A Few Parenting Secrets

• Don’t get hung up on a job that keeps you away from home. Fewer things can lead to fewer hours of work. Keep in touch with your children. Cut away the heavy social schedule, so you can be at home to supervise (Deuteronomy 6:1–9; Proverbs 22:6).
• Don’t get strung out. Stay away from liquor, sleeping pills, and drugs. Be normal, be “square” (Ephesians 5:17–18; Proverbs 20:1).
• Bug them a little. Use strict but loving discipline. Don’t let them ride out the storm. Give them an anchor (Proverbs 13:24; 23:13).
• Be dignified. Keep the dignity of parenthood. Don’t dress, act, or talk like the teens do. Children need a loving parent, not an adult who acts like a peer (Proverbs 19:18).
• Take the world off their shoulders. Share your children’s problems. Let them know that your love for them is constant, and make your home a peaceful harbor (Psalm 119:9–16; Galatians 6:2).
• Light them a candle. Show your children a living faith (Titus 2:7–8).
• Shake things up when needed. Punish them when they first go wrong. Tell them why and convince them that more severe punishment will come if they disobey again in the same manner. Don’t punish them out of anger (Proverbs 13:1; Ephesians 6:4). When you punish your children in anger, you usually provoke them to anger.
• Call their bluff. Stand firmly on what is right, even when your children threaten to run away or drop out of school (Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 15:5).
• Be honest with them. Tell the truth at all times. Praise your children when you can, but criticize when you must. Never keep your children in doubt of where you stand on important matters (Romans 12:9; Colossians 3:9; Ephesians 4:29).
• Keep your cool. Don’t lose your head in every crisis. Children need confidence and a steady hand (Galatians 5:22–23; Ephesians 6:4).

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man; so are the children of the youth.” Psalm 127:3–4