Parenting Children - August 17, 2012

Day 5 – Experiencing & Observing Healthy Relationships

Parenting Children Ages 0-10

Children learn to relate through experiencing, observing, and practicing various relationships within the family:
•  parent-child
•  mother-father
•  sibling-sibling
•  grandparent-grandchild
•  uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. Experiencing: parent-child relationship
•  children learn to love through experiencing their parents. unconditional love
•  important for children to feel accepted for who they are Our love and acceptance give our children confidence through building in them:
•  security (knowing they are loved not for what they do, but for who they are)
•  self-worth (knowing they are of value - their self-worth is based on what they think we, their parents, think of them)
•  significance (knowing there is a purpose to their lives, and that they have a worthwhile contribution to make) Ultimately security, self-worth and Significance come from God
•  we model God’s parenthood of us
•  parents are in loco dei (in His place to represent Him) Observing: mother-father (and other adult) relationships
•  children learn to relate through observing adult relationships
•  how we, their parents, speak and listen to each other
•  the physical affection we show
•  whether and how we resolve conflicts
•  children need to see firsthand the modeling of an intimate, committed adult relationship
•  if parenting together, consider doing The Marriage Course to invest in your relationship
•  if not parenting together, work at having thebest possible relationship with your child’s other parent (resolving conflict, forgiveness, consistency, etc.)

Question:
Where is your child learning most about how to build healthy relationships?

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Yesterday we continued looking at the Christian story as a six act play.  Act 1 was creation, that we were created to love God and be loved by God.  Act 2 was rebellion, when we learned that humans pushed God’s love away.

We continue an overview of the Christian story in six acts with Act 3, Israel.

So what did God do after we rebelled?  Let us figure it out on our own?  Forget about us and move on, create another world on Mars, or somewhere else?

No.

He stuck with us.

Slide10He chose a small group of humans – beginning with one man named Abraham, but eventually the whole national of Israel made up his descendents  – and said he would bring the world back to his plan using them.

He began to work with them, to remind them of the script he had written for our world.

Think of it as a school play…when the kids forget their lines, the director is off stage, prompting the actors to remind them of their lines.

Giving them help, guidance, correction.

This is what God did by giving Israel the ten commandments, and his laws, and prophets.

Reminding them of how they were meant to relate to each other, their world, and God himself.

Unfortunately, God’s people seldom listened, and even when they did, they very quickly went off script again.

Through all this Israel learned a few things, and so can we:

  • God cares enough not to give up, but to work with them
  • That they are too rebellious to actually do this on their own, and need the director to actually intervene.

And so the play continues off script, with the director off stage prompting, but nobody on stage listening or acting in the way he guides them.

Have you ever tried to make yourself “right” with God, or to be perfect?  Is it possible?  Have you ever met a perfect person?