What a privilege we have as parents! What a valuable task!

 

Copying God's Parenting Style

 

There are some definite biblical guidelines to parenting as we read and understand God's ways of parenting us as well as his heart towards our children.

 

First and foremost, we are privileged to have been loved lavishly and undeservedly by our Father, and we need to pass that on to our children by loving them unconditionally. Parenting with love is a major key to raising children with a heart for God.

 

We need to demonstrate the grace of God by parenting with grace when they fall short, are clumsy, forgetful or even when they are disobedient. We need to understand how to balance discipline with grace.

 

For your children to face the world today, and to face their futures tomorrow, they need to have a rock-solid identity. There is much we can do to help them to know who they are and give them the courage to embrace their individuality. Godly children are confident and full of joy because of the security of their identity.

 

Discipline is a topic that is widely spoken about in the bible as a necessary part of bringing up children to know and fear God. It is quite clear that it is a parents responsibility to impart wisdom to our children through discipline and training.

 

Teaching Them How To Be A Christian

 

To raise godly children, our number one priority is to introduce them to God! You want to encourage spiritual growth by training your children in christian disciplines from an early age. This we do in a number of ways.

 

• The first is loving God ourselves, out loud and in front of them.

• Speak about Him to your children. Refer to Him in everyday activities.

• Take them to church.

• Read the bible to them.

• Pray for your children

• Teach your children to pray

• Teach godly character - humility, honesty, responsibility, respect, sharing, generosity, preferring others

 

As christian parents, we are wanting to be guiding our children towards good choices and godly character. To do this we need to ensure that our influence as parents is the weightiest input that they receive. We need to foster an intimate relationship where our children look to us for guidance, teaching, and training. They need to see us parents as role models and life coaches so that our influence over them is more influential than that of their friends, T.V, movies or pop-stars. This can only be done through an honest open relationship where time together is plentiful and precious, questions are welcomed and opinions are guided, not criticised.