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Our Parenting Successes And Failures
Volume 14 Issue 2, 2007
We asked three well-known Christian leaders to share with us some of the best things they feel they did in raising their kids … and some mistakes they wish they could take back.
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Ken Davis
Best-selling author,humorist, and dynamic communicator |
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I told my kids that I loved them almost every single day. |
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I took them with me on my events and gave them a job to do. |
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I made sure there was a lot of laughter and fun in our home. We made up games that they remember to this day. They would collect odd things from around the house and put them in a paper sack. I would then sit them down and tell them a story. Any time during the story they could reach into the sack and pull out an item. I had to instantly incorporate that item into the story. You could hear laughter throughout the neighborhood. |
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I spent a lot of time with my children but I took them with me to my events or to do things I enjoyed. I didn’t have the wisdom to do things with and for them.
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Because of my own legalistic background, outward demonstrations of our faith in the home were not as frequent as they should have been. I wish I had prayed with my children more. I wish I had spent more time opening the wonders of the Bible to them. |
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I wish I had demolished the television early in their life. Television kept me from spending time with them and once they were hooked, it kept them from spending time with me. |
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Gordon MacDonald
Author, speaker, former pastor |
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Making sure that there was a strong, definable boundary between private family life and public ministry life (i.e. insuring that dinner table talk was about family interests and not the church). |
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Planning (sometimes months in advance) to be present at any function where our children needed parental spectators (athletics, concerts, etc.). |
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Taking each of my children on a major international trip (15+ days) when they reached the age of 16 (not necessarily ministry trip) but unbroken time together. |
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Using my position to enable our children to meet and get to know extraordinary people who could make an impact upon their character. |
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Fooling myself into believing that our children felt no public pressure because I was a speaker and writer. They weathered it quite well, but it was naïve to believe that the church people weren’t constantly reminding them that they were son and daughter to someone with a bit of notoriety. |
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Letting competitive athletics define our family life a bit too much (both our children enjoyed very successful athletic careers). |
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We should have pushed more responsibility upon our children for sharing the maintenance of the home in terms of daily/weekly chores. There was some but maybe not enough. |
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Andy Stanley
Senior pastor of North Point Community Church (Atlanta), and best-selling author |
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Early on we were encouraged and took the advice to prioritize our marriage over our parenting. We considered ourselves a complete family before kids came along and they were a welcomed addition but they were never intended to be the center of the family. We made sure we had dates, that we took weekends off, and forced ourselves to leave our kids with babysitters earlier than a lot of friends. |
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I rarely ever traveled. I made whatever sacrifices I need to be at home in those critical years. I also rearranged my schedule so that I could leave work early (see “Choose to Cheat”) |
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We put our kids to bed early every night. That gave us a margin of time as a couple. We didn’t let it slide, to the point where our oldest was going to bed earlier than most of his friends. |
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There is always an incident where I feel like maybe I over-disciplined or under-responded. But I honestly can’t really think of any habits or practices that I would go back and undo. Sandra and I were raised in almost identical kinds of homes in terms of the values. We had so many things in common that getting on the same page in terms of values and approach to parenting was easy for us. |
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