Love your children from the heart
The 1st thing I learned while raising my kids was that we are to love our children from the heart. As a mother I raised 4 children all in the same home, same mom and dad and they couldn’t be more different. Let’s rejoice in their differences. Learn how best to show love to each child in a way that blesses them. There are many resources out there to help identify your children’s love languages- the way that makes them feel loved. Once you know what theirs is, show it to them regularly and often. Titus 2:3,4 says that “Older women are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children.” Loving our children doesn’t always come naturally to Moms.
Love them without favoritism. I already addressed this in my last article, but do not have favorites among your children. Remember Joseph, remember Esau & Jacob. Favoritism brings about pain, destruction of the family, even violence in some cases. Love them all, don’t prefer one over another, that’s not love.
Unfortunately, in cases of neglect or abuse, a mother loves someone or something more than their own children. I’ve seen 3 terrible situations of ladies hurting their kids. They left them for their man or their next fix of alcohol/drugs and supposed freedom. It’s heartbreaking. Those poor children! So no, loving your children does not always come naturally.
True love for your kids takes humility and it includes making apologies when you do wrong. If they saw it or heard it, you need to talk to them. Sincerely apologize when you lose your temper, or yell at them. This is a part of loving them.
“True love includes making apologies when you do wrong”
Be sincere in your love for Jesus
The 2nd thing I learned while raising my kids is to be sincere in your love for Jesus. Read your Bible and talk about the scriptures with your children at home. Let them know that you value the Lord and His word. Memorize the scripture with them or share what you are memorizing with them. When they seek advice, and they will at times, share wisdom from the word of God.
Listen to songs of praise about Jesus and God the Father in the car and at home. Music is a very powerful way to share your love for God with your kids. Ephesians 5:19 tells us, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your hearts to the Lord.” We are to sing to the Lord from our hearts with a sincere love for Him.
“Listen to songs of praise about Jesus and God in the car and at home“
Your kids will see the real you, so be sincere in your love for Christ and his church, Then, they are more likely to follow in the same path. Trust me, children can spot hypocrisy in their own family at a very young age. Are you being sincere or is it just an act?
Serve others in the name of Jesus
The 3rd thing I learned while raising my kids is to serve others in the name of Jesus. James 1:27 tells us that God the Father considers us pure and undefiled if we do this: visit orphans and widows in their distress. Take your children to visit the widows in the church and watch out for them. My kids have helped me clean inside and outside; they have helped get things for the widows among our fellowship. They sing to them at Christmastime.
Foster children are like orphans even if they have a living parent. They have been removed from them, and have no parental love, care, and guidance from their parents. We give gifts to the foster children on their birthdays, and at Christmas as well as their foster parent/s. We sometimes take meals to their families to help them out. Maybe even provide childcare if the state allows it. Help those who can’t help themselves. This is sincere faith in action, so let your kids see you do this with widows and orphans/foster children.
“Visit (help) orphans/foster kids & widows in their distress”
Kids will see through appearances; they are always watching and observing, so consider what message you are sending them. As a preacher’s wife, I have seen men and women mistreat and talk bad about my husband around their children. And yet later when a crisis was happening, they reached out and wanted his help. Do you think the kids are going to listen to him? No, you already destroyed their trust, so he can’t help.
Anybody can find reasons to criticize God’s workers – none of us are perfect people! It’s far better to build them up, to speak well of them to help our children have respect & a good attitude towards those who serve in the kingdom.
It thrills my heart when I hear about how my adult children are serving in congregations far away from Las Vegas with their families. Building up God’s Kingdom through preaching, teaching classes for adults and kids, working with the youth group, picking people up, to planning ladies rallies, to singing for the church and caroling to others. I know as a mom that I made mistakes. However, when I see my children serving in God’s kingdom, I know that John and I did something right and showed a sincere love for Christ and his church.
Take your kids to the library and encourage reading
The 4th thing I learned while raising my kids was to take my kids to the library. I encouraged them to read and read. It is free and so rewarding. You can take them to story time, especially important if you homeschool your kids. As my kids got older, we checked out 1 fiction book each trip, a biography, a book of poetry, a nonfiction book. They loved reading about earthquakes, big trucks, volcanoes. Some of them were voracious readers and needed different genres, rather than just fiction. My sons tended to only want to read nonfiction and biographies. They weren’t too interested in fiction except for the old Hardy Boys.
“Some of them were voracious readers and needed different genres other than fiction.”
Reading will help them socially, academically, and expand their mind, especially reading the biographies of people that made something of themselves and rose above adversity. Just a tip, look for graphic novel biographies, they are in comic book form and the kids love them. Get the poetry books, I will never forget one of my kids reading at Thanksgiving “The Turkey Shot out of the Oven” by Jack Prelutsky. It’s hilarious and in a book of poetry we got at the library. Make good memories with books. Today, libraries even have a large selection of books on tablets that are free as well. I was so happy to hear one of my adult kids make a resolution to try to read 100 books in 2024. Even if it might be too ambitious, it’s great they want to try. Foster a love for reading in your children’s lives.
Very good sis! One observation is at the end I felt left hanging on making sure your kids read. Maybe conclude with a mention of each thing you learned about raising kids. Another suggestion, with many kids raised in church and now out of the faith you might mention in addition to there are no perfect parents and some kids choose to go astray. Since I have a prodigal that Lord willing will come back to God, I deal with the lies that I didn’t do my best, I failed, etc. You have a gift for writing. Thank you for sharing. I love you and appreciate you so much.
Hey, Renay, thank you for the feedback. I chose to go with the positive things that helped and things that my kids actually shared with me that they appreciated about my parenting. This article in no way was intended to hurt those with a prodigal child. Absolutely, children will choose their own way as they become adults. I don’t believe that the parent is responsible for those choices. Each young person has free will and they can choose their future path. Praying for all our prodigals to return to Jesus, praying for their parents to not give up and grow discouraged. God doesn’t hold parents responsible for their children’s adult choices, only our own. Love you much!
I think it is cool that you got your children’s input on this article. I do find it interesting to visit with mine (now that were are only a couple months shy of them all being adults) on what they think I did well and what they don’t think I did well. I know I am so thankful for God’s grace and His Spirit in me that even though I am far from a perfect parent my kids survived and are doing well.
I think the being sincere in your love for Jesus is huge. Our kids are the first to notice any hypocrisy in us. If I want them to love Jesus (and I surely do) then that better be top priority for me also.
I think it is fun that you mentioned “The Turkey Shot out of the Oven” that has been a favorite at our house too. Jonathan memorized it one year for a homeschool co-op people recitation time. Our library didn’t really have to much in the way of limits on books so we would often take 50 home at a time. They got read too. We had a quiet time each day where everybody read/napped as needed (for me it was both). I would say that reading and using the library was one of our homeschool successes too.