Parenting On Purpose

Choose to continue the momentum that you have built training your children in gratitude through the holiday season. Christmas can be a difficult time for our children to have a grateful heart.

The Story of Squanto Listen to today’s podcast to hear the story of the first Thanksgiving.

We talked yesterday about cultivating a grateful heart by focusing on serving those around us. A great Thanksgiving table discussion, even with extended family, is beginning to plan your family Christmas service project. What a great way to show your thanks to God for all He has given your family.

We said yesterday that gratitude is either caught or taught. The first way that we can train our kids to have a grateful heart is by example.

Gratitude is not something that is an innate human trait. Because we are all born selfish, it is something that is both caught and taught.

What do I do if my child is older and I am just processing this now? It is never too late to begin this process. You may have a little bit of extra work ahead of you as you set different family priorities and patterns. It is well worth the effort.

The most important thing on your list of goals for parenting is raising a God-honoring adult. This will be the filter through which your children live out their adult lives.

It would be such a tragedy to drop our child off on a college campus or watch them go out the door as adults and have regrets about our parenting. One way to make sure we are able to do our best to train our children is to have goals or a parenting curriculum.

If we are attempting to ensure that we are training our children to be human beings not "human doings" then we need to first step back and examine ourselves.

Have we put so much emphasis on the "success" of our kids that life has simply become racing from one activity to another? Society would have us believe that our children need to be academically, socially and athletically successful to be ready for the adult world. So childhood flies by in a whirlwind of homework and practices.

When There Is No Return On Your Investment First we need to clarify what this means.  What we are discussing today is when it feels like one spouse is investing more then the other.  This is not when there are major sin issues, affairs, or abuse these are areas which need professional guidance.  This is simply a period of time in a marriage where one spouse may be working harder on the marriage then the other. There are some actions that we can take during this time.  The first thing we need to be doing, and often times it is sadly our last resort, is prayer.  We need to be praying for our spouse, marriage and areas we can do better to serve our spouse.  Next we can decide who we are truly doing this for.  If we are doing marriage to meet our needs then we will be disappointed.  Our focus should be to serve our spouse, because by doing this we are ultimately serving Christ.  Something that will help as well is to “take captive every thought”.  If there are negative thoughts about your spouse choose to focus on positives.  What do they do well? Are they a great parent, hard worker, anything that is a positive trait that you can focus on and be grateful for.  These are just a few ideas, for more things to do listen to today’s podcast.  

The Five “A’s”- The Need For Affection & The Need For Activity Even though some people may be more “touchy feely” we all need affection to feel loved.  We also need to have a sense of fun in the relationship.  This is accomplished through activity together.  These two are examples of areas that couples are so good about while they are dating.  You tell “honeymoon” phase of a relationship because first, they can’t keep their hands off each other and second they do everything together.  These areas can get lost in the shuffle of busy married life if we are not careful.  We must be intentional to make sure that both the areas of affection and fun activity happen in our marriage.  Make sure to listen to today’s podcast to hear more about these two important topics.  

The Five “A’s”- The Need For Admiration It is amazing when you are dating and the relationship is new how your significant other can seem to do no wrong, and even when they do it is easily glossed over.  Equally amazing how that changes quickly in a marriage and almost reverses.  It is easy to pick at your spouse for small petty things.  This is why our need for admiration is so important to remember, because nitpicking undermines this.  Men need to feel admiration and respect from their wives.  They need to feel that they are doing a great job protecting, providing for and leading their family.  Even if there are times when they are not, they will be much more apt to discuss if they have felt their wives continued respect.  Women need to feel their husband’s love and admiration.  They still need to feel beautiful to their husbands, feel protected and cherished.  When God gave us Ephesians 5 as a road map for this there were no conditions.  It doesn’t say husband love your wives as Christ loved the church and wives respect your husbands but only as much as they deserve your love and respect.  It is unconditional.  This reveals the deep need for both spouses to feel admiration.  

The Five “A’s”- The Need For Attention & The Need For Acceptance We all have basic needs as spouses.  With our focus this week on being proactive, a great place to start is to look at the needs of our spouse and do what we can to meet them.  The first basic need of both spouses is the need for attention.  This is especially important in today’s digital age.  Sadly, there have been times where I have seen a couple out to dinner both on their cell phones.  We must find a way to communicate to our spouse that there are specific times where they can have our undivided attention. The second area is the need for acceptance. Our spouse needs to feel that they are loved for who they are unconditionally.  It is not our job to change who our spouse is.  God brings two people together who usually have very different strengths.   This is because the two can become one and become an amazing team.    It is so much easier for our spouse to feel our acceptance, if instead of looking at the areas we feel they need to change, we focus on how best we can serve.   Being proactive to meet the needs of your spouse is extremely important.  Look for ways you can serve your spouse today.    

The Need To Set Boundaries With everything going on in the world around us it is easy to see how important placing boundaries around your marriage is.  We must be proactive to protect our relationship with our spouse.  This is such an important topic we spent a week discussing it.  Click here to check out our series on boundaries in marriage.  Be sure to check back tomorrow as we begin to discuss the Five “A’s” or areas of need in a marriage.