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- Sign your kids’ up for competitive sports. Your kiddos will learn to be resilient and disciplined if they practice 5 days a week and play tournaments on the weekends. This is also a great way for you to vicariously live through your son.
- Push your kids to be involved in multiple activities at the same time. This will expand your daughter’s bandwidth and future opportunities. You will see their schedule explode and your marriage implode. Give it a try.
- Make sure your elementary kid has an iPhone, you don’t want them to get left in the technology “dust” and be the only kid at school who is not sending 2400 text messages a month.
- Spend $500 on back to school shopping for each of your kiddos. If you don’t have the money, charge it…because you want their identity to be wrapped up in WHO they are vs. WHOSE they are.
- Take your kiddos to church once a week. This will give them one hour a week of Jesus and another 167 hours that week to not think about Jesus again.
- Spend quality time with your kids watching pay per view, The Wiggles, Fat Albert, playing Modern Warfare and Lego Star Wars. Teach them what quality Father/Son time looks like.
- You had to work at a young age, reverse that curse! Don’t make your kids work. You serve them by picking up their room, cleaning their bathroom, paying for every sporting event, season pass, package of gum, shoes, car, insurance, iPhone, iPad and iPod. And be sure to stop by the DMV and pick them up a blue handicapped placard as well.
- Give your kids the freedom to date in Elementary & Jr. High, after all you wouldn’t buy a car without driving it first.
- Buy mom jeans you can’t afford, go in debt and live beyond your means…leave your kids a legacy of financial debt that they can leave to their kids.
- Be a workaholic mom, teach your kids that the cleanliness of your home matters more than relationships.
And yeah…not so much!
The most important job that every parent must step into is…
Teach your kids to be wholly dedicated, kingdom minded, irrationally obedient, weird, radical, strange followers of Jesus!
Somebody get behind the organ, get some music going because I’m about to preach it! Can I get an AMEN!!
Seriously…it seems that we prioritize our kids’ sports, our kids’ music, our kids’ comfort, our kids’ self-esteem, our kids’ acceptance and our kids’ fashion OVER our kids’ relationship with Jesus.
PARENTS!! Freaking wake up. Jesus is all that matters. When it is all said and done it doesn’t matter how many touchdowns your son makes…the only thing that truly matters is that they KNOW Jesus!
** Notice I didn’t say, “the only ting that truly matters is do they KNOW ABOUT Jesus. No, No, No. They must KNOW Him!
Are you guilty? What is 1 thing you can do today to foster a growing, passionate, intimate, Jesus centered relationship in your kids?
WHAT’S NEXT: Check out this post, TEACH YOUR KIDS’ TO DO THESE 5 STUPID THINGS FOR JESUS.
Stand back and marvel at who God created my kids to be…just “be” with them, without the iPad, tv, Netflix, wii…
great stuff Amber…kids understanding their identity is HUGE.
This happened to be the passage in my devotional Bringing Up Godly Children. It seemed relevant so I thought I’d Pasa it along:
BRINGING THEM UP
God entrusts kids to us so we can nurture them to maturityÑIntellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Our goal is to help them find and fulfill God’s design for their lives and to teach them about the character of Christ. We usually think of training and instruction as words, but words can end up exasperating our kids.
God’s plan may involve some difficult times, and we should teach our kids that a strong character will help them through those times. The character we should be teaching them to adopt is the character of Christ. The choices they make and the consequences they face are opportunities to talk to them about the character of Jesus. They allow us to focus on internalÑwhat is going on inside the childÑrather than external behavior.
Chip Ingram calls this teaching your child “survival skills,” as contrasted to spending most of your efforts ensuring their survival. Too often, we attempt to ensure survival by rescuing, nagging or micromanaging, and we end up with children unprepared to face the world without us.
Redefine what it means to train and instruct your kids about the character of Christ.
LOVE THIS! Thank you so much for passing along.
I love this stuff man. Especially the sarcasm! <–And that wasn't even sarcasm. Thanks for the time you put into this. I am a 35 year old Dad that needs all the help I can get! LOL (Of course my boy is only 2, but God help me!)
Thanks for the love today Kenny! Checked out your site as well today…love what your doing. Keep up the great work!
…oh and God help Him!
you have got to be kidding me. my kids play competivitive sports. and they believe in god. we do not go to church but do pray. they also respect their elders and all that. my kids do not get in trouble in school and all of them get good grades. my eldest is going into the marinies when he graduates. so to say that you need to know jesus is not correct on all accounts…but i believe that you should atleast believe in god.