Babies

1. Hold them closely but let them grow used to not being held
The urge is to coddle them all of the time. They need close contact and lots of loving, but they also need to learn to enjoy their own space. Let the alone some too. It's all right to let them be in a safe room alone.
2. Give the assurances of strong family
Even at birth it is healthful for them to sense that their mom and dad love each other.
3. The problem with discipline begins about the time they come home from the hospital
The sin nature is born into us, not taught into us. Some form of discipline needs to begin from day one.
4. Early over protection will lead to later frustration
Over protected children tend to be the most rebellious later on..
5. Dad should hold the baby a lot. He or she needs to become used to the father's strength.
Mom will be around much more than dad. So Dad needs to purposefully care for and give attention to the baby. There is a reason men and women are different and the baby needs the strengths of each.

Children Should

1. Children should be instructed in manners and decent behavior 
2. Children should be loved unconditionally but never be left to their own devices 
3. Children should be happy but never led to expect it
4. Children should be observed and not allowed to run wild
5. Children should be trained in acceptable processes of discovery and not given over to discover without supervision 

Five Don'ts

1. Don't panic when your child does wrong

   Teach your child. You did some wrong things too and made it through.
2. Don't rely on the doctor's opinions

   Doctors don't know everything. Many of their instructions are just their opinions and are no better than your own. Don't listen to a doctor tell you to keep your kid out of church, for instance.
3. Don't over react to things your kids say

   You want your children to talk to you. They will learn not to if you over react every time they try to.
4. Don't cling so tightly to them they feel like they have to run to find freedom

   This is especially true when they grow into their late teens.
5. Don't forget that God loves them much more than you do

   You can trust God with these souls.

What Do You Want Your Family To Be Like?

1. Have a written idea of what you want your family to be like.

Share it with your family and tweak it with their input.

2. Regularly evaluate what are your children's strengths and weaknesses.

How can you help them capitalize on their strengths and improve their weaknesses?

3. Plan time alone with each child each week.

4. Realize that your children are more important than your occupation.

5. At all costs, win and keep the hearts of your children.[1]

They must value your relationship with them above anyone else’s.

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[1] S.M. Davis has a great help for this called “Changing the Heart of a Rebel” at www.solvefamilyproblems.com

Raising Kids On Purpose

1. Raise them with an end in mind
2. Raise them with God in the lead
3. Raise them as a team with your spouse
4. Raise them refusing to let your emotions rule you
5. Raise them the best way and not the easiest or most pleasurable way

Building Modesty

Modesty is important both in makes and females. Our boys should be trained to be modest as well our our daughters. The target, however, will be primarily on the girls. The older our girls get the more pressure they will be faced with to dress in ways that are immodest.
Forcing dress rules will only work so long. There has to be a strategy that is more solid than merely, "Because I said."
1. Teach what modesty is
Dressing modestly is to dress in a manner that does not entice another lustfully. It is very possible to dress in an attractive manner without dressing to cause lust.
2. Teach why modesty is important

It has a bearing on our relationship with God.
It has a bearing on our relationship with our friends
It has a bearing on our relationship with the opposite gender
3. Teach what is and is not modest
This is especially important for the girls. She may not realize what entices a boy unless she is told. If parents wait until she gets it on her own she will very likely already be hooked with wearing those clothes.
4. Protect them from the wrong peers
To place a child in a room five days a week, six hours a day with people his or her own age and who do not have convictions about dress is to teach your children to dress like the class and not like you have told them.
5. Lead them to the right peers
Children should spend the majority of their time with mature men and women who have proper convictions of modesty. This means that most of their time is spent with their parents, some of their time is spent with their parents' peers or other mature mentors, and all time with their own age peers is supervised.
The goal isn't to make our kids conform to what is acceptable in the church you attend. Your goal should be to teach your children to dress in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord, appropriate for the occasion and respectful of those men and women present.

Reaching for Righteousness

I found a worthwhile article on children and righteousness at http://www.kidsofintegrity.com/blog/post/reaching-righteousness

Training Your Children to Act Rather than React

Every day life situations either force us to react or give us opportunities to act. Reactions are usually emotional and seldom thought out. Far better is to develop in our children (and in ourselves) certain auto-pilot type actions to life's situations. For instance when someone offends us our "auto-pilot" action should be forgiveness.
I have attempted here to give some suggestions to help train actions rather than reactions in our children:

1. Teach them God's Ten Commandments 
Every Christian should have a firm grasp upon all ten and how they apply today. These become the moral compass for all action.

2. Teach them Christ's greatest commandments 
Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments in just two. No, I am not giving the excuse to just learn these two; I am saying that we need to have both Jesus greatest commandments and the Ten Commandments down pat. We ought to be able to spurt them out so clearly that even in the most pressure riddled situation, we can make choices based upon them.

3. Teach them your faith
I am convinced that every Christian should be able to write out concisely what it is they believe and how they believe what they believe impacts their daily choices.

4. Teach them your expectations 
It is only right that our children know what it is we want to see in them. Don't leave them guessing.

5. Teach them to trust God for outcome 
Once our children are guided by the above four they will need that final step which is to obey their guiding principles, knowing they are right, and trust God for whatever outcome He pleases.

My Goal as a Parent

They say the dream of every parent is that their children will have it better than they did. I have grown to have a slightly different take than that. I want my children to have a more abundant entrance into heaven than my own.

2 Peter 1:10-11 teach us that a person's entrance into heaven may be either barren or abundant. Many Christian parents train their children to be nominal Christians at best so long as they have worldly comfort. In doing so they have given their children an eternal curse.

1. An abundant entrance requires Christian growth

• Faith
• Virtue
• Knowledge 
• Temperance
• Patience
• Godliness
• Brotherly kindness
• Charity

Do not come accidentally. They must be developed

2. An abundant entrance involves suffering
We are to fill up the suffering of Christ in this world. If we would be conformed to the image of Christ we must expect that we will suffer in this world as He did

3. An abundant entrance will be personal
Our children must know the Lord themselves. They must experience His life for themselves.

4. An abundant entrance means service
"Well done though good and faithful servant" can only possibly be spoken to those who have been servants of Christ.

5. An abundant entrance involves death to self
Paul said, "I die daily." It's a painful but essential truth to teach our children.

Become a Good Listener

1. Make eye contact
2. Ask questions
3. Do not overreact
4. Complete the whole conversation before making a judgment
5. Never ridicule
Listening is a skill. It takes practice and training. Consider taking a course on listening.

At the very least, get a good book on the subject and study it.

Teaching Obedience

A child's obedience in the home should not be optional. Obedience is an essential skill if your child will grow to

• Have social acceptance 
• Benefit from education 
• Succeed in the work place 
• Possess a saving relationship with Christ 

Obedience is a parent's top priority for their children
1. Begin early
Your child should know that you expect obedience from the very first. We started as soon as we came home with our kids. If another parent wants to wait six months, that's fine. But begin quickly.
2. Spend lots of time with your kids 
I don't mean just be in the room with them but engage them. Speak to them. Teach them. Hear what they say. Explain why obedience is important and why you want them to obey a particular thing.
3. Give them age appropriate responsibility
Don't expect them to do more than they are capable at their age but give them responsibilities and expect them to fulfill them. Teach them how. Do them with them and then expect them to complete the task.
4. Tell them once
Once you are sure they are capable of the responsibility and know how to complete it, tell them to do it and walk away. If they do not complete it administrator an appropriate and predetermined consequence so they know you are serious about obedience. Leave again. Repeat until obedience is achieved. Don't grow angry.  Just teach obedience.
5. Encourage obedience.
Recognize obedience and reward it often. Sure, you want to be consistent with the rod for discipline, but you'll get great results from being equally consistent with reward.

Raising Your Children to Be a Godly Influence

A few years ago, just before my youngest son finished high school, he was in a local super market and witnessed a man beating up a woman. Seeing her on the floor with the man kicking her repeatedly, my son forced his way through the crowd of onlookers and shoved the man away from the woman, warning him not to touch her again. The angry man lunged forward whereupon my son shoved him once again and warned him not to touch her. At this, the man huffed away toward the door but was met by the police who had been called by a store worker.
When I heard what happened I warned my son of the risk of what he had done and then lavished praise upon him for doing it anyway. It was a brave influence for right.
Not everyone should do what my son did, but every parent should raise their children to be a Godly influence.
Below are some hints to that end.
1. Be an influence yourself.
Reach out to others in an effort to lift them and encourage them.

• Teach a class at church
• Sing in the choir
• Hand out tracts

2. Train your children to possess godly principles. 
Influence can only happen if a person has godly principles
3. Teach the value of faithfulness.
Real influence happens over a lifetime.
4. Teach your children to shun the spotlight.
Rarely is a celebrity type influence either godly enduring. You will need to avoid watching those in the spotlight if you want to convince your children not to seek it. Conversely, let them observe you taking notice of and giving honor to men of true godly Influence, such as quietly speaking with and being a blessing to a pastor or Sunday school teacher.
5. Praise marks of godly influence you notice in your children. 
Developing a power of observing your children and responding positively to positive character and correcting quickly negative character is key to raising children.

Raising Manly Sons

This world is in a constant campaign to make it men less and less manly. And no wonder; the manly man is a conqueror and will not tolerate Satan's advancement in his areas of leadership. Satan wants men who are to sissy to stand against him. Christians have slacked duty to raise man men. Too many Christian men are run by their wives or by the women of the church. Too many men have rolled over and allowed women to usurp authority over them. It's time for Christian families to raise their sons to be manly men. 


Some suggestions:
1. Get them outside
Let them breathe the air and pretend to do battle with great enemies. Don't take away their toy guns and knives but teach them to use them responsibly. Graduate them to the real thing early.
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2. Let them get hurt
Bumps and bruises and scars are a part of manly process. Moms can be over protective. Let them bleed a little and don't coddle them when they do.

3. Show them your battle wounds
They don't have to be real scars. Tell them stories of your own adventures.

4. Get them around men
Boys should be around their dads a lot. They need to see dad working, sweating and "swinging a sword" so to speak. Boys should be around men who work hard and are glad to do it. When my oldest son was just nine or ten years old he walked up to one of the most well known pastors in our country, held out his hand to shake the preacher's and introduced himself. That preacher turned to me shocked and impressed. My son had grown up around preachers and was not intimidated by them. Boys should respect men, not be afraid of them.

5. Pray for them and encourage them in their own battles
Even the toughest soldier needs encouragement and some time for healing now and then. Pray with and for your sons. Encourage them when they have to endure a battle. Relieve them if you can; but don't fight their fight for them, don't protect them to much from their battle and for sure don't baby them while they develop their manly skills.

There is a balance between tough and tender. Real men are thoughtful and studious as well as tough and courageous. Just don't steal their manliness in your desire to make them your sweethearts.

Training Your Children to Be Content

Giving your children the right things early will help them be content in their lives
1. Give the time
2. Give them skill
3. Give them laughter
4. Give them Chris
5. Give them family

Leaving a Spiritual Legacy

Here is a link to an article worth considering.

http://www.growthtrac.com/artman/publish/title-ways-to-leave-a-spiritual-legacy-for-your--747.php

Teach What They Should Do Instead of What They Shouldn't

1. Teach your children that life is about God

2. Teach your children that loving others comes from loving God

3. Teach your children that it is more blessed to give than to receive

4. Teach your children that true joy awaits us in heaven (rather than merely seeking quick fun here)

5. Teach your children the character of mercy, forgiveness, courage, humility and faithfulness

Correction

1. Forgive your children's error.
2. Apologize to your children for your error
3. Refuse to discipline in anger
4. Use soft tones rather than loud when correcting your children
5. Be consistent with both discipline and love.

Establishing Family Traditions

When my children were very young I read an article that suggested making memories as a family, establishing some traditions that we would carry on year after year. I spoke to my wife about the idea and she suggested we include a tradition her parents had had during her childhood, of visiting and decorating family graves on Memorial Day. We began going with her parents each Memorial Day and my children don't remember one they have missed. We even made special arrangements to visit those graves (in Oregon) while we lived in Southern California and Oklahoma. Anita's parents are both gone now but this tradition (along with some others) have continued.

1. Plan some (nearly) unbreakable family activities

I think the reason the Memorial Day tradition stuck is because my in-laws would have visited those graves with or without us. Knowing they were going made it that much easier to settle that we were going.

2. Have some fun with family traditions

We chose early to incorporate some children's activities in Memorial Day. It is a long day with lots of driving so we planned for breaks throughout the day and a big finish just for the kids.

3. Use traditions to teach manners and etiquette

My wife has always been big on a fully set table. Breakfast lunch and dinner were always at the table and always with the dishes and silverware in their proper places.

4. Some traditions may not even be recognized

When my oldest son began courting his wife to be, her parents asked him what some of our family traditions were. We have tons of them but he had never thought of them as traditions. 

5. Allow some flexibility as the children move into adulthood

Memorial day has changed a lot over the years. We no longer go to all of the graves we did when my in-laws were alive but we now go to their graves as well as some of the others. We have had to rent larger and larger vehicles to accommodate my growing family (grandchildren now come with us on our trip). Some parts of the tradition have had to change as places we used to gather during the day are no longer open. We see some further tweaks we will need to make to honor the tradition without becoming burdened by it. Still, we all agree we want to continue with the tradition in a newer format.

With Your Kids

1. Do projects with your kids
2. Provide adventures with your kids
3. Love the Lord with your kids
4. Give your kids to the Lord
5. Learn a skill with your kids

Adult Kids

1. Need our prayers fervently
2. Need our support but not our interference
3. Need our guidance only when they seek it
4. Need us to allow them to be their own family
5. Need to have their parents give them a place to break away from pressure.