One of my favorite things to do with our 4 year old daughter is read her a bedtime story. Our usual routine is for her to pick out the book. There are many days that she picks the same book for several days in a row. After a couple of days, she begins to interrupt me and turn the pages to get to her favorite part of the story. She knows the best part of the story and wants to turn the page to get there.

I often wonder if my life is like that. Do my kids see a passion in me that makes them want to know about it? Does my life tell the story of redemption in such a way that my kids want to take hold of it? Do my kids see me finding my place in the story and living faithfully in it? Do my kids hear consistently from me about the Author of our story?

It is our role as parents to share the good news of the Grand Narrative and embody it with our lives.  Our lives should be giving them a kingdom preview. Our words and deeds should be a testimony to God’s grace in our lives. It should be so evident that our kids want to turn the pages of our story to see how God is working. We must consistently show God as the hero of our story and point our kids to Him.

Do your kids know your story? Do they want to turn the page and see the  true Hero?

The question is not whether our kids lives will be shaped by some story. The question is which story will shape it.

Make them turn the page and point them to Jesus. Be intentional!

The more I parent, the more I struggle with identity. It is so easy to get caught up in thinking your child’s behavior, academic performance, or athletic success is a reflection of you. It is a daily struggle for me to die to self and find my identity in Christ alone. Over the past few weeks, I have struggled more and more with this.

I like the fact that my boys are pretty good basketball players but I struggle with my mood changing because of their performance.

I like the fact that my kids are fairly well behaved but I struggle with finding significance in people seeing me as a dad with nice, polite kids.

I like the fact that my kids work hard in the classroom but I struggle with how it looks when they forget to study and fail a test.

I like the fact that my kids love doing things with me but I struggle with the desire to sit down, watch tv, read a book and distance myself from everyone.

I struggle.

The more I parent, the more I realize it is an identity issue.

My prayer today is that my kids see my identity in Christ and Christ alone.

My prayer today is that  I will always point our kids back to the core issue of finding their identity in Christ and Christ alone.

Relationship issues? identity problem.

Wins and losses? identity problem.

Good grades and bad grades? identity problem.

Take time time today and make sure you teach and model for your kids where true identity is found.

Be strategic and intentional.

“It took me seventeen years to realize I couldn’t parent on my own. If I didn’t pray deliberately and reflectively for members of my family by name every morning, they would kill one another. I was incapable of getting inside their hearts. I was desperate. But even more, I couldn’t change my self-confident heart. My prayer journal reflects both my inability to change my kids and my inability to change my self-confidence. That’s  why I need grace even to pray. It didn’t take me long to realize that I did my best parenting by prayer. I began to speak less to the kids and more to God. It was actually quite relaxing. ”

I read this opening sentence from an article in the Commercial Appeal and it caught my attention.

Real estate developer Rusty Hyneman claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court he can’t repay $69 million in debt, yet he’s moved into a multi-million dollar east Shelby County estate.

Living in a big house with nothing to show for it. The appearance of great things covering up emptiness.

I think we live in a culture today that looks exactly like that. We can prop up the appearance of doing well while covering our brokenness. Sadly, I think we are doing this as parents. We are more concerned about the appearance of our kids instead of what is going in their heart. We want our kids to be seen in a good light. We all fall into that trap. I know that I do. We live in comparison with other parents and other kids. Meanwhile, we are not addressing the issues of the heart.

We are building empty houses. I am often convicted by how much I focus on behavior modification and not heart transformation.

What controls our children’s heart will control their life. Are we parenting with that in mind?

Our prayer as parents should be that God would effectively and functionally rule the hearts of our kids. Everything else is secondary.

What kind of house are you building? Are you building one that gives the appearance of outward beauty and success while the inside remains empty? Are you willing to tear down some walls and get to the heart of the matter?

I pray that we will be strategic as parents and build houses that have the proper foundation. I pray that we take every moment we can to show our kids they are part of a much bigger story, God’s story: the story of His character, His creation, and His redemption of this fallen world.

That’s the house our kids need to live in!

The Search Institute (2007) found that the three factors as predictors of faith development in teens were:

1) Frequency of discussions about faith with parents
2) Frequency of family prayer time
3) Frequency of shared family experiences and activities

We all want our kids to be better off than we are—financially, emotionally, and physically, but have you thought about spiritually? Lifeway did some great, more recent research about how to help kids grow spiritually, and it is directly tied to family time too.

Lifeway (2010) interviewed parents of young adults (ages 20-35) about what they did with their children that resulted in positive spiritual outcomes for them as adults. Among the top things listed:

• Regular family prayer time
• Students connecting with a leader at church
• Teens regularly serving at church
• Teens participating in ministry or service projects with their family

How are you doing as a family in these areas?

Last week, I read an article about the coach who was hired to get former Auburn quarterback Cam Newton ready for the draft and his future career in the NFL. It was quite interesting to read about  his approach to teaching Cam about NFL defenses. Here is a part of the article:

In order to challenge him, Whitfield routinely asked college students at the University of San Diego — where Newton trained — to join their classroom sessions. Once they sat down, Whitfield would leave the room and have Newton teach those same kids the defensive concepts.

“I didn’t judge him on what he knew,” Whitfield said. “I judged him off what they knew.”

What if we judged our own parenting on what our kids know? I am not talking about head knowledge. I am talking about biblical discipleship and life ready skills.

How would you do? Would your kids leave for college being able to apply biblical truth within the context of everyday life? Would your kids be fully capable of functioning as life ready adults when they leave your house?

It is not the job of the church to disciple your kids. It is yours.

It is not the job of the school to teach your children the necessary life ready skills to thrive on their own. It is yours.

This is a tough parenting challenge for me. It has motivated me to make sure that I am strategic and intentional in my conversations and teaching. Strategic parents are willing to sacrifice in order to help teach and guide their kids to make gospel centered decisions in every area of their life.

I pray that this challenge will motivate us all to be more focused and intentional with our kids.  Make the sacrifice! I promise you it will be worth it.

Why would a boy want to be an adult if all they see from their dad is the continual cycle of wake up, go to work, come home, watch tv and go to bed?

It’s pretty simple: DADS HAVE BECOME BORING.

If we want our sons to become godly men, we better make sure they see us excited about being their dad. We all get tired. We all get worn down from a rough day at work. Trust me, I get to that point often.

Dads must be ready the minute they get home. Our kids are counting on it. We must seize every moment we can to invest in their lives and we need to make it fun.

Watch a funny you tube video together.

Have a funniest joke night (we did this last night and it was great).

Play practical jokes on everyone in the family (pick your spots on this one).

Wrestle with your boys whenever you get the chance.

Play games as a family.

The list could go on and on.

Don’t let your kids grow up thinking that it was not fun to be their dad. It is easy to fall into that trap. Don’t let it happen. Pray on your drive home today that God will strengthen you and give you the energy to be a strategic dad.

The study, by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit group, is the first of its kind since apps became widespread, and the first to look at screen time from birth. It found that almost half the families with incomes above $75,000 had downloaded apps specifically for their young children, compared with one in eight of the families earning less than $30,000. More than a third of those low-income parents said they did not know what an “app” — short for application — was.

“The app gap is a big deal and a harbinger of the future,” said James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, which had 1,384 parents surveyed this spring for the study. “It’s the beginning of an important shift, as parents increasingly are handing their iPhones to their 1 ½-year-old kid as a shut-up toy. And parents who check their e-mail three times on the way to the bus stop are constantly modeling that behavior, so it’s only natural the kids want to use mobile devices too.”

The study found that fully half of children under 8 had access to a mobile device like a smartphone, a video iPod, or an iPad or other tablet. Of course, television is still the elephant in the children’s media room, accounting for the largest share of their screen time: about half of children under 2 watch TV or DVDs on a typical day, according to the study, and those who do spend an average of almost two hours in front of the screen. Among all children under 2, the average is 53 minutes a day of television or DVDs — more than twice the 23 minutes a day the survey found children are read to.

And almost a third of children under 2 have televisions in their bedrooms, a substantial increase from 2005, when the Kaiser Foundation found that 19 percent of children ages 6 months to 23 months had them. In families with annual incomes under $30,000, the new study found, 64 percent of children under 8 had televisions in their rooms, compared with 20 percent in families with incomes above $75,000.

Computers are common as well: about 12 percent of children 2 to 4 use them every day, and 24 percent at least once a week, the study found; among those 5 to 8, 22 percent use a computer daily, 46 percent more once a week. On average, the children who use computers started doing so at age 3 ½.

The report found that despite more than a decade of warnings from the American Academy of Pediatricians that screen time offers no benefits for children under 2, “only 14 percent of the parents surveyed said their doctor had ever discussed media use with them,” said Vicky Rideout, its author.

“I get the impression that a lot of parents do not take the recommendation that seriously,” she said. “Part of it may be wishful thinking. Parents like their media, and it’s really tough to resist the lure of putting your kid in front of something that purports to be educational and will keep them occupied.”

-Paul David Tripp

Assumptions.

Do you make them?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it has special meaning to me and many others (I lost my mother to cancer 28 years ago).

Our middle son Bennett’s flag football team decided to wear pink wristbands and shoelaces for the their last two flag football games. Bennett was so excited about wearing them. Lacing shoes is not one of his strengths so I told him I would help him. He wanted no part of that so the shoes remained unlaced for the evening. As it became later in the evening, he was frustrated and went to bed sad that he could not get them the way he wanted.

Our oldest son Preston was in his room studying while the shoelace debacle was happening. He usually stays up later than Bennett because of his work load and because he has trouble going to sleep. He is a night owl like his parents. After homework was done, he decided to make as much noise as possible in his room upstairs. Things were hitting the floor and who knows what was happening. With the fear of waking our youngest daughter up, my frustration level began to increase. I figured I would let it go and hope for some peace and quiet.

A few minutes later, I hear his loud footsteps walking down the upstairs hall and back to his room. Time to step in and see what was going on up there. As I walked up the steps, I assumed the worst and thought he was delaying the inevitable. He needed to go to bed and I was going to make sure he knew it. Did he realize that I was being inconvenienced by having to walk upstairs to remind him that it was a school night and he needed rest?

As I made my way to his room, I could see his light on and I was ready to catch him in the act of doing something unproductive so he could stay up longer. I had him right where I wanted him. I was ready to pounce on him with a solid lecture and dissertation on the need for sleep for a young man his age. As I looked into his room, I witnessed him lacing up his brother’s football cleats with his pink shoelaces. He wanted to make sure that his brother had it right. He did it without being asked. He did it because he wanted to “take initiative for the benefit of others.”

I watched him work for a couple of minutes without him knowing. He was meticulous. As tears streamed down my face, I realized I was not crying because of the act of kindness shown to his brother. I was crying over my assumptions. I was crying over assuming the worst and not giving him a chance. I was crying over the stench of my self-righteousness. Lesson learned.

There is no sin that our children will commit that we are not capable of doing or have already done ourselves. May we all parent with a humble awareness of our own sin.

Assumptions.

I make too many of them.