Are you a good parent?

Being a good parent is not by buying children expensive gifts, clothe items or by enrolling them in the best schools, but by spending time with them, giving them enough attention, teaching them all they will need to grow up as responsible adults who fear God. Being a good father or mother is easy; all a parent needs to do is spend more time with their kids even if they had to earn less money to create the time. Hug them as often as possible, have fun with them, always listen to their problems, talk with them about their day, tell them stories especially bible stories and teach them to pray often. When children are denied of their parents love and attention they will be miserable and empty in their hearts, that is why as soon as some enter into their teens they turn to friends for consolation, some turn to sex and others to drinks or some other vices to satisfy the emptiness within them. Create time to teach them all they need to know at the appropriate age. (Deut. 6:6-7).

Don’t neglect to discipline your children; Prov 23:13-14 - Do not withhold discipline from a child; even if you strike him with the rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will deliver him from death. Even though the bible approve of child discipline, don’t abuse it, never hit a child on the head, don’t shake a child, the best and safest place to beat a child is on the buttocks, and remember not too hard, a few small whacks to remind the child to obey you is enough.

There is a right time and a wrong time to discipline a child, when a child is deliberately disobey the parent by not doing what he was asked to do, for example; when you asked a child to take a dirty linen to the laundry or pack dirty dishes from the dinning to the kitchen and he chooses not to do it, then you can discipline the child that is deliberate disobedient. But when a child forget to do something he/she was supposed to do or the child made a mistake then you should not discipline such child. You can let the child know that he has done something wrong and correct him accordingly.

Learn to praise your children when they do something well, try to notice all the things they do well and praise them for it. Cultivate a habit of praising them more than you punish them.