Our baby – Our Delight
We all love or children and want them to find happiness in life. When they are first born, we delight in their every act, every funny expression, their first smile, their first step and words. We allow them the full range of expression of their personalities and desires, setting boundaries only for safety. They are selfish, demanding little dictators who do their very best to take control of everyone and everything in the periphery.

Child Training
At some point, we realize that we have to get a grip on them and their behavior lest they become juvenile delinquents and end up in prison. So we begin to place demands on them to change their behavior to comply with social norms. We teach them manners, respect for adults, respect for the rights of others and a whole list of ideas that “good” people teach their children. We use whatever means we can conceive that “work” on our children to make them comply with our new rules. We bribe them with our praise and approval. We scare them by spanking them when they resist our demands.

Personhood is not Behavior
Well informed parents recognize the distinction between a child’s person (real self) and their behaviors. The real self, while selfish and demanding is also tender, easily hurt and certain to misunderstand why parents implement their ever increasing demands. Loving parents who understand how vulnerable their children are try to protect and reassure their children while they tighten behavioral boundaries. They teach their children why they have created rules about behavior and help them to align their true desires with the expectations of society. The goal is to allow their children to express their true self and channel them into constructive avenues without suppressing the real self. It is not possible to avoid suppressing their desires but in love, parents try to minimize it as much as possible. I pray that I have given my children the love and approval they need, taught them the truth about why Christians do what they do and most of all been a good model of a Christian who serves the Lord with all of his heart because I love Him. I wish the same for you.

Real Self – False Self

The following principles have been developed from the observations of psychologists who study the patterns of human behavior. These concepts describe the adaptations children make based on conclusions they reach when they enter into the socialization process. Children adapt to the pressures exerted on them by parents and authority figures by practicing behaviors that are demanded of them. Children conclude that by adopting these overt behaviors they can gain the approval, acceptance and praise from parents, authority figures and peers and protect themselves from the pain of rejection by these same people.

These concepts track the adaptations of the real self, our original, authentic, honest self that is egocentric, selfish, demanding and resistant to authority. Under pressure to conform overt behaviors to meet social expectations, children create a false self, actually layers of false selves that serve as masks and roles played that please the authority figures over them. The adoption of overt behaviors that conflict with the true desires in their hearts causes children to abandon their real feelings and identify their personhood with these false constructs termed the false self.

1. Synonyms for Real Self: True self, Child within, Inner child, Deepest self, Inner core.

2. At the core of our inner experience, under the layers of learned behavior and defensive adaptations, is the real self, the childish self with which we began.
· We began life as a child with childish thoughts, feelings and expressions.
· At our core, we are still the child who is genuine, authentic, honest & real.
· Our real self is needy, selfish, self indulgent, fearful and demanding of others
· Our real self is genuinely simple, uncomplicated, need focused & relational
· Our real self is naïve, believes easily, acts on what he/she believes
· Our real self is shamelessly aware of our needs, unafraid to selfishly pursue our needs, willing to use any means to receive our needs from others.

3. The false self is a learned strategy that is put around the real self to evoke approval, acceptance & praise from people and prevent disapproval, rejection & anger from significant people in our life.
· Real self’s honest, selfish, demanding approach is not acceptable in society.
· Parents & other authority figures exert pressure on children to comply with their demands and adopt acceptable behaviors in exchange for approval & praise.
· Children, unable to orient to God, comply with the demands of parents, authority to gain the approval, acceptance & praise they crave.
· False self consists of overt behaviors that play the part, assume the characteristics that were expected for the purpose of pleasing parents in exchange for their approval.
· Children build a false self, built in layers, by putting on specific behaviors that comply with expectations during different phases of human development.
· At every stage of growth, new and different demands are made and forced upon children who comply by playing the part expected, to gain the needed approval.

4. Initially, parents accept & delight in our real self, overlook our selfishness, comply with our demands and express affection unconditionally regardless of our behavior.
· Parents are delighted with babies, lavish affection on them without expectation of any behaviors and praise them for every action they perform.
· From birth until parents begin to train children, the child is allowed and even encouraged to express his real self for which he is praised and rewarded with laughter and affection.

5. When parents begin to train children, to bring them into compliance with social norms, the rules of the game change for children.
· Specific behaviors are demanded in exchange for approval & praise.
· When children resist, parents often use pain to induce obedience
· When children resist, parents can withhold affection, approval and praise.
· When children comply with parental demands, approval is used as a reward
· Children confuse love that gives them self worth with the approval for compliance
· Children believe that the love they need is dependent upon their compliance with parental demands to practice specific overt behaviors.
· Children adopt and practice behaviors they believe will give approval and praise.
· Children learn a human works system that succeeds in gaining the approval they crave from parents, peers and everyone they deem important.

6. Under pressure from others, children learn to practice specific desired behaviors in order to gain or maintain the approval/love they crave.
· These overt behaviors are not a genuine expression of a child’s changed belief system
· The overt behaviors adopted are in conflict with the child’s genuine desires and natural ways of expressing himself.
· The overt behaviors become a necessary role that children play to be accepted.
· Children adopt a false self, a self that is not in concert with their inner desires but a self that does whatever is expected to gain the pleasure of approval and avoids the pain of disapproval from those they need to meet their needs.

7. The real self is left behind & forgotten in the child’s heart as layer upon layer of different roles are adopted in order to comply with parental and peer expectations.
· The child rightly concludes that the honest expression of his selfish, demanding real self is not valued but produces pain and rejection from parents.
· The child rightly concludes that his real self has no value to produce approval from parents or peers because only specific overt behaviors are accepted.
· The child devalues his real self, abandons his honest cravings & feelings by repressing them, he becomes numb to his true self, no longer aware of his real self.

8. The child builds layers of pretense by compliance with social demands, loses touch with his real self and identifies his self with the false self he has constructed.
· The real self has no value to produce approval, therefore he/she concludes that he/she has no intrinsic value – this causes the self the ultimate pain of rejection.
· The pain of rejection must be minimized so the self implements the defense mechanism of repression through going numb & forgetting the real self.
· The child views self as the false self that produces the desired result – approval.

9. By the time we reach adulthood, we have put on layers of expected behaviors from parents, peers, teachers, coaches, the world and anyone else we give the power to accept or reject us by caring about them and what they think of us.
· Peter had long ago lost touch with the real condition of his soul, had identified himself with his pretense of manhood and was committed to playing his part.
· Peter truly believes he can produce courage and loyalty from his human will, believes that is what God desires from him and believes if he is able to produce courage and loyalty that God will be pleased.
· Peter’s real self is still needy, fearful and totally alienated from the reality of God’s grace and what God truly desires from the believer.
· New believers learn the system of desired behaviors, learn what is considered worthy of approval and adopt these behaviors as a new role to play out using the power of human ability and human will.
· We enter into the Christian life using the only skills we know, using the only strategies that have ever worked for us and assume that God expects the same things that our parents, peers and others expected.

10. At the moment of salvation, God gives us His righteousness in Christ making our real self as worthy as Jesus, by grace, before we have a chance to perform any behaviors.
· God invests value in our real self, rejects our false self, rejects the strategies that built the false self and has no interest in works produced by human ability or will power.
· God never asks or expects us to produce overt behaviors that are not in concert with our inner desires and true motives.
· God never asks or expects us to play a part or produce overt behaviors that create the appearance of spirituality apart from the power of the Spirit in concert with genuine love for Him and desire to please Him.
· God’s plan is for us to lay aside the false self, to reject role playing, reject man’s expectations and reject the practice of overt behaviors to gain man’s approval.
· God’s plan is for us to become totally honest about what we truly want, what we are thinking, what we are truly feeling at any moment regardless of whether our desires, thoughts and feelings align with His essence or not.

11. God gives us a new nature that is connected to the real self and enters us into His plan of transformation that takes off the false self/old man and replaces it with the new man that is aligned with the beliefs of Christ.
· We must take off the layers of the false self, the human works systems, the human good systems that we have used to gain approval from man.
· The old man is populated by these different false systems of behaviors we use to please people and gain their approval.
· The new nature and new man is totally honest, genuine, pretends about nothing, uses only truth, practices only truthfulness, rejects pretense and works only because he loves God, never to gain man’s approval.

This article was prompted by a question I received from a reader
Question: My parents used spanking as their main way of punishing me as a child. I am wondering if spanking is really good for children and how my wife and I should discipline our children.

It is very important to develop an overall plan for training your children that includes understanding the benefits of ongoing learning as parents, knowledge of developmental stages, the limitations of age related abilities and the importance of consistent application. It is also very important to build agreement between husband and wife so that you can present a united front to the kids. Having an idea about how to proceed makes all the difference when you are in the heat of the moment, making decisions. Knowing your child’s capacities and limitations allows you to use wisdom as you correct their behavior. In this article, we will discuss the benefits of learning parenting skills, the different stages of human development, age specific capacities and limitations and the importance of consistency.

Parental Responsibility to Train & Discipline

Ephesians 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

God’s Agents
Parents are God’s responsible agents for raising children. In modern USA, many have delegated this responsibility to the state through public schools and through the church. While a good church offers support for parents through Sunday school programs, responsibility for training children in the Lord remains with parents, especially fathers. Notice that parents are commanded to nourish children up in the discipline and knowledge of the Lord. Many types of knowledge are important for children to become mature adults, but knowledge of the Lord is primary.

Living Examples
Parents train their children in the Lord by teaching them concepts from the bible and then and most importantly by becoming living examples of these concepts in real life. The most effective training mechanism in the parent’s toolbox is the life they live in front of their children. Children pick up on what we believe, our attitudes, what/how we say and how we behave in relationships. What children see from their parents, they will imitate in their own life and often not know why they feel the way they do.

Parenting like God
Finally, parents are responsible to train their children using the same motives and methods that God uses to train His children. He trains and disciplines in love, always for the benefit of the child. Every word and act toward your child should be intentional and intended to edify him/her in the Lord. The previous article “Grace Parenting” deals with this concept in full.

In order to train our children effectively, we must learn how and why and when to use different levels of discipline.

Benefits of Learning to Parent
Knowledge is power and knowledge about parenting gives us the power to feel confident about decisions that we make as parents. Most of us as parents don’t need radical change, just the chance to see the situation differently, from God’s perspective based on accurate knowledge of the word. Parents need the Holy Spirit to be their coach who can provide knowledge and encouragement. As we learn about children and parenting principles we are able to
a. Gain skills and knowledge that enable us to formulate an overall plan.
b. Able to face normal changes with confidence and flexibility based on knowledge.
c. Able to discern our child’s needs based on their present stage of life.
d. Know our child’s abilities and limits of understanding in different developmental stages so that we can have realistic expectations and use age appropriate interventions.
e. Recognize the importance of being consistent in the way we apply rules and boundaries to help our children develop good habits of behavior.

Parenting Manual
Children don’t come with a manual so we have to find help from the accumulated wisdom of those who have come before. I encourage you to continue reading your bible and learning from Christian classes on parenting so that you can offer your children the best opportunity to grow into strong and healthy adults.

Marriage In Parenting
Another critical issue in parenting is the status of the marriage. As a rule, happy marriages produce healthy children. A happy marriage is not one without conflict but one where normal conflicts are managed, resolved and used for growth. When dealing with children, a united front where both parents say the same thing and work in unison is critical. A united front lends credibility to the ideas being presented and hinders the children from being able to divide and conquer parental authority. Children feel more secure when parents work well together and agree with one another about discipline issues. When both parents understand the development of their children, they can use accurate information to craft effective training methods.

Egocentrism
Another important piece of information about your child is the concept of egocentrism. All children are egocentric, which means that they are only able to think about themselves and only able to see the world through their own eyes and feelings. To a small child, he is the center of all things and all things truly exist for his pleasure. He/she at these early stages in incapable of experiencing empathy or look at a situation from someone else’s point of view. Egocentrism is more than a choice to be selfish though that is how it appears, it is the incapacity to think beyond their own self. This condition moderates at times and is mostly left behind by growth around the mid-20’s.

Stages of Human Development
Human beings grow and develop in stages from birth all the way to death. Psychologists have studied these stages and have written about the different developmental tasks that challenge us at each stage. The early stages focus on the challenges of physical development and the latter stages emphasize mental development. It is the challenge of these developmental hurdles that motivates us to grow and increase our abilities. The following table describes the different age categories and the abilities children normally possess at these ages.

Age Developmental Tasks & Abilities

0-2 yrs Develop senses & motor skills – sucking, grasping, looking, listening, crawling, walking, comprehension, talking, self-awareness, attachment, trust. Infant uses their senses and motor skills to relate to their world. They begin to develop basic categories of concrete objects in memory (hard, soft, color). Totally egocentric; None or little discipline, only positive reinforcement is effective to motivate.

2-6 yrs Develop symbols & language to understand & relate to the world. All thinking is concrete and the child is not yet capable to conceive in the abstract. Imagination flourishes and language becomes the primary means of influencing their world. Total to mildly egocentric which moderates about age 6; Light and immediate discipline is effective. Spanking with a rolled newspaper or very small switch. The goal is to communicate about behavior not cause great pain.

7-11 yrs Development of logic and examples (parables). Learning about classification of categories & numbers. Mildly egocentric so sharing & sympathy can be taught; Age where planned training & discipline based on rules is effective. Choices & consequences can be used to discipline ie loss of privilege; spanking for rebellion and rejection of authority.

12-Adult Development of abstract thought and hypotheticals. Understanding of ethics, law, morality, social issues, theoretical concepts. Focus on adaptations to society and how the person fits into the world. Able to understand concepts without concrete examples. Egocentrism fades up to mid 20’s; Focus on choices & consequences as the person interacts in relationships. Puberty, sexuality & preparation for marriage. Discipline through consequences; no spanking girls after puberty and boys for rebellion and standing up to authority.

Stages & Hurdles Cause Growth
Humans develop in stages from birth until death. The descriptions and age limits of these stages are generalities and approximations, not absolutes. Each stage brings new challenges to overcome and new opportunities for growth. Expanding thinking abilities and building a framework for life is the mission of each stage. As egocentrism (self centeredness) diminishes and the capacity for theoretical thinking increases, children are able to prepare for adulthood with its complex responsibilities.

Age Specific Capacities
Discipline needs to be crafted and aligned with age specific abilities to comprehend and capacity to learn the lesson being taught. Discipline should never be considered as nor called punishment, but as teaching and training to extinguish unhealthy attitudes and behaviors while replacing them with good ideas and behaviors. For example, you can spank a one-year-old over and over for a boundary violation but he is not yet able to understand what you are teaching him. You might even be able to convey the idea of “don’t” but he has not gained a positive perception of his world that helps him make informed choices. Spanking one-year-olds is not an effective means of correction. When he is two or three, spanking has more impact because he is more able to understand the lesson being taught.

Clear Boundaries
Boundaries should be as clear as possible for children, especially in the younger years. Small children are concrete thinkers, meaning that they can only understand something that has a physical example or application. It is not until age 12 + that children gain the capacity for intangible thought. As teenagers, your children are ready to discuss morality and more subtle boundaries related to motives, but not before. Boundaries for small children are made clear by making them physical. For example, “do not leave our yard” makes a clear boundary of where a child’s body is to be at any given moment. His heart might be with the kids across the street but his body better be at home. This is clear and not easily misunderstood by a child. If he does leave the yard, then consequences will be next. At later stages, issues of motivation and attitude can be used as boundaries. For example, your fourteen-year-old son can be expected to take out the trash with a good attitude without complaining. His mind-set and demeanor can become part of a boundary system intended to teach him about life issues.

Consistent Application
Boundaries also need to have clear consequences connected to them when violations are chosen. When he/she does cross the line, what discipline will take place to teach him to obey? Will this consequence of their action take place every time, some of the time or only after the parent has built up anger and comes at him like an wild person? The lines need to be clear, the discipline also and the consequences need to be consistent.
Consistency is one of the most important issues in parenting. Children don’t do well with mixed signals. When a parent says one thing but does another, it takes away credibility and believability in the child’s mind. He doesn’t believe you when you say, I am going to discipline you for crossing the line because you have proven that you mostly won’t. The child learns to ignore the lines and what you say until the signal of building anger is seen and then they get busy complying with commands. When you are consistent, meaning that the same discipline happens every time the boundaries are crossed, with an even temperament, the child becomes habituated to listen the first time. He/she learns that boundaries are real, important and that you mean what you say as a parent, not because you are angry but because these lines are good for the child.

Love that only builds and never tears down for our children is a given. Along with love, if we provide a united front, knowledge of the stages of human development and age specific limitations of children, clear boundaries and consistent application will provide our children with a healthy environment in which they can grow to be healthy adult.

Methods of Discipline
Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
The bible makes it clear that spanking is part of God’s plan for raising children, but it never precludes using other forms of discipline. As an educated counselor I am aware of the literature that suggests that spanking is an ineffective for of discipline, but I don’t believe what the studies suggest. I depend upon the bible for all of my instructions about training my children which includes spanking, but that is not my only form of discipline. Let’s discuss when and why to spank and suggest an alternative form of discipline that I have found effective.

Spanking
Spanking in my home is usually reserved for rebellion and stubborn refusal to comply with parental wishes. When a child rebels by deciding that he/she is not going to obey, that view that tells them not obeying is even an option, must be eliminated from their minds. Spanking works very well for breaking rebellion but never so hard or long that it breaks their spirit. Spanking helps the child return to sanity and tell himself that obedience is in his self interest. Yet spanking is over-kill for lighter offences and I consider it inappropriate for some situations.

Deprivation
When children are slow to obey, when they complain about obeying or have a general whining disposition, I find that depriving them of some privilege they enjoy to be an effective means of getting their attention. We take away TV time, computer time or ground them from friends. For some children, this form of discipline motivates them to change more than spanking and is preferable to spanking.

There are many ways to teach a child that his thinking and behaviors need to change. Be creative and find something that works for each individual child. May the Lord bless you and keep you as you train your children in the love of the Lord.

When Christian parents love and train their children the same way God loves and trains His children, I call this

Grace Parenting

The Importance of Parenting
Raising healthy children is one of the most important assignments anyone receives from the Lord. In present day USA, with the number of single parent homes on the rise, good parenting skills are even more important. Children, by God’s design grow healthier with both a father and mother in the home. When one parent is absent, a heavier burden falls on the remaining parent to provide the love, patience, training and correction that children need, but one parent can produce a healthy child. If you are a single parent, God will help you and enable you to parent your child in a way that will bless them and prepare them for adult life.

God – The Perfect Parent
When any person believes the gospel, the death burial and resurrection of Christ for their personal salvation, God adopts them into His Royal family forever (Rom 8:15). When we become His children, He enters us into a training program that inspires us to grow into strong, responsible spiritual adults who willingly take on spiritual responsibilities.

Hebrews 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

We begin as spiritual babies (1Pet 2:2), grow into different levels of spiritual childhood and if we endure in His program, we grow to become mature, spiritual adults (Heb 5:14). God perfectly parents His children and enables them to grow up to spiritual adulthood. As we seek guidance to parent our children, we find the perfect example in the way that God parents us.

Four Areas of Parenting
Raising healthy children that are able to grow into adults and handle adult responsibilities requires that parents think and act using the principles of God’s word. A good parent acts toward his/her children in the same way that God acts toward His children in Christ. Children need a fair authority to draw clear boundaries, they need attentive parents that will protect them from the world, they need informed parents that will train them to take responsibility and they need healthy parents who can set a good example of how good people live. In this article we will examine how God parents us in grace, four areas of parenting and finally we will develop God’s grace provisions that enable Christian parents to parent like God.

God’s Grace Parenting
When Christ hung on the cross, He paid for all of the sins of the world. Before we were saved, in fact before we were even born, all of the judicial penalties for sins were paid in full and resolved (1Jn 2:2). When we trust in Christ for salvation, we enter a parental relationship where all of the penalties for boundary violations are already paid. When God uses corrective measures as our parent, it is never as retribution, revenge or as a means of making us pay for disobedience. God corrects us for one reason and one reason only, He loves us and intends to teach and train us, for our own benefit. His grace has already paid for our sins and now His grace corrects our bad habits of thinking and behaving to help align us with His boundaries so that we can be blessed. God’s grace parenting is motivated by love and is designed to benefit us by training us to habitually behave in ways that will bring blessings to our life.

Parenting Like God
God gives us firm boundaries and never compromises His position of authority. He corrects us because He loves us and wants to change the way we think and act. When we understand God’s love and training program for us, we can train our children the way He trains us. We correct our children because we love them and want them to make decisions that will bring positive, not negative results. When they violate the boundaries we establish, we can be firm and implement corrective strategies while remaining calm, kind and loving. We can parent them with grace. Grace never takes revenge when lines are crossed, grace corrects to benefit the one who needs to change. With grace in mind, Christian parents can build their corrective methods around the idea of helping children change their thinking and habits, not pay for what they did wrong.

Fair Authority – Clear Boundaries – Appropriate Consequences
God is the Boss of the universe and He has given clear guidelines to His children about what is right and what is wrong. God is the perfect parent. Like all Christians, all children need a fair authority figure to give them clear boundaries of right and wrong, along with appropriate consequences for violating the boundaries. When children are young, they have yet to develop the ability to look at their circumstances and draw reasonable
conclusions on which to act. The ability to improvise and make good decisions comes with age and experience. Because of this, children need clear cut lines that tell them where they stand in relation to right and wrong. They need to know that obeying the adults in their life is right and that lying, cheating and stealing is wrong. They also need to understand the consequences both good and bad that will occur from the choices they make. Good parents teach their children that good decisions reap positive results and that the opposite is also true.

Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

Protective Parents
In an evil world where the devil’s philosophy is dominant (Jn 8:44), it pays for parents to pay close attention to the outside forces that come into contact with your children. Clear boundaries not only teach behavior but they provide protection. There are many in our world who will take advantage of the innocent and even hurt them in permanent ways. Children naturally trust others and without parental oversight can get themselves into trouble. While God loves children, He has temporarily allowed evil to exist in our world and expects parents to protect them. Protect them from evil from the outside and also protect them from the evil ideas they bring home by training them in the Lord.

Children are also very curious about adult experiences and will seek ways to enter into adult situations way before they are ready. These experiences can push them forward into adult life before their hearts are ready, resulting in extreme feelings of guilt and shame. For example, people who experience sex as children will have a permanent sexual fixation even in adult life and their sexual life will be distorted in their marriage. Children who are damaged early in life have a difficult time healing as adults. They spend a great deal of their adult life trying to recover from damage, rather than use their adulthood to enjoy and contribute to their world. Over zealous protection of your children will frustrate your children but will also protect them from making terrible mistakes. Protect your children by knowing where they are, who they are with and what they are doing every moment of their childhood so that they can enter into adult life as healthy people.

Parental Training
Parents, especially fathers are charged with the responsibility of training their children in the knowledge of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The word discipline means to train them by educating them and by using corrective methods to steer them into good habits of behavior. All of us form habits of thinking and acting when we choose specific paths over time. When children are taught about the Lord and persuaded to act within the guidelines of the Lord, children will form habitual behaviors that will pay them dividends in adulthood. The word instruction means to admonish, teach and give warning about behavior. Parents are commanded to teach their children the principles of the word, correct them to form good habits of behavior and admonish them about violating God’s boundaries of wise ways of living.

A Good Church
A good local church can be helpful in training your children in the Lord. Often parents allow their children to choose the church they attend because of the entertaining youth program. If the youth program provides sound instruction in the word and is talented enough to make it entertaining then you have been blessed. If the program is full of fun but light on the word, you will be well served to find a church who takes the word more seriously (just my opinion after 30 years and raising 4 children). It is the promises and principles of God’s word that will empower your children to find Christ for themselves and live a blessed and successful life. If you cannot find a good bible church to teach your children the word, then you must educate yourself and teach them at home. Their spiritual education is the most important advantage you can give your kids, so don’t leave it to others to see that it is done.

Parental Examples
Children learn information by listening but they learn how to live by imitation. Children are natural mimics and they will look for people they respect to imitate. Your children will most certainly imitate you, either for the good or the bad. The best thing you can do for your children is to submit your life to the Lord, grow to maturity in the word and live the Christian life for real. Parents who know the Lord and live their lives in His service set the highest example for children to follow. Living for the Lord gives no guarantees that your children will follow, but your genuine Christian life will give them the best chance to do the same.

God parents us in grace, consistently correcting us to help us form good habits of behavior. He gives us clear boundaries and provides us with authority that is firm but kind and loving. He commands us to protect our children by closely monitoring their friends and activities. He commands us to train and nurture them in the Lord and provide a spiritual environment where they can learn the word while providing good examples of people who live their lives for Him.

Finally, I encourage you to pray for your children every day. What you can’t do with your human limitations, God can do because he has none. Ask Him to protect them and provide good influences in their life. Ask Him to lead you to a good bible church where you can learn the word so that you can be one of the good influences.