The importance of Christian parenting

Concerned by the recent riots in the United Kingdom, lawlessness seems rife and a lack of respect for society appears rampant amongst young people today.
I deleted a Facebook contact because I could not stand his vulgar language on his status. Shameful thing was he is a 16 year old relative of mine but every other word was a swear word and it made me cringe. I was even more saddened to hear that his father (who unfortunately is separated from the boy’s mother) has no control over this young man. I believe that you can see good parenting through children’s attitudes and behaviour.

I’m not the perfect parent but I pray daily that God will teach me how to be a good mother. Whilst on holiday with my family, my seven year old son has been leading us in prayer before we go out. We tell him daily how blessed he is to have gone on holiday as many are not as fortunate as him to have been given the same opportunities he has experienced in his young life. We remind him that God is our provider, that God gave his mum and dad their jobs, the food on his table, the clothes on his back, the money to buy his toys with. My two year old daughter has been copying his prayers and at meal times is the first one to remind the rest of the family to pray and give thanks for the food.

I’m so thankful to my mother who is an exemplary Christian teacher to my children. We were driving to Disney World and she led a family discussion about the ten commandments. She did it in a fun way for the kids to understand and my son raised questions which my husband and I were able to answer.

Teaching children about God is a lifestyle and should not be ‘cloak and dagger’. I am always reminded by the bible verse Proverbs 22:6 ‘Train a child in the way that they should go so that when they are old, they will not turn away from it’. There’s too much going on in the world today to not be concerned as to what happens with your child. I heard somewhere that if you don’t discipline a child by the time they are seven, it’s going to be struggle to instil discipline thereafter.