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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Obedience with Joy (Obedience, Part 5)
We can’t change our children’s hearts and make them cheerful about obeying us, but we can certainly encourage cheerful obedience, and we can help our children see why they can obey with joy. We’ll talk about teaching older children to respect parental authority (as Daniel promised last week) in a future post, but for today let’s look at the attitude behind true obedience. We’ll look at 3 reasons for cheerful obedience, and 4 ways to encourage cheerful […]
Read More →Training Young Children to Obey (Obedience, Part 4)
Last week we considered what obedience looks like, and how our own example is an integral part of teaching our children. Today I want to look more closely at some tactics for teaching young children to obey. My children are still young (ages 1, 3, 4, and 6), and I’m thoroughly convinced that these early years are the prime time to be teaching obedience. (Next week, you’ll hear from my […]
Read More →Beginning to Teach Obedience (Obedience, Part 3)
We recently considered why it’s easy to let our children disobey, and why teaching obedience is important. You all raised so many good questions that we’ve decided to spend several more posts working through the practical elements of teaching our children to obey. Today I want to define what I mean by obedience and then consider the first “strategy” for teaching our children to obey. In upcoming posts, Mama and […]
Read More →Why Learning to Obey is Good for Our Children (Obedience, Part 2)
Last week, we looked at some ways we can easily allow our children to disobey. This sparked some good questions, which will be addressed in next week’s post. Before we talk about teaching obedience, it’s important to consider why obedience is so important. Here, as in many aspects of Christian parenting, we should look to the example of our Heavenly Father. Why does God ask us to obey Him? How […]
Read More →Why We Allow Our Children to Disobey (Obedience, Part 1)
No parent wants disobedient children. But it’s surprisingly easy to let our children get away with disobedience. It’s easy to allow outward obedience accompanied by whining, complaining, or grumpy looks. It’s easy to allow a child to correct us, debate with us, or tell us how she will obey on her own terms. It’s easy to resort to cajoling, reasoning, manipulating, distracting or bribing. It’s easy to issue threats, give […]
Read More →My Priorities for the Preschool Years
As a dad of four children ages 1 to 5, sometimes I’m tempted to think these early years are unimportant. But I know that’s not true; the way we treat a child from age one to five will have a huge influence on how the rest of his childhood and his life will turn out. These early years of life are likely the most critical and formative ones. Here are […]
Read More →Six Different Kinds of Disobedience (and the Root Problem)
My wife and I are launching on a new Bible study. We’ve often tried to read through the Bible from beginning to end in a year (sometimes we make it, sometimes we don’t), but this time we’re reading through the Bible looking for insights relevant to parenting. I’m already excited about what we are finding. You notice new things when you’re reading with a different perspective! Israel’s early history as […]
Read More →On Training the Will of the Child
Post by Daniel Forster I love the feel and smell of old books. I’m in the middle of reading one right now. It has a plain brown cloth cover, with small gold letters on the spine: THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST ———— ANDREW MURRAY Inside the cover, there’s a note from 1952, when my great great grandfather gave the book to his youngest daughter. There’s another note from 2006 when my […]
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