Category Archives: Parents

Children, Parents, Training

18 Ways to Train Children and Teens to be Financially Responsible

images-31Ever wonder why some people have strong financial skills and others missed that class? For the most part, it’s in the parental training or lack thereof. Some young people never experienced financial training or a good example of responsible stewardship while growing up and others had to discover for themselves the hard way, through loss. There is a better way, however. Take the financial lessons you have learned and use them as a teaching tool to those little ones in your life, either as a parent, a grandparent or a caretaker. Their future teachers and employers will love you for it. Author and financial teacher Larry Burkett once said that we are not responsible for our children’s decisions, but we are responsible for their training. Here are some “training” insights to consider when it comes to handling money:images-30

  1. It all begins and hinges on helping them to understand that God owns it all. We are to be the best stewards of everything He shares with us.
  2. Be generous and teach generosity. There is no greater blessing than to give.
  3. Teach the difference between self-discipline, delayed gratification, and immediate self-gratification along with the direct consequences of each one.
  4. Be an example of all things in moderation vs. excess.

images-275. Give your children regular and meaningful responsibilities – jobs without pay, e.g., picking up their toys.

6. Do not give an unearned, free ride allowance, but rather give your children regular jobs with generous pay, e.g., mowing the lawn or folding the cloths.

7. Teach your children to tithe from every dollar earned or given to them. It is all God’s but discipline in regular giving grows a  habit.images-35

8. Teach your children to save a percentage of their income for the future (30-50%), all the while designating a percentage of what can be spent immediately.

9. Teach the difference between an asset and a liability – a consumable.

10. Train your children to follow through. They must learn to complete the job in the way requested or there is no reward.

11.Help them to understand the concept of investing and how that will help them beyond today into the future.

12.Develop a budget with your child as soon as they can comprehend the idea. It will serve them the remainder of their life.images-34

13. Start a savings account and when age appropriate, obtain a checking account and an ATM card. Teach them how to responsibly use and balance them.

14. Train them in the proper use of credit and how the borrower is servant to the lender.

15. Share with them the difference between paying interest and growing interest on their money/investment.

16. Share with your children your financial mistakes and how they can learn and benefit from them.

17. As is appropriate, walk them through all other financial concepts like loans, taxes, utilities, owning a home, maintenance, buying a car, auto repairs, insurance, etc.

18. And finally, take the time to teach your children what God takes the time to teach you about money and His resources. They’re never too young to learn.

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Children, Encouragement, Parents

On Being a Father

IMG_1128Now that I am a grandfather (Papaw is the name my grandson has bestowed upon me), it is easier to recall the decades of raising two sons and a daughter. I loved fathering, almost everything about it. I say ‘almost’ because there were those times of confusion, disorientation and exhaustion. But I would not trade one single day because I chose to love every age period my children went through, even the ‘terrific two’s’ and the teen years of learning through natural resistance.

Everyday was a gift from God to hold them, tuck them in at night, pray over their “bad” dreams, kiss them and listen to their pure hearts. Even during pregnancy, I would talk to my children almost every night. Mary and I would lie in bed and I would read them stories from the story books we were collecting. We sang songs to them and we prayed over them. We prayed perfect health and development, joy and acceptance into our family. With our second and third child, we introduced them to their siblings and together we would speak words of anticipation, waiting upon their birth (Psalm 139:13-16).

From conception we wanted our children to know they were accepted, approved of and loved unconditionally. We wanted them to know this was their time to be fashioned and formed to reflect the image of their heavenly Father who was the One bringing them into existence (Acts 17: 24-26). It was He who chose to place them into our lives to be their parents. We knew they were created before the foundation of the earth and we knew our time with them was only for a season (Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 1: 4-5). They were never a mistake or an afterthought. They were always wanted, never rejected. Did we have perfect children? No. Were we perfect parents? No, never.

As a father of adult children now, may I pass some advice on to you?images-6

 

  • Enjoy and embrace everyday; you’ll never get it back.
  • Value your children in every way you can. Show them honor and respect.
  • Do not speak down to them.
  • Do not make fun of them or compare them to others; always be the encourager, all the while, speaking truth.
  • Teach them; impart to them everything you can. Remember that every moment is a teachable moment. Mentor them in how to work, how to care for possessions, how to handle finances and, mostly, how to give.
  • Read to them. Play with them. Date them.
  • Never speak words of power over them, but rather empower them to make right decisions.
  • Don’t try to be their friend; be their parent and discipline them.
  • Create healthy boundaries for them and enforce those boundaries.
  • Turn the TV and the computer games off and have family time regularly.
  • They do not need a lot of stuff, things or possessions, but, rather, teach them to explore and discover, to use their imagination and creativity. (The #1 favorite toy of children around the world is a stick and #2, a box.)
  • Share in a family devotional time that relates to them, not you.
  • Discover their natural gifts and celebrate their personality traits and then provide the necessary reinforcement.
  • Teach them to love and obey God, to pray and place Him first in their lives.images-5
  • Pray for and with them daily. Take the lead in apologizing when necessary.

And lastly, always reinforce to them there is nothing that will ever change the fact that they are your son or daughter and that no matter what they do or say, you are committed to them and will forever love them.

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Children, Marriage, Parents, Prayer

Growing in Values and Co-vision as a Couple

images-15Mary and I were in our first year of marriage and I don’t think either of us had a huge burden for un-churched or underprivileged children. One day our pastor asked if we would like to start a bus ministry. Once he defined it for us and we received training, we were sold as to its value. Reaching a child had the potential of changing a life forever, not to mention touching a family.

After filling several buses with some amazing but wild city kids, we fell in love with the whole ministry. Their needs were huge but they were being touched through an excellent children’s program coupled with our love as we also visited them every Saturday morning. It didn’t take long until we figured out how valuable children are to our heavenly Father, and from the vision of another, our hearts were hooked. We went on to eight years of missionary work with adjudicated delinquent teenage males and then several years of social work in foster care. As our heart grew, we found ourselves developing a deep value for reaching children, teens and their families.images-13

How about you, have you discovered your heart being enlarged by the Lord for some form of ministry only to have it become a deep value for you as a couple? If not, ask Him to show you His co-vision for the two of you.

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Encouragement, Marriage, Parents, Postmarital

Oh, Those Cutting Remarks

I heard a pretty humorous story that went something like the following. A wife was begging her husband to take her to her High School reunion of 25 years. Reluctantly, he finally gave in to the idea that he also knew was going to be a bust for him. After meeting a few of her friends and former classmates, he just sat at the table yawning, alone and bored to death. Pretty soon the band hired for the evening cranks up and a few persons are beginning to dance. But there is this one character that is on the dance floor just living it up large, break dancing, moon dancing, back flips…the works. Soon his wife returns to their table, sits beside her husband, leans over and says, “See that awesome ‘life of the party’ guy up there?” “Well, 25 years ago he proposed to me and I turned him down.” Abruptly her husband turns to her and quips, “Looks like he’s still celebrating!images-8

Funny? Yes, but cutting. How often have you used humor to bring some kind of indirect and at times hurtful message to your spouse? I have been guilty of it I’m sorry to say. When you make fun of or put down your spouse, you are making fun of and putting yourself down. You are one. There are plenty of hurts already coming from relatives, the work place and others. You and I do not need to “pile on.” Cutting remarks do not change anyone, they are embarrassing, belittling and are words of death. Jesus said it this way, “The Spirit gives life…the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” Speak words of life today to your spouse, to your children, to your co-workers and to your neighbors.

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Parents, Premarital, Singles

Pornography and Singleness

images-5Pornography will affect your marriage even if you are still single and waiting for your spouse.  If you start viewing pornography, or when you view it, keep in mind that through mental stamping of the brain (that brain wash of chemicals when viewing porn) you will mentally carry many of those images for the rest of your life. While that may seem like a long time and impossible, I can still remember from my pre-teen years some of the images I saw in magazines that I found along the road while leisurely riding my bike on warm summer days.

If you desire a healthy sex life one day with the man or woman who God so generously gives to you, then stay far, far away from pornography today.  By staying away now, you won’t need to confess involvement to the future love of your life. By avoiding the temptation of pornography now, you begin to establish trust in this area with your future life mate.  Your mind will be more free and far more pure from sexual lust.  You will not have to deal with sexual shame.  Your marriage bed can be free of mental comparisons and images that only bring hurt and damage to your future love-making.  You will live in a greater sense of freedom today and in the future.  And, your future spouse will feel so honored that you chose not to bring destructive thoughts and images into your marriage bed.images-7

I love these verses that Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: But since there is so much immortality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each another except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (I Cor. 7: 2-5) Honor God and honor your body for the one that you will one day show honor to.

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