Successful Parenting

We all have them, or have had them, and for better or worse they usually influence our lives more than any other single factor – parents. Many of us eventually become parents ourselves and for better or worse influence the lives of our children.

Every parent learns early on that it’s much easier to produce a child than to be a parent. Serving simultaneously as nurse, doctor, teacher, coach, disciplinarian, friend, and spiritual role model, wise parents will look to God’s Word for encouragement and direction.

Fortunately, parents themselves also have a role model – a God who is called Father.

Ephesians 6:1-4 (Amplified Bible)

Children, obey your parents in the Lord [as His representatives], for this is just and right. Honor (esteem and value as precious) your father and your mother – this is the first commandment with a promise that all may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord.

Instructions to parents not to:

Over Protect

Over protection is to smother them, fence them in, never trust them, and always wonder whether they’re telling you the truth.

If they are compressed into a confined area they will begin to resent you and become angry. Within their own environment allow them an opportunity to develop independence. Allow them the opportunities to take certain risks.

Psalm 91:11 (New Living Translation)

For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.

Show Favoritism

Showing favoritism is to prefer one child over the others.

Do not compare your child to their siblings. This causes them to begin a cycle in their life that will continue into adulthood. When there is a favorite child, often this child knows and understands that fact. This knowledge could cause a child to be egotistical. It is ideal for a child to love themselves. However, it is not a good thing when the child thinks of themselves before others.

When one child is favored over the others, it can have the opposite effect. The other children may feel as though they are unimportant and their feelings don’t matter as much. They are used to being given a lower priority and therefore may carry that mentality throughout life.

Acts 10:34 (New Living Translation)

Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism.”

Pushing Achievement

If you push your child to fulfill the goals that you never accomplished, you can destroy them. You can push so much that the child will have absolutely no sense of fulfillment; nothing will ever be enough.

Many parents pressure their children to excel in school, sports, or other activities and it may cause them to be bitter. Encouraging children in school is important, but pushing them too hard can yield harmful or even dangerous results. Pressured or overstressed children can become depressed or withdrawn, agitated or antisocial. Their grades may suffer and they may become less interested in school and learning. While a certain amount of academic support is healthy and important for your child’s development, unrealistic expectations and constant pushing are not.

All human accomplishments will one day disappear. We must keep this in mind in order to live wisely. If we don’t, we can become both proud and self-sufficient when we succeed or sorely disappointed when we fail.

Ecclesiastes 1:2 (New Living Translation)

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

Solomon shows us that the pursuit of earthly possessions and accomplishments is ultimately futile. Only the pursuit of God brings real satisfaction. We should honor Him in all we say, think, and do.

James 4:14 (New King James Version)

Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Discouragement

Ephesians 6:4 (New Living Translation)

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

Provoke your child to wrath by discouraging them; this occurs when they are never given approval, reward or honor. If they are always told what is bad about them and we don’t share what is good about them, it will have a negative effect on them. We need to balance the positive and negative feedback that we give them. If they are constantly told that they will never be able to do it, then they will not do it.

Parenting is not easy—it takes lots of patience to raise children in a loving, Christ-honoring manner. But frustration and anger should not be causes for discipline. Instead, parents should act in love, and treat their children as Jesus treats the people He loves. This is vital to a child’s development and to his or her understanding of what Christ is like.

Withdrawing Love

• Telling them that you do not love them anymore is probably the fastest way to make a child insecure.
• Don’t ever withdraw love (i.e., “daddy won’t love you if you do that”). God never stops liking or loving His children no matter what they do. If we withhold love, it sends a clear message.

1 Corinthians 13:4, 5, 7 (Amplified Bible) – The God Kind of Love

Love endures long and is patient and kind ; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].

God’s kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations. It is impossible to have this love unless God helps us set aside our own natural desires so that we can love and not expect anything in return. Therefore, the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.