Parenting Tips From God the Father

Kids are such a blessing!

The Bible is full of good parenting tips! For example, look at Colossians 3:21: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” “Our world sees kids as a burden,” writes parent and author Steve McCoy. Psalm 127 tells “us they are a blessing from the Lord. In your thinking about your children, in all you do as a parent, remember and trust that God has given them to you as a blessing. It will change how you see them and how you parent them. It hopefully will even change how many of them you have. Who wouldn't want MORE blessing? “Parenting can be a difficult and challenging venture,” writes Michael Houdmann at the Christian website Got Questions? “but at the same time can be the most rewarding and fulfilling thing we ever do. The Bible has a great deal to say about the way we can successfully raise our children to be men and women of God. The first thing we must do is teach them the truth about God's Word.”

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Kids are such a blessing!

Deuteronomy 4:9-10 is self-explanatory: "Give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons … Let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.” Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is great, too: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

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Kids are such a blessing!

Discipline and instruction are integral parts of parenting, says Houdmann. Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who loves his child is careful to discipline him.” Children who grow up in undisciplined households feel unwanted and unworthy. They lack direction and self-control, and as they get older they rebel and have little or no respect for any kind of authority, including God's. “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death” (Proverbs 19:18). At the same time, discipline must be balanced with love, or children may grow up resentful, discouraged, and rebellious (Colossians 3:21). God recognizes that discipline is painful when it is happening (Hebrews 12:11), but if followed by loving instruction, it is remarkably beneficial to the child. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

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Kids are such a blessing!

The Book of Proverbs is a treasure trove for parents. And remember that “the rod” doesn’t have to mean physical beating. Most kids hate standing in the corner, being grounded from their electronics or having to write 1,000 times “I won’t be mean to my sister” more than a quick spanking. The point is that we must discipline our children. Proverbs 1:8-9: Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. Proverbs 19:18: Discipline your son, for there is hope. Proverbs 22:15: Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but … discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 22:6: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 23:13-14: Withhold not correction from the child … deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs 29:15: A child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. Proverbs 29:17: Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.

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