Last week Lis and Dave shared a terrific letter on How to Impact Your Child’s Attitude. We learned that attitudes, positive and negative, often reflect and reveal what’s in one’s heart.

Reaching the heart of our children is every parent’s desire.  It is teaching them the How, the Why and the Way of God from whom all virtue flows and to impress these things upon their hearts.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Deuteronomy 6:5-7

To “impress” means to leave an imprint and that begins with parent’s words.  Speaking Words of Life in your family and to everyone is critically important.  We are to be intentionally engaged with our kids at home, when we’re out, wahen they go to bed and when they wake up. The words children hear is how they derive the meaning of practical and moral concepts like I love you, obey mommy or be kind to your brother.  Words also create images in their mind and forms their knowledge, which builds the child’s brain and trains their thoughts.  Parents have a lofty opportunity and responsibility in this by what they speak and what they allow their children to hear from others: Stories they read, programming they watch, education they receive, what they hear from peers and other adults via their newsfeed, etc… Every time words are heard they strengthen the concepts and impress them within the mind.  Are we speaking words of love and virtue or hate and vice?

Our actions, right and wrong, also impress upon and shape our child’s heart.  Kids learn from tangible experiences.  When they are little, showing them how to use gentle touches with the new baby or the family pet, how to share toys or how to use their inside voice are just some ways we tangibly demonstrate appropriate behavior.  Children can be great imitators, so modeling how to behave helps set the family standard of practical and moral behavior.  Parents can only take their children as far as they are willing to live out and hold in high regard the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control themselves.

“Live in such a way that if your children are ever asked for the definitions of kindness, integrity and loyalty, they’ll answer… my parents.”

Ali B. Moe

Correction and learning from mistakes also leaves a lasting impression in the mind and heart of your children.  Even when you have created a “life giving” environment for your child and have been teaching the moral and practical lessons, it’s important to remember you are raising human beings and not robots.  They will test the boundaries and they will make mistakes.  It is a parent’s job to correct children and bring about justice when they do something wrong.  Letting wrong attitudes and actions slide because its inconvenient to deal with will lead to greater problems for you and your child down the road.  Correction should always be fair, age appropriate and lead to understanding.  It should put the child back on the right track while educating them for the future.  When parents handle correction with loving resolve and a right heart attitude themselves, the child won’t enjoy the correction, but the lesson will make its way into their heart and bring about a happier, healthier child.

“Train up (teach or correct) a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6

The heart of most issues are most often issues of the heart!  Doing what is right and being better people begins at home.  It’s about training and modeling the virtues that help to define our child’s character.

Blessings to your family,

Shelly & Rich

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GFI Parenting Conference – April 19-20, Denver, CO

For the first time, the minds behind Growing Kids Gods Way, Babywise and The Life Series – Gary & Anne Marie Ezzo, Rich & Julie Young, and Dr. Robert & Gayle Bucknam – will be coming together to share new insights with compelling presentations! Don’t miss these parenting pioneers live and in person!

Info, Schedule & Registration

https://events.humanitix.com/gfi-2024