Children

Thirteen year old Dan circled the five foot tall cactus carefully. He stayed well away from the long skinny arms that seemed to reach out for him whenever he got too close. He grinned mischievously, rubbing his hands together in glee. This is perfect, he thought to himself. Looking carefully around to make sure no one could see him, he pulled out a pair of long tongs his father used to turn hotdogs on the grill. Slowly, for he certainly didn’t want to get stuck by the barbed cactus himself, he grasped the topmost section of the long cactus arm and twisted. With hardly any effort at all,...

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Teenagers and young adults are on a quest for a unique identity wholly their own. This search often leads them into the realm of rebellion as they try to break the bonds of their conception of other people's preconceptions. Teenagers will dissociate themselves from their parents and associate themselves with their peers. This often is very destructive. Understanding the need and nature of this identity crisis is important. At some point in our lives we seem to have a desire to break free from the expectations of those who raised us. Be it parents, teachers, or other authority, teenagers and young...

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There is some debate over whether or not you should allow your teenager to disagree with you. I'm of the mind that if the teenager doesn't have a platform to voice his or her disagreements you could isolate your teenager from you in a way that you would not like. The teenage years are best spent preparing him or her for adulthood. To do this, they need understanding. They need to know the intricacies of life. What? Would you prefer that they learned about life from their friends? Well, one of the best ways to help them understand life is to allow them a proper platform to disagree with you. Done...

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Character is self government. The ability to rule your desires and lusts--even your needs--is what character is all about. It forces you to do the right thing even when you have no desire to do so. It does not rely on someone else's character but has the ability to determine your direction despite personal desires. Proverbs 6:6-8 - Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. These two verses should be every parent's hope for their children. We want our children...

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I'll state again that the instincts that will be discussed here are not universally true but generally true. In the majority of the cases, you'll find that these God given instincts exert a particular force on our nature and thus the family. With that being said, the family, in the context of this article, is that of a man, a woman, and their children. This is the family that I believe God ordained, and the particular instincts that we are created with have a symbiotic impact on each of these three elements. Things will obviously be more confused when you add in divorce, stepfathers, stepmothers,...

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The marriage should come first. That doesn't mean that you ignore the children. But it does mean that if you want what is best for your children, you will keep the marriage strong. As a pastor of a Church, I counsel many marriages and many problem children. What I have discovered is that many or rather most of a child's problems are directly related to the problems within the marriage of his or her parents. Give me a troubled marriage and I will invariably find troubled children. That is a fact that is indisputable from my experience of over a decade of counseling and trying to patch relationships...

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UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM Most people don't turn to God until they feel like they need Him. Even in presenting the plan of salvation to someone, we must point out a real Hell and a real possibility of going to that Hell. Only then will the need for salvation become clear enough for most people to want to trust Jesus. Children, however, are dependent upon parents, in their eyes, more so then they are in God. Having no need for God, as they see it, is part of the problem. In dealing with teenagers, the largest obstacle we overcome is the thinking that they don't need God. Often, this is a subconscious...

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When communicating with children it is important to keep your goals in mind. The younger the child, the more difficult it is to reason with a child. A very young child won't be able to give you the reasoning for his actions. "Why did you hit your brother?" you demand. "Because I hit him?" your child may reply. As your child grows older, his reason and reasoning skills begin to develop. You can converse with a twelve year old in a manner impossible five years previous. So what are goals in parenting? 1. As a child, we'll say between birth and twelve, you want to capture this child's...

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The goal of every parent and authority when dealing with bad behavior is to find some way to correct it. This can be very challenging to say the least and depending on the level of influence you have in that person's life, may very well be close to impossible. Despite that, most people don't know what even causes bad behavior. In this article, bad behavior is the reaction to a given event. An uncontrollable child is the result of little or no training. But a teenager who gets angry at the drop of a hat is the type of bad behavior we are talking about here. WHAT AFFECTS BEHAVIOR? Attitude...

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"Praise the Lord! I Found One!" These are the words spoken by my 5 year old and a 3 year old as they rummage through a toy box looking for leggos. In a society and generation where God takes a back seat to political correctness and social humanism, it is refreshing to hear children reference God with such eager excitement. Some may raise the cry of 'brainwashed', but I care not. My children are incredibly happy and excited about life. If that is brainwashing, so be it. It disturbs me that parents today shy from instilling solid values, even Christian values, into their children. As if cultivating...

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