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Good Parent vs Great Parent

What kind of parent are you: good or great?

Most people when asked this question are willing to label themselves as a "pretty good" parent but they are reluctant to put themselves in the "great" category because when they analyze their child’s behavior it seems less than perfect. If this is the case, then you are probably measuring the wrong thing.  So what is the difference between a good parent and a great parent?  

A good parent is one that is involved in their child’s life.  They attend their child’s activities and get involved with their education and spiritual development.  A great parent is more than just involved, they are strategic.  A great parent knows their child, has goals for them and a plan to help the child achieve them. 

 

Making a Plan
 

While becoming a strategic parent may seem like an overwhelming task, it is not as difficult as you may think. Taking in consideration things like your child’s personality, their love language, strengths and weakness you can begin to set goals for them that you can focus on during the year.

 

Over the last five years, my wife Sherry and I have looked at each of our children and tried to set goals for them in various aspects of their lives. We home school our kids so it is necessary to set academic goals but we also look at the character, spiritual and relational parts of who they are. Ultimately we want them to become who God wants them to be.

 

We needed a way to talk about these goals and write them down so we created what we call our four quadrant grid for each of our kids. Download Strategic Parenting Planning Sheet

 

First, we talk about their strengths and weaknesses.  Then we write down their personality types, interests and their love language. As you talk and share about these things goals will naturally surface.

 

It is encouraging each year to look back over the previous years and see how each child has grown and developed.

Planning Getaway

Sherry and I had the privilege of getting away for a few days to do some planning for this coming year. My parents came down and stayed with the kids Thursday and Friday while we went to the lake. A family in our church graciously loaned us their lake house over these two days. This was absolutely the perfect setting for a couple of reasons.

·         We were only 45 minutes from home – we didn’t spend much of our time just driving.

·         It was quiet with no distractions – we were completely alone.

·         The house and location was stunning – we were surrounded by God’s creation…very inspiring!

·         It was free!

 

We spent our time talking through the different areas of our lives from our marriage to how to spend vacation time. We allowed ourselves to dream but also talked and planned through the everyday practical things too.  We started several years ago using a four quadrant worksheet to set goals for each of the kids. It was great to look back and see how they are progressing and set goals for the future too. Here are the topics we covered during our planning getaway.

·         Our relationship

·         Each of the children

·         Home schooling

·         The house

·         Evenings / discretionary time

·         Finances

·         Church

·         Vacations

It takes some planning to pull this kind of getaway off but it is completely worth it.  We took a lot of notes and worked through some issues we almost never have time to discuss.

 

The Goal of Ministry and Parenting - Growing in Intimacy with God

Several months ago, I started reading through Exodus to get a feel of how God used Moses in leadership. It was great to see how they interacted with each other in spite of Moses' shortcomings. (Very encouraging for me.)  I moved from there into Deuteronomy. I confess I skipped Leviticus and Numbers for many reasons.

As I was reading through the first four chapters of Moses's sermon to Israel in Deuteronomy, I was struck with the personalness of God. And then it hit me...everything wraps around intimacy with God. (duh!)

Unlike any other god, God, our God wants to be intimate with us. Moses warned the people to not make idols of people, animals, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc. Coming from Eygpt, they were very drawn to making idols of these things. These idols would lead them away from intimacy with God.

What are the things that lead me away from intimacy with God? Everything we do, every choice we make either leads us toward intimacy with God or away from it.

The goal of children's ministry must be to model, teach and encourage kids towards intimacy with God. It must help parents make the same choices towards intimacy with God and assist them in leading their kids there. This is why the 5th and 6th grade years are so difficult? Because kids are beginning to make decisions for themselves. Decisions that will either lead them toward intimacy with God or away from it.

Fellowship Kids is committed to keeping this the main focus of what we do. It will be the barometer we will use to measure healthiness.

Parenting for the Glory of God

Someone gave me a copy of an article by John Piper on parenting.  It is actually a transcript of two talks he gave in 1994 at the Exalt conference in Cincinnati.

Here are some key points from those talks that I think are absolutely huge in shaping how we should think about parenting.

Principle #1: The Primacy of Unconscious Influence

99% of the actions you perform that influence your children are unpremeditated actions. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of them every day. Your facial expressions; your posture; your tone of voice; your gestures; and a hundred other spontaneous expressions of who you really are.

Principle #2: The Contagious Power of a Happy Example

Your children will most likely imitate what they see makes you the happiest, not what they hear you tell them, or even what they see you do but don't like to do.

The implications of these two principles is that we parents should devote most of our energy to becoming a certain kind of person, not to trying to master parenting strategies. It will never work. You will never stop producing 99% of your child-influencing actions spontaneously. Your only hope - if you want to influence your children for God - is to be a certain kind of God-besotted person, so that when you react spontaneously what they see is God.

Here is the link if you would like to read the whole article. It is definitely worth it!  Parenting for the Glory of God, Part 1 Of course how you become that person spills over into Tozer's The Pursuit of God. We must turn our soul gaze toward God so that our complete satisfaction comes from Him. Piper's statement on this is "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."