Parenting Principles

1."As parents our most important goal in life is to know that you led your children to the Lord and that you and your wife will be with them in eternity. This will outrank every other achievement." James Dobson
2.The greatest gift you can give your kids is a healthy marriage.
3.The key to a child’s heart is to let him know that he is loved no matter what. There is no more powerful force on the face of the earth for building strong relationships than unconditional love. Guard carefully against performance based love…if you perform well I will love you.
4.Avoid building a "child-centered" family. Make sure your kids have a clear understanding that God is first, the marriage relationship is second and the children are third. Teach your kids that it is not all about them.
5.Invest more time in developing eternal values rather than temporal values. Don’t let the good crowd out the best. Good is the enemy of great. Temporal values: sports, good grades, confident, popular. Eternal values: generous, loving, self-less, humble, developing the mind of Christ.
6.Set boundaries: clearly defined rules communicated in advance that if violated will have consequences. If you do X you will receive Y.
7.Practice consistency—set the boundaries and the consequences in advance and consistently follow through on what you said you would do. This may be the hardest practice in our role as parents.
8.Practice reality discipline. Let the reality of the situation be the consequence for the bad decision. Let kids learn from their failures just like they will all through life.
9.Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.
10.Invest in one on one time with each child. Read about Susanna Wesley and how she practiced this with each of her 11 kids. As a result she raised John & Charles Wesley more or less as a single Mom.
11.Go camping often. Camping is likely the greatest family bonding experience you can engage in with your families…no distractions.
12.Vacations will leave the most lasting memories. Make sacrifices in order to take them often. What do you remember most about your childhood?
13.Choosing to cheat at work rather than home. No amount of success at work will make up for failure at home. Commit to 40-45 "smart" hours and then leave it all behind. Pray: "God, fill in the gaps at work so I can invest more time at home." God will honor this commitment and bless you abundantly.
14.Establish your home as the place where your kids want to hang out with their friends. Be intentional about setting up a kid friendly home and invest in being a great host while they are around.
15.Invest in the moment. The Gospel according to this minute. Don’t spend your time at home thinking about work. When you are there be there. Don’t wish away your best days by thinking to much about how great life will be when we get through "this stage". "This stage" is often what we will look back on as some of the greatest days of our lives.
16.Practice the "First 5 Minutes" with your wife & kids. The first 5 minutes occurring between people sets the tone for everything that is to follow. It concerns the sheer power of words.
17.Build margin into our lives (financially, physically). Margin is the space between our load and our limit. Downsize and live a more simplified life. Work toward becoming debt free. Debt controls our lives and limits our freedom to do God’s will.
18.If you listen to your kids when they are 5, 6, and 7 there’s a good chance they will listen to you when they are 15, 16, and 17.
19.Teach your kids to do the right thing even if it is not the easy choice. Sometimes the right choice will be more painful in the short run but never in the long run. And, do what’s right even when no one is watching.
20.Lead by example, your kids are always watching. With children values are more caught than taught. Kids learn 3 ways: example, example, example.
21.Teach your kids to have a healthy fear, honor and respect for God.
22.Teach and practice the habit of delayed gratification. Don’t over identify with the child’s pain. If you give in to their every wish you will develop weak kids that don’t understand delayed gratification (which is one of the keys to success in this life).
23.Teach your kids that the key to happiness is gratefulness. Develop an understanding of our entire dependence on God and how much He has blessed our lives. Teach kids to never compare upward instead consider how blessed they are compared to the millions who are far less fortunate.
24.Tug of war concept. Teach your kids that God wants us to have friendships with Christians and Non-Christians. In fact he calls us to reach the lost through our friendships. However, if they are in a non-Christian friendship and the tug of war is pulling them in the wrong direction they should walk away from that friendship. Remain friends as long as they are always winning the tug of war game.
25.Early in a child’s life encourage them to try everything. Help them to find their unique strengths and then push them to excel in those uniquely gifted areas. Kids at a young age don’t have much self-discipline to push themselves. We need to make up for the lack of self-discipline by encouraging and pushing them to excel in areas that they love to do and have unique talents.
26.Find compassion ministries that allow you to serve with your family. Help and minister to the poor and needy with your kids. Teach them by our example that this is a priority that we are called to do in the Bible.
27.Develop a tithing habit early in your child’s life. It is much easier to begin this habit when 10% is only 10 cents or 1 dollar.
28.Develop a love for reading and learning. Strongly encourage your kids to develop the habit of reading early in their lives. Develop creative incentives to encourage this behavior.
29.Build self esteem in your kids daily: "What you think of yourself is for the most part determined by what you think the most important person in your life thinks of you". Tony Campolo
30.Make family devotional times a top priority each day. Invest time in reading the Bible, praying and building one another up in the Lord. Invest in building the word of God into our children. An investment that will last for all of eternity. Work hard to be creative with this family devotional time, it should not be viewed as a bore. We as parents must take responsibility that this is the most important 30 minutes of the day. Invest time and effort to make it fun & interesting.
31.Practice the daily habit of catching your kids doing something good and praise / reward them for it. Praise & encourage your kids very often.
32.Don’t discipline your kids in anger. The point of discipline is to teach, not to retaliate.
33.Teach your kids to practice good manners; making eye contact, if you win don’t brag, if you lose don’t show anger, when meeting new people—shake hands and repeat their names, hold the door open for people, answer the phone in a polite manner, always be honest, etc.
34.Admit when you are wrong to your kids. This teaches honesty, transparency, and humility. It also demonstrates that all of us are human and make mistakes…what all of us don’t do enough is admitting wrong and asking for forgiveness.
35.Write notes to your kids telling them the specific reasons why you are proud of them and glad they are your kids.
36.Develop family traditions that will leave memories for a lifetime.
37.Every family is a "little church". As a father you are responsible for spiritual leadership, teaching, equipping and training.
38.Teach your kids to develop goals & dreams early in life while they still believe they can accomplish all of their wildest dreams. Take advantage of the sense of wonder, risk and adventure that we tend to lose the older we get.
39.Teach your kids that if they don’t learn how to overcome their fears they will lose out on many opportunities in life. Life rewards those who take risks. Refusal to take risks makes for a life of mediocrity at best. Encourage your kids to fail faster and more often because we learn life’s greatest lessons from our failures.
40.When you pray for your kids, don’t just pray for their lives to be storm-free. Instead focus the pray on the concept that your kids will grow deep roots in the Lord. When they deepen their faith and obedience in the Lord their roots will grow deeper and stronger. It is often the storms that develop those deep roots.
41.Practice often the words of the song by Phillips, Craig & Dean: "Lord I want to be just like you because he wants to be just like me." In the early years especially help us to be holy examples for their innocent eyes to see.
42.Kids embrace what parents tolerate. How much of the negative influence of our culture do we allow to invade our homes?
43.The Bible in relation to education is like the Sun is to the Solar System. It is the guiding light that sheds meaning on all other subjects and books. It is what shapes their worldview and perspective on all of life.
44.Develop bedtime rituals. In addition to family devotions practice repetitive sayings that your kids will remember for a lifetime (examples):
What’s the most important thing in the world? Knowing Jesus.
Who is my favorite __ year old boy in the whole world?
Are you going to have a great day tomorrow? Why? Because you choose your attitude.
What is the secret to happiness? Gratefulness: having an attitude of gratitude. God has blessed us so much.
45.Teach your kids that humility is one of the most attractive features that we like to see in other people. Humility is attractive and it attracts friends. On the other hand people who brag and are full of themselves are very unattractive. Practice the habit early in life of spending very little time talking about yourself in conversation. The way to be interesting to others is to be interested in their lives. In conversation, be the person who does most of the asking and learning about the other persons life…what can I learn either good or bad from this individual’s life?
46.Join "pacs" with other parents that agree to want to know what is going on with your kids. If they see anything let them know that you want to know and return the favor. A group of believers praying and caring for each others kids is a powerful force.
47.Don’t just be involved in your kids lives, have them also be involved in yours. Take them to work with you, run errands with them, visit a sick friend in the hospital with them, help out a friend in need with them, etc.
48.Pray hard about having one parent stay home with your kids under school age. What is your motive for not doing this? Nicer cars, nicer house, etc. This principle is not for everyone but do pray hard about this issue and sacrifice the nice car, boat and house if that is the only motive.
49.Build up your spouse 24/7 in front of the kids.
50.Less is more. Don’t feel the need to enroll your kids in every sports program that comes along. Often we create chaos and have no time for teachable moments on the more important matters in life.