Parenting On Purpose

A Summary Of The Process We speak often about training our children, but what does that training process look like? This week we are going to look at exactly that.  The awesome thing is we don’t have to attempt to put together a training process by ourselves.  We have an example of how to train our children by watching how Jesus trained His disciples. The first thing Jesus did was set the ultimate example for His disciples, showing them daily how to live.  He showed them many things, how to minister to people, how to deal with conflict, how not to walk by needs around them, how to handle money rather then be handled by money, as well as many other things.  He didn’t just tell them how to do things; He showed them.  The next thing that Jesus did for his disciples in the training process was to expose them to the things He wanted to train them in.  He brought them with Him while He was ministering.  They not only got to see Him do ministry, He let them play a part in it. Thirdly, Jesus sent them out, He let them experience what they needed to learn.  They went out in pairs to practice alone and then came back to report to Him.  Lastly, Jesus encouraged them.  They got to hear Him pray for them, as well as observe Him as He served them. We will spend the rest of this week breaking down these principles to see how they apply to our parenting process.   Listen to today’s podcast for more on this topic.

What A Man Needs In A Marriage The male is much more short term oriented than the female. He is also very performance driven. He spends a lifetime looking for respect, the respect that God is referring to in Ephesians 5:33. Most men have little expectation about what marriage is suppose to do to their lives. So he will quest to find this illusive thing called respect in other arenas, places like work, sports, purchase of “toys”, or others at work. A key element for the wife to realize is that she must choose to respect her husband whether she thinks he is worthy or not. It’s not that he has earned her respect but rather that he is searching for it. So what can a wife do? She can choose to be satisfied, both with things as well as him as a person. Guard her tongue, like Ephesians 4:29, tells us to do. Guard her heart. Matthew 12:34b says, “For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” Find a mentor to encourage you in loving your husband and children well, as Titus 2 suggests. Finally, a wife must make the choice to be her husband’s friend and lover not his mother. Both husbands and wife’s must strive to understand God’s concept of worth. We are not worthy in and of ourselves but we are made worthy because of what He has done for us. We must make the choice to see our spouse the way that God sees us. It also helps to remember that God is not only our father but our father-in-law! Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on this topic.

What A Woman Needs In A Marriage Ephesians 4:29 tells us to only let things come out of our mouths that are helpful for building up others according to their needs…. What do those needs look like for the wife? First, we need to realize that society has placed a lot of pressure on today’s mom. She is expected to be super mom. Which means she must cook kid friendly nourishing meals, keep a beautifully clean and organized house, balance a career and creative Pinterest found activities/crafts for the kids, maintain behavior, all while keeping herself in perfect shape and looking beautiful. Many of moms attempt to find their worth in these areas, but unfortunately can’t possibly be all things to all people. Her husband can know the pressure placed on her and constantly communicate her worth to him. A husband must be willing to step out of his comfort zone to communicate that he “cherishes” his wife. Our definition of cherish is, precious without performance. A question that a husband can ask himself is, since our marriage has my wife grown in an understanding of herself? Or has that flower bud we discussed yesterday begun to bloom fragrantly? Check back tomorrow for more on the needs of the husband. Listen to today’s podcast for more on this topic.

Find The Combination To The Lock of Your Spouse’s Heart A great analogy for two people coming into the marriage relationship is that we each are like a flower bud.  It is our job to nourish and encourage that flower to slowly open, or be willing to risk opening up.  A closed bud is protected, where as an open flower is more vulnerable but much more beautiful.  An open flower is doing what it is created to do. One of the ways we can encourage this vulnerability in each other, is by living out Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”    Our words are so powerful and after time they can either create a safe place for a spouse to open up and be themselves or they can tear down, which can also erode the trust in a relationship.  We must be careful to build each other up verbally but we can also build each other by being aware of what the other needs.  We touched on the fact that each gender needs love to be expressed differently.  For the last two days this week we are going to look at the gender needs in more detail.  Be sure to check back.   Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on this topic.

Your Spouses Self-Esteem Is In Your Hands Ephesians 5:33 “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”  This was the verse that we brought up yesterday on how to express love.  A lot of what this verse is talking about is that illusive often “secular” phrase, self-esteem.  Self-esteem is not a focus on self.  The term self-esteem is a compass or directional word.  It is a word that indicates two things, where you derive your worth from and how well your system is working.  No one can meet all the self-esteem needs of another person.  Self-esteem must come from God, but God also uses the marriage relationship to enhance a person’ s image of self, to affirm and encourage spouses.  Unfortunately, most people get married to get their needs met.   Rather then focusing on my own needs and striving to get them met, I need to make the effort to access, understand and meet the needs of my spouse.   Deuteronomy 24:5 says “A newly married man must not be drafted into the army or given any other special responsibilities.  He must be free to be at home for one year, bringing happiness to the wife he has married.”    Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a year off of extra responsibilities just to focus our efforts on how to meet each other’s needs?  While getting that year off is not something that happens anymore the focus is no less true.  How can we do better at affirming and encouraging our spouse?   Listen to today’s podcast for more on this topic.

The Example Of Your Marriage To Your Children One of the reasons that we discuss marriage here on Parenting On Purpose is because the state of your marriage directly impacts your children.  It impacts them presently as well as directly influencing their future marriage. Romance is a very important element to a marriage. Unfortunately, maintaining romance is hard work so many of us don’t put forth the effort, much past the dating relationship.  Because of romantic movies and other things in society there are very high expectations placed on romance.  What it is at base level, is learning to express love.  Learning to express love in a way that is meaningful to your spouse takes a tremendous amount of study.  Because of gender and personality, different ways to express love will be more meaningful to each individual.  In the great marriage passage in Ephesians 5, there is a closing statement that hints at the gender differences, as well as, gives the answers to those differences.  Ephesians 5:33, “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” We will spend the rest of this week breaking down what this looks like, be sure to check back. Listen to today’s podcast for more on this topic

#29 and #30 Research over the past few years has shown the value of eating together as a family.  In fact, an article in TIME, by Nancy Gibbs called The Magic of the Family Meal states, “Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.” Sitting down together as a family can also be such an awesome tool for teaching communication.  Children can learn the give and take of a conversation.  It can also be a great place to talk through how their day went as well as listening to how other family members faired.  The dinner table can also be a place for fun.  As parents we can be creative conversationalists and do games around the dinner table.   We must remember that even though we may be tired from our day we set the tone for how the conversation will go. Another area that can be a great venue for teaching communication is family vacations.  Simply taking a vacation where you have to have some down time as a family can be very valuable.  Make sure that when you are planning a vacation it is not all just entertainment but that there is some time set aside to simply be together.  If not you may leave the vacation feeling more exhausted then when you left and not feel like you had the time to get to have relationship.   Listen to today’s podcast for more on these topics.

#28 Applaud Effort and Good Choices It is very easy for us as parent to get very results oriented, when we need to be process oriented.  We are raising children to BECOME adults.  We cannot have expectations that they will always make the perfect decision/action/ emotion in a situation.  This is why it is imperative that we applaud when they do make a good choice and make an effort to do the right thing.  We cannot simply applaud what we think the end result should be.  We spent a whole week discussing this topic to check it out, click here.   As always listen to today’s podcast for more insight.  

#27 Admit When You Are Wrong There is a phrase that can work wonders in a marriage, employment, friendship, even a parent child relationship and yet many adults really struggle with saying it.  Simply saying, “I’m sorry, I was wrong,” can break down barriers and even begin to bring healing to relationships.  If it is so powerful then why do we have such a hard time with it? Probably, because it forces us to swallow our pride and put someone else’s needs/opinions in the forefront. This is particularly hard for many parents to say to their children.  Some feel that it is admitting that their judgment isn’t perfect or that there is weakness in an area.  But why isn’t that ok to show our children? There will always be times that we don’t make the perfect decision, we are human and make mistakes.  Having a humble spirit and admitting when you are wrong to your children will help them learn how to do the same.   Listen to today’s topic for more insight.

#26 = Let Them Observe You – Live Out Your Marriage A great concept I read in a book once was the fact that our marriage is our first ministry.  It’s not ministering to those in need around us, caring for our children, although both of those are important.  It is out of our marriage that all other ministries flow forth. Jesus in commissioning His disciples told them to go to “Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria,then to the ends of the earth.  (Acts 1:8) This is why we should first serve our spouse as our first ministry, then our children, then those around us.  If the marriage/family relationships are rocky it can steal focus from other ministry opportunities around us.  This is why allowing your children to observe how you minister to each other as spouses is vitally important to them, for their future.  We actually spent the entire month of June on the topic of marriage.  To check out those series click here, you can also see the whole month just by scrolling back to the beginning of June.  Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on this topic as well.

#25 = Let Them Observe You – Live Out Your Faith We have mentioned countless times that one of the ways our children learn is by observing us.  One area in particular that we can really teach them through our example is our faith.  Trying to explain such an ethereal subject to a child can be difficult but they can learn the concept through our actions and faith lived out.  We touched on this topic previously in our series, Training Up A Godly Child.  Click Here to check it out.   Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on this topic.

#24 = Get Out There With Them – In Their Cyber Space It is important to get to know a very particular area of your child’s world and that is cyber space.  This is a new arena for parenting because no other generation has had the benefits of the learning tools at their fingertips, as well as the dangers that come along with it.  We spent two series on this topic specifically to check out the series called Your Child’s Privacy vs. Their Protection, click here.  We also did a series titled, Cyber Bullying, click here for that series.   Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on this topic.

#22 = Get Out There With Them – Be Where They Are #23 = Get Out There With Them – Show Up at Parties It is very important to get into your child’s world and be able to observe what is going on around them.  You  also have the opportunity to observer who they are allowing to influence them, as well as how your children interact with others. One of these areas is parties.  Take the time to create a game plan for how your family will handle parties during the preteen/teen years.  Check out our previous series on the topic by clicking here.   Listen to today’s podcast for more insight on these topics.