How to make rules that don’t produce rebellion.

Jana was the first to smell the smoke.

Flames filled our toaster oven. I jerked the plug and did precisely what they warn you not to do. As I prepared to douse the fire my brain screamed, “Don’t open the door – it’ll feed the fire with fresh oxygen!”

But I had no choice. Within seconds the flames were going to ignite the roll of paper towels above the toaster oven (Yeah, I know.) and be out of control.

I opened the door. The flames shot out. I fired back with a cup of water – right onto the super heated glass door. Glass shot everywhere. But the dragon was doused.

I’ve known parents who see rebellion burning in their child’s heart – like the fire in our toaster oven. But they’re afraid to “open the door” and confront it.

“We’re afraid we’ll make things worse if we enforce any rules.”

Here are some things I’ve learned about rebellion. Continue Reading

September 28, 2015 by

Watch out! The greatest danger a parent will face.

Mike was one of those dads who did everything right. The kind that makes the rest of us feel like slouches – and he knows it.

But the last time I saw Mike he was a broken man. One of his two grown sons rejected the faith and was abusing every drug and girl he could find. What happened? Mike didn’t know and it made no sense to me.

But the more Mike opened up the more one thing became clear.
There is a subtle danger that every conscientious Christian parent faces –
one we need to continually guard against. Continue Reading

September 23, 2015 by

Be careful you don’t miss the most important thing

Nick was every parent’s dream child – respectful, always studied hard, got the best grades and won all the awards. He loved church and could quote large portions of Scripture. He was respected by his peers who elected him a leader of his church group.

Pete was a little different. He talked when he should listen. He was impetuous and his tempter was always getting him in trouble. He would usually “act first and think later”.

Which of these best describes your kids? Here’s the deal on these two guys. Continue Reading

September 21, 2015 by

Responding to “Why do I have to do that?!”

I have a friend who does Ironman Triathlons – a 2.4-mile swim followed by a 112-mile bike ride and ending with a 26.2-mile run. If you complete the race within the allotted 17 hours you’re an “Ironman”. I’m impressed but …

… an Ironman’s endurance isn’t any greater than the endurance needed by a parent in the midst of an iron-will marathon with a child.

A main job of parenting is to help children bring their wills into submission to their parent’s will so they can later submit to God’s will. But that requires we win the battle of the wills with our children.

Here are a couple of tips on winning those iron-will marathons. Continue Reading

September 17, 2015 by

3 ways to avoid raising self-focused children.

I recently read this from a young Christian father. My only response: “In 10 years let me know how that worked out for you.”

“… to honour our children, we must let them reciprocate however they want to. I usually hear something like “Me no love Daddy! or “Jonathan [the Dad’s first name] JUST LEAVE ME ALONE”. Getting this far is huge, because your child confided in you that they don’t like you right now. That is communication, even if they call you by your first name.”

The author is well-meaning but also well on the way to training self-focused kids unprepared for the real world.

Can “Jonathan Jr” respond like that with his first grade teacher? Or a future boss? Or a cop that pulls him over? Or his future bride? In life it’s foolish to “reciprocate however you want to”. We need to teach our children that self-control is more valuable than unbridled self-expression.

3 ways to avoid raising self-focused children.

Continue Reading

September 14, 2015 by

Every parents should know this about winning and losing

I heard a teacher say, “We should eliminate competition from kids’ lives because it always produces a loser. “ 

That’s sounds good but it’s impractical and bad theology.

1. Impractical.

It doesn’t prepare a child for life – where you don’t get awards for breathing.
Children need to learn that hard work is rewarded – not merely showing up.
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. – Proverbs 14:23

Great people don’t become great because they never lose. Every great man or woman suffered set-backs, loss, disappointment and failure. Greatness grows out of learning from losing and moving forward. Continue Reading

September 10, 2015 by

How can something so simple be so powerful?

School is in full swing and I think it’s a great idea to reward our kids for working hard and making good grades. But what if we put as much emphasis upon rewarding them for the fruit of the spirit as we do for the fruit of their intellect.

When I served as Principal of a Christian school I developed little certificates to present the children each week based upon godly character traits. For four years, every week I personally signed and handed out thousands of “Character Awards”. I thought surely the kids had to be getting bored with them but over and over again parents told me how their kids prized and collected those 5×7 slips of paper. Continue Reading

September 7, 2015 by

When you don’t know what to do, try this.

There were times I felt like a rodeo dad – “riding the bull” – staying on top of one of our kids, rebuking, correcting, hounding them – it seemed – constantly.

Once I remember thinking, “I’ve got to say something positive to balance all this criticism”. But I couldn’t think of one single thing! Help me out here, Jana.

Our kids may be a mess but ….. if their heart is in the right place, rejoice. It will all work out.

But what if there is a heart problem? Continue Reading

September 3, 2015 by

So what is the ultimate goal of child training?

True story: A traveling evangelist was explaining why their denomination was better than all the others. He had two walnuts – one fresh and one from last year’s crop.

“Both these nuts look the same on the outside. A Baptist church, an Assemblies of God church, a Presbyterian church – they all look just like our church on the outside. But (and he chose the nut from the old crop) when we look inside the other churches (He cracked open the nut) we see they’re totally rotten inside.”

“From the outside our church looks just like other churches but when we look inside our church (He cracks open the second nut) we see ….. Well, I’ll be danged, this one’s rotten, too!”

In training our children I think a danger we face is raising kids who look good on the outside – they don’t smoke or chew or go with girls that do – but are rotten on the inside. Continue Reading

August 31, 2015 by

What if my child doesn’t understand what he did wrong?

One Spring me and my buddies had a “great” idea.

The house on the corner had four large bushes with huge, pure white mums. We discovered that if you slammed one of these mums with a baseball bat it would make the coolest explosion – white pedals flew everywhere! To make it more challenging you had to accomplish this feat while riding at full speed on your bicycle.

It was a blast – speeding down the alley, swinging bats and exploding flowers. Until the lady of the house appeared screaming “words I never heard in the Bible”. Continue Reading

August 27, 2015 by