Title: 62 PEARLS FOR WISE PARENTING
Category:
- Be a good model. Your kids will mirror your example.
- Express open love daily to your kids and spouse. Say “I love you” often.
- Practice strict, loving and consistent discipline (“time outs”, etc.).
- Total commitment to parenting, “Family that prays together and plays together, stays together”; e.g., you must commit time to your kids.
- Share regular meals together. (Listen to and share with your kids.)
- Control TV. (Average 12 year old has seen greater than 4,000 murders on TV and spent as many hours as in school “glued” to the tube.)
- Convey positive realistic expectations to your kids (they’ll fulfill them).
- Teach/model a value system where major priorities include: honesty, integrity, loyalty, commitment, reverence, humility, creativity, self-reliance, self-respect, gentleness, a positive mental attitude, happiness and love.
- Give your kids the greatest gift possible, a “healthy self image”, with regular loving praise. Strive for a 10:1 Praise:Criticism ratio.
- Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers. Foster reading. Read to and with them. Constantly teach—especially at opportune times (for example: while traveling).
- Encourage extra curricular involvements with your kids (share your hobbies and interests). This helps round them out for success in later life.
- Encourage your child to be independent, creative and self-reliant. Give your child “roots and wings.”
- Encourage goal setting and hard work. Give them a chore or responsibility and reward their initiative and persistence. Try hard not to spoil them with material things.
- Encourage your kids' “unique talents” with opportunities, patience and praise, not undue pressure.
- Teach your kids how to fail gracefully and that failures are stepping stones to success. (Example: Thomas Edison’s 1,000 tries for a light bulb filament.)
- Teach them social skills and be interested in their friends. Make your home and yard a welcome place.
- Teach them your spiritual values and model them. Proverbs 22:8 “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
- Strive for a positive, happy start to your children’s day with a good breakfast and encouraging hugs and kisses as they go to school.
- Strive for a calm, loving, sharing fifteen minutes with your kids just before sleep. They’ll repeat those 15 minutes ten times in their dreams. Kiss them and whisper something special in their ears after they’re asleep and watch them smile.
- Allow your kids to be children while they’re young (not type “A” toddlers).
- Teach your child to accept and love himself just as God made him, and to find his own dream/mission in life.
- Teach your kids to enjoy living daily and not get overly caught up with always striving and never “smelling the roses.”
- Teach your kids the secret to being successful in anything: Going the extra mile, doing a little bit more than is required.
- Teach your kids the secret to peace and happiness: to lose themselves in loving and serving others. (First and Second Commandments)
- Place faith at the center of your family life, pray together at meals, and bedtime daily and attend church together at least weekly.
- Project hope to your children through your attitude as a parent. Always look on the bright side. Be an optimist. Be enthusiastic. Be filled with God.
- 0.Let love be your greatest character value and raise your kids to want that same character. Love comes from God. It is vital for life and nurtures our spirit. Unconditional love from parents is certainly at the core of good parenting.
- Motivate your children with creative behavior modification. Reward them through your tone of voice, your smile and your time. Acknowledge their hard work, their honesty, their fair play and their church involvement. Let them know, as well, when you disagree with their choices or their lifestyle. Make it crystal clear what you believe and why. Know your church’s teachings and your Bible.
- Time together is the glue that truly holds families close. Working, playing, and praying together makes family members want to keep coming home even after they grow up. Our college daughters tell us the summer and holiday traditions we have shared for years and years makes them want to fly home to renew those happy memories again.
- Teach your kids to earn things they truly want in life. Don’t spoil them materially or you will weaken their spirit. When they earn their bike, it will stay well oiled. When they earn that special dress or coat, it will stay pressed and hanging neatly in their closet.
- Never ever give up on your teen no matter how frustrated you may be at times. Always see the positive inner potential. When things get so bad that you feel helpless, get professional help and seek support from your church.
- Arm your child with strong ammunition to face the hard knocks in life. Starting with a strong self-image and a secure feeling of being loved unconditionally in the home, they will better be able to say no to drugs, premarital sex and a thousand other temptations that will face them through their teen years.
- Teach your children to balance their life and to live a littler simpler. A well-balanced life is a more spiritual life and certainly a much happier life. Try to simplify your own life. Don’t spread yourself so thin that you can’t model a healthy balance to your children.
- Share family chores and responsibilities with your children. Let it be part of their allowance. This teaches them the value of work and also helps them feel more like a responsible contributor to the family needs.
- Having extended family is a great blessing. Don’t take them for granted. Spend regular time with them at reunions, weekend get-togethers, and holidays. Favorite aunts and uncles can be the needed positive influence that a troubled teen needs to turn them around or at least a trusted confidant.
- The best preparation for marriage for your teens is to see their mom and dad deeply in love in a committed marriage. Showing your love for each other openly, and regularly affirming that love helps prepare your children for a healthy marriage later.
- Chastity is a critical message in today’s world for our teens. Do talk to your children about it. Don’t let them pick up the opposite message at school or at the mall. Stand by our church’s teaching on chastity and let them know how important it is to you.
- Teach/model the character traits which help your children be a true “friend”, like forgiveness, courtesy, empathy, honesty, trustworthiness, and kindness.
- Create a home environment that always welcomes friends in. This provides a warm and happy home and teaches kids a vital lesson.
- Teach your kids to tithe and understand that all they have is a gift from God. Hoarding is selfish and dumb. The more you give the more you get (are blessed). Also the more talent, wealth, and grace God gives you, the more He expects from you. (Parable of the talents – Matthew)
- Foster independence in your kids step by step with trust and faith. Being independent in thinking is critical in teen years to stand up against negative peer pressure.
- Be a “Proverbs 31” mother for your spouse and children. Be trustworthy, virtuous, industrious, generous, wise, strong, compassionate, dignified and spiritual.
- Discuss lifestyle and character with your kids especially regarding sex, drugs, alcohol, lying, cheating, and dropping out of school or other significant life commitments. Our parental modeling and positive expectations are vital but so are honest discussions.
- 0.Teach respect and love and appreciation of the elderly to your kids. Visit older relatives, friends and neighbors and invite them home. Take time to visit along with your kids someone needy in a nursing home. Kids and the elderly have a natural bond that is good for both.
- Don’t be afraid to share the things you love (music, drama, sports, church involvement, history, or anything else) with your kids. They may grow to love it as well and even surpass your dreams. Allow them to choose to follow or not, however, and to pursue their own unique dreams. When their dreams match God’s dreams, real magic occurs and success always follows.
- Be generous with hugs and remind your teens how precious they are to you. Love is a fundamental need and unconditional love of all children (especially teens-- helps them say no to early sex). An affection-starved teen in our world today is in great danger of succumbing to peer pressure for pre-marital sex.
- Birds of a feather (dangerous peer pressure) can lead your teens into serious temptation problems like drug use and early sex and other high- risk behaviors. (I Cor. 15:33) Know your teen’s friends and spend time with them in your home. Make sure your home is a welcome, inviting place for your kids and their friends. When necessary, draw the line about where your kids go with certain friends. Know their friends family and who will be supervising the teens, etc.
- Believe you can raise a model teen who increases in wisdom and stature like Jesus did (Luke 2:52). See the best in them and affirm it especially their character values. Understand they’re going through tremendous changes physically and mentally. Give them some slack. Pray for them daily.
- Cultivate an even temperament in your kids by modeling a peaceful daily walk. Control your temper and moods and your kids will likely follow.
- Pray at home more, scream less. Praise more, criticize less. Hug more, harp less.
- Teach your kids forgiveness by example. Don’t hold grudges or overreact to minor things. Be quick to forgive and forget and always start fresh with loving optimism.
- Play to your strengths as a father and mother. My father was the best, most dedicated doctor I know. He inspired me to want to be the same. My mother was the most loving mother and wife ever and always loved and reached out to anyone in need. I luckily married a woman just like that. Be the best man and woman you can as a parent. Be yourself. Play to your strengths.
- Make the “Lord’s Day” a family day. Plan your family’s Sunday around church and other family rituals (dinner together, a movie, watching the Saint’s game, a country drive, a visit to Grandma’s). The important thing is time shared together as a family with a spiritual focus.
- A loving relationship with God and family is our greatest treasure. Understand it and model it to your kids. They’ll receive much more than any material thing you could ever give them.
- Believe in their dreams no matter how odd your child’s dreams seem to you. Support them. Believe in the possible. Your kids will change their goals and dreams a hundred times before they finish growing up. They will always be thankful you believed in them.
- Live a "Just follow me" life as a good man and woman for your son or daughter to model. They'll try their hardest to follow your good example.
- As a spouse married in faith, we are called first to get our mate to heaven. Likewise, our first obligation to our children is to raise them in faith and to one day see them in heaven.
- Be your kids best catechism and Bible teacher when they're young and through their teen years. Inspire them by your own spirituality and devotion to your faith.
- Encourage regular retreats, missions, and extra time for your kids growth in faith. Practice them yourself and lead by example.
- When serious problems come - stay committed for the long haul. Seek church and professional help and never give up. Double your prayer time for your troubled child.
- "Don't worry, be happy." Kids need happy Moms and Dads. Follow St. Paul's advice to the Philippians and stop worrying. (Phil 4:4, 6, 7)
- Control your pride, probably the greatest sin we all suffer from. At the same time, don't hold back in letting your children know you are proud of them. Praise their good character traits on a regular basis. Let them catch you praising them in front of someone.
REFERENCES:
- The Bible.
- Books by James Dobson (particularly Dare to Discipline, The Strong Willed Child
- Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World, Zig Zigler.
- How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Maglish.
- Traits of a Healthy Family, Delores Curran.
- How to Really Love Your Child, Dr. Ross Campbell.
- How to Really Love Your Teenager, Dr. Ross Campbell.
- What Kids Most Need in a Dad, Tim Hansle.
- Between Parent and Teenager, Dr. Haim Ginott.
- The Father of the Family, A Christian Perspective, Clayton C. Bearbeau.
- God, Religion, and Family Life, When God is at Home With Your Family, edited by David M. Thomas.
- The Key to Your Child's Heart, Gary Smalley.
- Kids Who Have Too Much, Dr. Rolph Minear & William Proctor.
- Back to Family, Dr. Ray Guarendi.
- The Challenge of Fatherhood in Today's World, Hugh Parham Stanley.
- The Family Blessing, Rolf Garborg.
- You & Your Child, A Biblical Guide for Nurturing Confident Children from Infancy to Independence, Charles Swindoll.
- Parenting Adolescents, Kevin Huggins.
- Christian Child Rearing & Personality Development, Paul Meier, MD.
- Keeping Your Kids Christian, Marshall Shelley.
- Guide To Growing A Healthy Home, Mike Yorkey.
- Ten Mistakes Parents Make With Teenagers And How to Avoid Them, Jay Kesler (508) 977-4500.
- Children at Risk, Dr. James Dobson & Gary Bauer (508) 977-4500.
- Things We Wish We Had Said, Tony & Bart Campolo (508) 977-4500.
- Building Your Child's Faith, Alice Chapin.
- Parenting With Love & Logic, Foster Cline, MD & Jim Faye.
- The Power of Positive Parenting, Dr. William Mitchell & Dr. Charles Paul Conn.
- Growing Wise in Family Life, Charles R. Swindoll.
- Parents and Children, A Guide to Solving Problems and Building Relationships, edited by Jay Kesler.