Have you heard that some, apparently desperate, parents are now hiring “parent coaches” at $100 an hour to teach them such challenging parenting tasks as how to make their kids go to bed, stop having temper tantrums and stop talking back? A woman from California actually hired a parent coach to get her 3 year old to obey her.

If you still seek parenting advice the old fashioned way, books and articles abound on teaching your children cyber and cell phone politeness, how to resist peer pressure, how to become self-reliant, resilient and in control. The advice, however, does not have much moral substance.  One author said “we cross our fingers and hope our children make the right choices.” Another author stated the familiar refrain “we want our children to be happy.”  Happiness seems to be the #1 goal parents have for their children today.  In fact, a recent Parents magazine article claimed that values are important (to have) so that “you feel good about yourself.” Really?

As Christians, we have so much more to offer our children. We have the Word of God to give us the basis for our morality and teach us true self-worth. What does the world have?  There were many times we told our children that when they disobeyed us they were, more importantly, disobeying God. They could not argue with that. We stood (sometimes hid) behind a Higher Authority. Of course we want our children to be happy too. But we need to teach them that true happiness comes from realizing God’s love for us and living a life that is pleasing to Him.

The other day, I asked my adult children what we did right in raising them and, gulp, what we did wrong.  I was a bit nervous as I awaited their answers, but I also wanted them to be brutally honest, as they usually are.

Some of their answers were that we taught them to be respectful and to put God first. We had family devotions, always ate dinner together, and were involved in their friendships and opposite-sex relationships. We treated them as individuals and did not compare them, we said what we meant and meant what we said for both punishments and rewards, we showed that family time, especially vacations, was important and we gave our children individual special time. On the flip side, I was surprised to be told that we sometimes trusted them too much with their relationships to the point of some naïveté. We were strict, but our children knew it was for their good. I was also painfully reminded that I was a “yeller.” 

This was my first score card on how we did as parents. Their answers were off the tops of their heads, and I am certain they could have added many more things that we did wrong. I know that I could. I would change some things if I could, but history cannot be rewritten. My hope is that my children will raise their children better than we did.

What goals do you have in raising your children? Are you just hoping to survive until they reach adulthood?  Hopefully you will enjoy every day with them. God is in control of their souls and it is only by His grace that we have any measure of success.

The vows we took when our children were baptized sum up how we should raise our children: “that you will endeavor to set before them a godly example, that you will pray with and for them, that you will teach them the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

A tough calling in this culture but one worth fulfilling.

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