Category: Raising sons

Enough

Daughter hugging father

by Bethany Forster Many lucky grownups like me can look back to a time of childhood bliss (blighted as it may be by pet deaths and mathematics). I imagine you would like your child to look back on the current days with similar fondness. Is that thought discouraging? After all, you had to harass them for the fifth time today about doing their piano practice or you lost your temper […]

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Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 4: Consequences

Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 4: Consequences

As we seek to provide godly discipline for our children, there are times where it’s appropriate for us to devise consequences or allow them to experience the natural consequences of their sin. Why are consequences part of godly discipline? 1. Consequences prove that we love our children. “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” (Proverbs 13:24) 2. Consequences drive out folly. […]

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Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 3: Confession

  If we give our children effective, Bible-based instruction, they will come to see how they have sinned. The next step is to encourage them to admit or confess their sin to us and to God. Even 3-year-old can say “I was wrong for disobeying”. Here’s why it’s important for our children to learn to confess their sin: 1. Our goal isn’t to merely change our children’s behavior. We’re teaching […]

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Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 2: Instruction

Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 2: Instruction

  Why do we discipline? What is the point of our child-training efforts? It’s not ultimately about good behavior. It’s not about the convenience of having well-behaved children. It’s certainly not about giving out just deserts when children make mistakes. Our first goal as parents should be shepherding our children into their own personal, growing, relationship with God. As God’s representatives to our children during their early years, we’re part […]

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Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 1: Preparation

Ingredients of Godly Discipline, Part 1: Preparation

I hear crying coming from the family room, where my three and six-year-old children are playing. I’m sitting in my chair, reading a book, and I don’t really want to be interrupted. But I get up and go in. The struggling stops as I enter the room, and reddened, tear-streaked faces look up at me. “What is going on?” “He was pushing me!” “I had the tricycle first!” “But you […]

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Child Training Boot Camp Giveaway!

It’s time to have our traditional end-of-study giveaway! This time we’re giving away $123 worth of Doorposts products! The winner of this giveaway will receive: Her choice of Plants Grown Up for boys or Polished Cornerstones for girls (Over 500 pages of different ideas for Bible study projects, reading material, and practical, everyday activities to help our sons and daughters love and follow Jesus. Use from preschool until they leave home!) plus For […]

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Reaching the Heart of a Disobedient Child (Obedience, Part 7)

Disobedience is a like a weed.  It’s like the wild morning glory that torments me all summer long. I pull a vine out of a bed of flowers, only to find it sneaking back again two days later. Besides poisoning it, the only way to actually beat it is to dig down into the soil and carefully pull out all of its long, ropey root. The root is the real […]

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The Blessing of Older Women

There were no older women in our church when I was a young mother. So I looked for my older women in the bookstore. I brought home Edith Schaeffer to hold my hand as I learned how to make a house into a home. She taught me about family, about prayer, and about teaching our children God’s law. When she met her Savior face-to-face a couple years ago, I still […]

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What Should We Do When Older Children Don’t Obey? (Obedience, Part 6)

We’ve been looking at obedience for the past month or so. Daniel has explored: Why we are tempted to allow our children to disobey, Why learning to obey is good for our children, What obedience actually is, and some practical ways to teach our children to obey. We’ve also looked at some reasons for our children to obey cheerfully and some ways to encourage cheerful obedience. Today we’re going to […]

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Four Ways to Teach Young Children to be Peacemakers

Teaching young children to be peacemakers

We aren’t born knowing how to handle conflict. It’s not something we grow into either, like learning to walk or talk. I never could have imagined some of the things I’ve had to say to my preschoolers: “Don’t you know you can’t just take his toy because you want it?” “Do you really think hitting your sister is going to make her do what you want?” “If he’s yelling and […]

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