Lessons in Parenthood

Lessons in Parenthood 

Recently, I heard a message about raising children.  The speaker said “you can’t give what you don’t have.”  At first I thought about this in the physical sense.  You can’t give someone oranges if you don’t have any and you can’t give someone a quarter if you don’t have one.  Then I started to think about this in a deeper sense.  If you don’t have love, then how you can expect to love others?  If you don’t have healthy eating habits, then how can you expect your children have healthy eating habits.

This really struck me.  I have so many dreams and hopes for our daughter. But am I doing a good job modeling the behaviors and actions I want her to develop? One of the obvious examples is healthy eating. As parents we want to give Izzy the best start in life and therefore we want to ensure she is eating healthy.  Realistically I need to ask myself, am I going to be making her homemade organic lunches if I decide to eat pizza instead? Besides our toddler is at the age where she wants everything that we have, we can’t eat without being bothered! This isn’t just about eating habits.

It is important to us to teach Izzy about the love of Christ.  We pray that His praise would be on her lips all the days of her life.  One way to do this is through modeling. If we aren’t spending time in the word and worshiping Him ourselves then how can we expect her to know Him? We aren’t perfect and I know we will make mistakes as parents, but I’m starting to realize how much the choices we make effect our children.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you intentionally pass down the qualities you want your children to develop?