9 March 2015

Just ONE parenting tip

Posted in Family life / Youth issues


Just ONE parenting tip by Terry Williams, SU QLD Children’s Ministry Specialist

As a parent of three and grandparent of three, I know it’s a busy world – there are dozens of mini events taking place every day, a thousand decisions to be made, and millions of pieces of information flying at us.

In a world that’s become so driven by and focused on achieving goals, it’s easy to lose sight of the most important goal for those whom you helped bring into this world.

Take a moment to reflect on what your goals are for your kids. For me, there is ONE goal that sits atop the list…

As a parent of three and grandparent of three, I know it’s a busy world – there are dozens of mini events taking place every day, a thousand decisions to be made, and millions of pieces of information flying at us.

We all want to achieve the most out of every day.

In a world that’s become so driven by and focused on achieving goals, it’s easy to become distracted by the enormity of goals you want to achieve and to lose sight of the most important one for those whom you helped bring into this world.

Take a moment to reflect on what your goals are for your kids. For many, it’s providing a good education, setting them up for a good job; finding a life partner or a healthy lifestyle. As important as these may be, for me there is ONE goal that sits atop the list.

The Bible clearly sets out the family as the primary centre for faith formation and spiritual nurture. For Christian parents, our biggest goal is for our children to find the faith in Jesus, and become His lifelong, active follower. For those who do not follow the Christian faith, the focus might be for your children to be happy, confident, living a meaningful life and to know right from wrong.

Here’s some advice we should all find helpful:

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it”. It’s a proverb that will most often be realised if we work hard at it.

So what strategies and priorities are you setting in the everyday steps of life to work towards achieving that goal?

Reflect on your week and consider how much time is being invested into this ONE goal. What are we sacrificing as parents to create the time and energy into this ONE goal for our children? This is not about quoting Scriptures at our children all day – it’s about seeing faith as a natural and intentional ingredient in our daily life. It’s vital we explore the big and the small questions of life during table conversations, car conversations and bedtime conversations.

So finish this sentence: ONE thing I will do…..

Make some resolutions to achieve your ONE goal:

1. Get back to the meal table (a ‘screen-free zone’) with my family on a regular basis. Listen, laugh, struggle and journey together.

2. Celebrate together the ‘seasons/events’ in our family year – birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter, holidays, first/last days at school, etc.

3. Create our family traditions: ‘choose your own meal’ on your birthday; write affirming words in all birthday cards to each other; family ‘treats’ after church; reading the Christmas story around a candle, etc.

4. Write down a short-list of goals for my/our children and develop some priorities that will work towards achieving them

5. Have fun together. Start and maintain an ever-growing list of activities we can enjoy together – and make the time to tick them off.



SU QLD

2 Comments

  1. Great words of encouragement. I believe our job as parents is to plant the seed and then it’s God’s job to nourish and water the growth.

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