TEN WAYS TO LOVE YOUR KIDS

There is great joy in children! They are a gift from God and meant to be a tremendous source of blessing. They need to hear from parents how special they are, and they need to hear it in terms they understand and believe.

How to communicate love to your children:

* Establish boundaries for their lives. By setting boundaries you convey your love for them by saying, I love you too much to let you grow up in any way other than the way I know will honor God and bless you. Boundaries are only as strong as you are willing to enforce them.

* Enjoy them. It's fun to have kids. Enjoy the time with them. Fill your home with smiles, laughter, and a little bit of craziness.

* Expose your humanness to them. Let your kids hear you say, I'm sorry. I blew it when you make a mistake. Whether blowing your stack without all the facts, or saying something you later regretted, mistakes are part of parenting. Admitting your human inadequacies face-to-face teaches them by example.

* Explain the reasons behind your decisions. Because I said so ought to be stricken from every parent's vocabulary. It should be your goal to help them reason through your decisions. That doesn't mean they will always accept your judgments, but at least they need to understand the rationale behind those decisions.

* Exchange ideas with them. Your children will know they're something special when you take the time to exchange ideas with them. When you expose them to an intellectual life beyond the routines of a busy household, they will see that you are treating them as valuable people. And many times they grasp more from these exchanges than you suppose.

* Encourage them. Encouragement in regular and massive doses is probably the best thing you can give your kids to help them know you are on their team. Be a cheerleader for your kids, helping them to believe in themselves. Keep searching for opportunities to encourage your kids - they need it so much.

* Help them to believe they can go further than they dream. God invites you to challenge your sons and daughters to look beyond where they are to imagine a broader and richer and greater future.

* Physically express what you feel in your heart. It's a delight to hug a 2-year-old, but how easy it is to get out of that habit as the child enters the teen years. You can never receive too many hugs - no matter what age. When you express your emotion in hugs and tears, without fear of rejection, then your children will enjoy the greatest security they can ever know.

* Examine your marriage regularly. You best communicate love when they see that the commitment Mom and Dad have to each other is so deep that they will never violate that commitment and leave the children to deal with the results.

* Exercise great patience with them. It takes a lot of patience to be a parent. But God uses the hard times of family life to bind families together.


----------- Dr. David Jeremiah has been senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego for nearly 20 years and is chancellor of Christian Heritage College. His national radio program, Turning Point, is heard on more than 900 outlets across the country, and he is the author of a dozen books. David and his wife, Donna, have four children, two of them married, and one grandchild.>

L I V E I T Today's best advice from Christian books. http://liveit.crosswalk.com/

From Gifts from God by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright (c) 1999. Used by permission of Cook Communications, Colorado Springs, Colo. To place orders call toll free: 1-800-437-4337

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