God has a lot to say about parenting. Whoever has ears, let them hear…
Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. [Psalm 127:3-5]
Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. [Proverbs 22:6]
The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. [Proverbs 29:15]
Children are truly a blessing. It is important though for us to train them up properly. We must always remember that they are smart and will learn first from what we do and remember that far longer than they remember what we say!
Don’t just go through the motions and do what your parents did when you were a kid or what others around you or the world do. Seek and understand what God wants us to do. You can set a strong foundation that they can build upon.
Challenge yourself to put God as the focus of birthday parties, holidays, and especially our day to day. What media (e.g. movies, books, games, apps ,etc.) do you allow? Do they honor God? or do you rationalize that they are probably not as bad as other stuff that is out there? We should raise our expectations to follow God’s standard, not just try to be less bad than those around us!
And always remember that the best way to show love is not to buy something but rather to spend quality time with them doing something they enjoy..
Find more support under our Ministries section of the site, under the Focused Ministries – Family page.
Click this link and scroll down through the devotions to study our Biblical devotions on family.
Find examples of godly entertainment for children that teach them God’s word while entertaining them at our Kid Zone.
Books and Other Resources
- Gods Design for Sex book series is a good resource for parents to use to explain this delicate, but important subject with their children. The series starts with book 1 targeting ages 3-5 years old and continues through book 4 targeted at ages 11-14.
- Book 1: The Story of Me
- Book 2: Before I was Born
- Book 3: What’s the Big Deal?
- Book 4: Facing the Facts
- RaisingHomemakers.com helps parents to teach and prepare daughters in the art of homemaking.
- The Five Love Languages of Children, by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, helps parents to learn how to show love in a way that each child understands… quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, physical touch.
- While They Were Sleeping: 12 Character Traits for Moms to Pray, by Gary Harrell and Anne Arkins, is a prayer guide that guides moms (and dads) through prayer for their children focused around 12 important character traits we all want our children to have.