I love summer. When my boys were younger, that meant camping with my family. We loved getting outdoors and parking our fifth wheel in some remote location where the sounds of nature aren’t drowned out by cars and busyness.
When there was a lake nearby, the first thing my boys would do is grab rocks to throw into the water. The bigger the better. For them, it was all about the splash. Me? I was intrigued by the ripples. Long after the splash is over, ripples continue to spread outward well beyond the place from which they originated.
To me, that’s a metaphor for how far into the future a parent’s influence impacts their child. Your choices today will ripple outward into next week, next year, and for generations to come. Not only are you passing on important lessons about life, character, faith, and family to your children, but you’re passing those lessons on to your grandkids and beyond.
Youth expert and author Doug Fields says there are several things you can do to create a relationship with your son or daughter that transmit life’s most important values:
- Encouraging words. Your words either instill confidence in your children or destroy their hope.
- Genuine affection. Children have “skin hunger.” They need physical affection in appropriate ways, so they don’t seek it in inappropriate ways.
- Delicate discipline. Guide your children with disciplined love, not angry punishment. Yelling doesn’t work. Instead, enable your children to exercise their power of choice and deal with the consequences.
- Responsibility is learned. Don’t lecture your child about forgetting their lunch, but don’t take it to them, either.
- Serious fun. Today’s generation of kids is stressed out. Fun and laughter help children release stress and anxiety. “Fun release” diminishes fear, hostility, and anger.
Parenting is much more than a job or an obligation. It’s a high calling. It’s a life purpose. One of the most spiritual things you can do is invest yourself in your children. (Mark 9:36-37).
While you’re online, why not take our free parenting assessment? It will quickly give you an overview of how your family is doing in several key areas and offer suggestions on how you can improve the relationships in your home.