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S. Michael Houdmann
Supporter
Many Christian parents wonder if they will survive trying to raise a teenager. Teenagers typically share certain characteristics. First, they are going through the stage in life where they believe ...
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Gary Patton
Supporter
My short answer is that unconditional acceptance and love of a young person, plus fervent prayer, are parents' only successful way to raise a teenager, while retaining any "joie de vivre". After unsuccessfully trying what many religious Christians suggest about "rods" and other justice-oriented techniques, my wife and I discovered a secret hidden in plain sight in the New Covenant. The bottom line of what Jesus commands really does work. I call His teenager-raising and relationship approach Jesus' "Platinum Rule" (John 13:34-35). We know it works because our somewhat rebellious teenage daughter is now 41 and a committed Follower of Jesus …like her husband. They now are raising four precocious kids, including two typical teenagers, to love the Lord. Grandpa and Grandma's role is to prayerfully continue to claim God's promise that our "children's children will know God"! Blessings all!
Alumbugus Steve
Supporter
God give me the wisdom to raise my children in the ways of the Lord, provide for me to meet there needs.Thank you JESUS you have done it in many parents and you will still do it again.
Michael Kouroupis
Supporter
The character of Jesus is both indicated in his 1st and 2nd arrival to earth. While Jesus recognized his first visit wasn't a call to judgement, but rather to be the Sacrificial Lamb, it also can't be denied that He'll return with a vengeance seeking to judge the unrighteous. It's rather a paradox of Christian child-rearing that would we (parents) not laydown the law (so to speak), then Jesus' divine forgiveness is as ho-hum and mundane as the countless times a child got out of his self-made trouble with a 'christian' parent that couldn't invoke an unpopular discipline. I invoke a righteous wrath on my own kids based on 3 age-appropriate 'wrongs'. And that's for disobedience (to a command), gross-negligence/reckless, and lying. I find that I now invoke all my parental-instructions with such clarity,... nobody has to guess as to when an infraction occurs. The kiddies are rather secure in knowing I afford them a respect to accomplish (anything), and they know where they stand with daddy. It's not so much that 'rear a child in the way they should go, and they won't depart from it' - Prov 22.6, but through outward parental neglect another entity will show them the way they should go, - and they'll follow that instead.
James Richardson
Supporter
Successfully raising children is a like pouring concrete, in the beginning, you must prepare. With concrete, you must level the ground and be prepared to receive the mixture. Before you practice making a baby (doing the sex thing) you should first, be married to your pardoner, prepare your self and know how to raise the little selfish, crying, dirty diaper, bundled of joy, that this pleasure may bring. Hosea 8:7 it says, "For they have sown to the wind, they will reap the whirlwind." If your children don't turn out the way you want them to, look in the mirror, you will see the enemy. Pogo a cartoon character, who lived in the Okeefonokee swamp said, "I have seen the enemy, and it is us." In Ephesians 6:1-4 KJVS, we find God's instructions to children and to parents.[1] Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. [2] Honor thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) [3] That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. [4] And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. These verses tell us what we should do, but they don't tell us how. Gods word tells us how to raise our children. The starting point is found in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 KJVS[6] And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: [7] And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. [8] And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. [9] And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gate.
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