Parenting

“Pure, unadulterated, consistent love for God and pure, unadulterated, consistent love for others is the summation of all the law God has given us in both the Old and New Testaments. Of course, the problem is that we never obey these simple commands. We always love ourselves more than we love God or others. We are always erecting idols in our hearts and worshipping and serving them. We are always more focused on what we want and how we might get it than we are on loving Him and laying down our life for others. The law does show us the right way to live, but none of us obeys it. Not for one millisecond.Even though our children cannot and will not obey God's law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can't love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them. We are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior.”

“While our life remains more chaotic than not, we continue to land on our blistered feet, drag each other out of the quicksand, beg for forgiveness as we wander out of the doghouse, and dig for the humor beneath our grief. So our family, four-pawed members included, continues to bound forward celebrating our canine connection and sharing hope with all who need healing.”

“Parents have become so convinced educators know what is best for children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.”

“Raising teenage sons and daughters is a long and tiresome journey. With God's help the final outcome will be worthwhile.”

“Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out." This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions”

“All too soon the garden of childhood is paved cold with the asphalt roads of adulthood. And while it is not within her power to halt this unrelenting progression, a mother can diligently guard this most precious garden and insure that the roads become gentle paths that wind through it instead of byways that kill it.”

“You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for making faces, but then he said it with his eyes, and there were limits to correction—no way, in the end, to penetrate behind the blue irises and eradicate a boy’s disgust.”

“Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.”

“Start working on your child’s mind. Start building your child’s character. Raise your child as a human being, instead of raising boys and girls. Raise human beings with the religion of love in their hearts. Raise human beings with the language of compassion on their lips. Raise human beings with the color of joy on their face. Raise human beings with the force of bravery in their nerves. And these brave conscientious souls with the flames of compassion in their hearts shall one day change the course of human history.”

“Instead of communicating "I love you, so let me make life easy for you," I decided that my message needed to be something more along these lines: "I love you. I believe in you. I know what you're capable of. So I'm going to make you work.”

“Ask any child who failed to live up to his parents’ idea of success, and you’ll likely hear that they never felt good enough, or that their parents had expectations that they could not live up to.”

“My daughter's position in our household is definitely higher than mine. I listen to her a lot. I guess you can say that's my parenting style.”

“I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.”

“The most important question I ask myself as a parent is this. How can I best help my children be fully themselves and happy with who they are in the world, however they show up.”

“There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, 'We're gonna have to clean that up because you don't paint with coffee on a table.'”

“There's a lot of external issues that have a ripple effect on a family and a lot of internal, practical parenting challenges that families are trying to overcome every day. Children become the silent witnesses of such worry within their families.”

“There's not a lot I can fix for her anymore. Band-Aid and bedtime story days are almost over. This, I can fix with a simple Welcome.”

“In parenting patience is the greatest virtue.”

“I have become more and more afraid about marriage and parenting. I think it's because I am getting older. Of course, there will be a lot to learn, and I also know that the experience will help in my acting.”

“It’s never too early to begin pointing your little ones’ souls heavenward.”