pain.

I can’t pretend that I know how that feels, because I don’t, but having a minister’s heart, I can tell you that I do understand that it is a very real heartache to be childless and want a child. Holidays and the celebrations of birth of other children only remind the childless that a part of their heart is empty. When thousands of children starve to death around the world, it seems a tragedy that many couples have a remaining prayer request to be granted a child.

I suspect Zechariah and Elizabeth could identify with such couples. Their broken hearts were a reminder to them of their desire to be parents. Some of you reading this can understand the pain of those who remain childless, and desire to parent. Remember them this Christmas season. Share God’s love with them. Pray for them. Be sensitive around them. Be Jesus to them.

Have you personally known this pain? Do you know other who have?