Walter Petticrew recently left a comment on this blog in which he discussed some of the important practices of his family. I thought these were very good and needed to be read by our regular readers.
My wife and I have two children. Our son, and elder child had muscular dystrophy and passed away two years ago, shortly before his 20th birthday. Our daughter, now 19, is getting ready for college. So raising our children was different in many w
ays. However there are some principles that, looking back, I would say shaped all of us and continue to do so today.
*Spend time with your children. My time was bath time with them. We would spend a minimum of an hour. It gave my wife some well-deserved rest and was the best transition time from work to home. The tradition of the bathtub was for me to make up stories while they played. It got to the point where we had a favorite character, “Oscar the Turkey,” so each night we had a new adventure of what Oscar was up to next.
*Life is not fair; yet in the hand we are dealt, God is with us. We knew this was the case for us, but it becomes even more clear each day now. There is grace and blessing everywhere; but when you are in the thick of it the grace can be hard to see. That leads to….
*Patience. (God’s and our). God knew what we were in and revealed to us all the blessings in the hardships
*Honesty. It has always been a foundation in our home. We had to be honest with our children and they demanded the same of us. It can be hard. I recall the exact moment when our son, then six, said, “I am going to die because of my disease.” We never gave him a false hope or said “Don’t worry about it.” We told him the truth.
*As a father, I took it upon myself to make sure we had a lot of smiles. My wife is a natural in this category, but I feel that dads need to show kids examples of “good crazy,” such as getting out of the car after work and jumping in the pool with your kids with your clothes on.
*Show appropriate affection to your wife in all matters. They must see you hug and kiss and love. Then invite them in for a group hug and in that hug pray over the family. Family hugs and prayer are meant for each other. Take advantage of that.
*Have night and morning prayer time with your children. My daughter, 19, still will not leave for school or the house without me praying for her before she leaves. Your children want you to pray for them.
*Be in a Bible study and let your children watch you study. I was very fortunate. I have been active in a Monday night Bible study for over 12 years. Each night when I got home and put my son to bed, he would always ask “What did you learn in Bible study?” We would spend a good hour talking about it.
*Be the kind of house and family that will cause your kid’s friends to want to spend time there. One of our regular events (still is) has been the fire pit. It got to the point where on almost every weekend my son’s friends would ask if we could have a fire pit that night. This went on from 4th grade and continues to this day. Even now, some of my son’s friends, even though they are in college, will come and spend a weekend with us. We always had a great mix of laughs and serious dialogue. We earned the trust of the kids in our neighborhood, and it was always a time to invite Christ into their lives.
One last note: If possible make sure they know their grandparents. It is very important for both of them.
Beautifully said. My husband and I have been talking about this lately and we have both felt convicted that we are keeping our Bible Study times to ourselves. We both study before the kids wake up and we discuss what we’ve read with each other after the kids are in bed. They hear us quote it, but they never see us read it. Do they know their parents love God’s Word? Does our lifestyle make them thirsty for God’s Word?
Thank you for this. It is excellent advice, all of it.
Thanks so much, Jenn. I also thought the post was excellent.
Excellent guest article! Sounds like our house! Our children apparently loved the prayer times – we called them evening devotions. They still mention them. It was easy to do them in those formative years. Later it became a challenge to have everyone together at the same time. It’s something they’ve continued with their children. We still had family mealtimes most days of the week and wonderful, sometimes fun but lots of times deep and challenging conversations. One of the biggest things our children need from us is our willingness to apologize and ask for forgiveness to heal relationships.