We parents need gentle reminders some times, don't we?
12 Parenting Essentials
1. Love.
Love is many a thing, from a feeling that might be selfish, to a
service done in secret. Love can be the crest of an emotion, or it can
be the toil of assistance.
Love can be
forgiveness, or it can be judgment, a balm to soothe, or a surgical
knife. Love can be decidedly blind or painfully seeing—praise or
rebuke.
If love wore one expression, if its hands were
always open, if it gave and never retained, then it could exist as a
sentiment without thought. But true love places a supreme demand on the
resources of wisdom, for manifestations of love are as varied as human
need.
If the end of love were passivity, the absence of
conflict; if it laid aside principles for peace, laid aside conflict
for cordiality, it would not be a virtue. It would be vice.
That love sometimes leads one into desperate
sacrifice, with no certain promise of return, that it requires trading
one goodness—your own—for another, makes it as rare as manifestations
of deity.
Love must be ready to embrace or to refrain from
embracing, to give or to deny. It requires expenditure and vigilance.
Love must be ever alert—a delicate, shifting balance of law and grace.
The final measure of love is not the cloak of emotion it wears, but the
service it renders. Certain love is not found in the good feelings but
in the high cost to the one loving.
Rather than say, “Children need love,” we must
define the acts of love by which children will realize their full
potential. For the sentiment of love can be as harmful as that of hate.
As all the Law is contained in this one commandment, “Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself,” so parenting is nothing more than the
activity of love. But as the law meticulously defines the expressions
of love, so the works of love must be defined.
2. Security
Not just physical security—sometimes parents cannot
control the circumstances—but security of soul. It is not only that
parents provide food, shelter, and clothes, but that children feel
their commitment to do so. This is not about what you do; it is about
atmosphere, the very breath of home-life. The soul of a parent is the
source of this security. Outward circumstances cannot touch that secret
place where children feel their parents’ love and good will. Morale is
of utmost significance in business, war, and sports; how much more in a
child attempting to win against the world? The child must be able to
assuredly say to himself, “I am worth having people care about me.”
This inner security is absolutely essential to
healthy development. Without that peace of soul that comes with knowing
that you are supremely valued and that there are people in the world
who have an unswerving commitment to your happiness, then a child has
no ground on which to stand while growing up.
A well ordered and disciplined environment can be
helpful, but it is not essential. Children living in poverty,
occasionally evicted from tenement houses, cast upon the street with
all their belongings, and ridiculed by their peers can still be rich in
emotional security. Children of single parents can also be secure and
stable. “Disadvantaged minorities” need not be disadvantaged in
providing emotional security for their children. Providing for a
child’s physical needs is insufficient in and of itself. It takes a
giving soul, not just a giving hand.
3. Acceptance
This does not mean that children are to receive
unconditional approval, but that whether parents are approving or
disapproving, children never feel that they have been dismissed. Our
present age is pervaded with the “to each his own” approach to human
relations. It is the assumption that there are no absolutes. Allow the
child “free expression,” never reject any conduct, maintain a positive
face regardless of behavior. The error of this is apparent in its
fruit.
But the relationship parents have to their children
is different from general society. It is the parents’ duty, as well as
their instinct, to accept and care for their children until they leave
the nest. Regardless of children’s conduct, they must know that their
parents have an unconditional commitment to their ongoing development.
For someone else to value your life is to have a life that is never
without value. To have someone else forgive, when you cannot forgive
yourself, leaves the door of forgiveness ever open. To have someone
accept you, when your conduct demands that you be rejected by all,
places you under demand to act so as to deserve the sweetness of that
acceptance.
4. Respect
Children are future adults—little people. They
have the same souls, the same feelings, pride, shame, desire to be
accepted, to be approved. Children have opinions, ideas, and views that
they like to share. They may talk you to death, but often what is
tiresome to an adult is significant to a child.
A child has a right not to be tickled until it
hurts, not to be bullied aside simply because he is smaller. If a child
is to respect himself and others, he must be shown respect. A child
that does not respect the person, rights, and feelings of others is
usually just reciprocating in kind. A human being without self-respect
is lower than an animal. Children estimate their value according to how
they are valued by others.
5. Communication
Communication is the vehicle of society.
Interpersonal relationships are built on communication. It is essential
for intellectual development. Several studies have shown that infants
isolated in their cribs, away from human contact, score much lower on
IQ tests taken later in life. Children that are not the objects of
communication become incommunicative. Read to your infants. Show them
things and give a name to everything. Talk with, not just to, your
three- and six-year-olds. Listen to your teenagers and learn from them.
6. Time
Not just “quality time” but quantity time. Know
this, that when you are not spending time with your children, someone
else is. When you received your child into this world, it was like
receiving a beautiful book with all blank pages. Like a daily planner,
each fifteen-minute interval has an empty line beside it. Your child’s
history is not yet written. The sum total of life is the accumulation
of minutes—minutes listening to someone, talking to someone, seeing or
hearing something said by another, or minutes consumed watching a video
produced by a disreputable character from Hollywood. Everyday, you
write in that book, line by line; or you take your child to a baby
sitter or to school, and you turn the book over to someone else, and
they too write into your child’s life. The hour you spend with your
child is not more influential than the hour someone else spends. Value
time enough to spend it on your children.
7. Boundaries
Children must learn quickly that they are not the
center of the universe. Others have needs and rights as well.
Self-restraint is essential to society. Animals do what they want to do
and what they are big enough to do with impunity. Humans must consider
what is right—thus boundaries. Just as nature contains innate laws that
carry consequences when violated, so the world of mind and soul is
governed by laws (boundaries). Boundaries exist even where they are not
recognized. When a two-year-old takes something away from a
three-year-old, he discovers a boundary.
Children need to have it deeply instilled that they
are subject to irrevocable boundaries. Boundaries with no consequences
are no longer boundaries. That one should design his own boundaries and
be responsible to no one is anarchy. Self-control is the pinnacle of
human existence. The essence of sin is lack of self-control. It is the
parents’ responsibility to clearly legislate boundaries and enforce the
keeping of them.
8. Structure
Doing the same thing each day at the same time is
structure. Any individual, not just children, left to do as he pleases
from one moment to the next will likely do nothing unless it is
immediately gratifying. To determine ahead of time what needs to be
done and then doing it at the allotted time enables one to do the
unpleasant with regularity. A schedule prevents one from
procrastination. It relieves boredom, gives a sense of security, and
minimizes stress. Good habits of scheduling one’s time are best
established early in life, before four years old. Without structure,
the child lives as an irresponsible rogue. Structure allows children to
set goals and sacrifice to reach them. It is the road to betterment.
One of the most common concerns of parents is
sibling squabbles. Children that are on schedules are far less likely
to gripe, complain, and fight.
9. Belonging / Significance
Children must feel they are a vital part of
something significant. One feels himself to be a part of that to which
he lends significant contribution. A child that is served, but not
called upon to contribute, will have low self-esteem. Everyone needs to
be needed.
“Positive affirmation” is degrading if it is not
based on genuine performance. Children will appreciate praise to the
extent that it accurately reflects their real performance. False praise
is received as manipulation. When children are part of a family team
overcoming real obstacles, they know they are needed. Their
contributions are essential, so they are essential. To struggle
together and win together is the wedding of souls.
10. Example
Be what you want your children to be. “More is
caught than taught.” Children read actions better than words. They are
imitators, taking on the likeness of the ones they most admire. If you
cannot walk your talk, don’t expect them to. When the older child
develops bad habits, the younger children will follow his example and
probably take it a step further in the wrong direction. Likewise, if
you get that first child in control, you have a good example for other
children who come behind.
11. Crisis management
Life often moves from one crisis to another,
especially for children and teens. There is frustration,
disappointment, rejection, failure, sickness, pain, etc. The ability to
view supposed crises as opportunities greatly lessens the stress in
life. A person with that kind of outlook is called “brave, resilient,”
or “wise.”
You might call this, “coping skills.” When you are
there beside your child for eighteen years, you will share responses to
life’s knocks. They will learn from you how to deal with anger and
conflict.
12. The meaning of life
of everyone is the faint knowledge that “I have been placed on this
earth for a purpose higher than pleasure. I have a destiny to fulfill.”
As Christians, we know our destiny is to “be conformed to the image of
his son (Rom, 8: 29).” We must teach our children to live in light of
eternity.
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Those things are little and they melt too. 
Some Enchanted Evening! 
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