Parenting by Example

Parenting has never been easy, but all parents have one great thing going for them from day one: Their children love and look up to them more than anyone else in the world. This is an important part of the grand scheme of things, because while your children are a gift from Heaven, they are a work in progress. It’s your job to help them grow into loving, responsible adults.

The love and respect your children feel for you are inborn, but they aren’t static. They increase or diminish day by day according to how you interact with your child, so don’t betray their trust. Set the kind of example they will be proud to follow.

If you want your children to be outgoing and genuinely concerned about others, be that way yourself. If you want them to be unselfish, be unselfish. If you want them to be honest, be honest. If you want them to be optimistic and solution-oriented, let them see you approach life’s challenges and disappointments positively. If you want them to have thankful hearts, thank and praise God for His goodness at every turn.

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Try to set a good example.—not of some kind of a perfect, sinless saint which your child may feel he could never measure up to, but of an honest, happy, humble example of a friend and loving parent, someone whom kids can look up to and trust. You have to try to be what you want your children to be.

Children are great mimics, and this is largely how they learn, by imitation. Children seldom forget what they see. They go more by what they see than by what they hear, more by your actions than just your words. Children will learn more from your actions and even your attitudes than they will from what you say! Think of what you would like to be in the eyes of your child and be that parent!

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Courtesy Aurora Productions / TFI. Used with permission.