Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be talking about parenting. Why do you think it is important for us to educate ourselves on ways to improve our parenting? I would say it relates to every aspect we have talked about on this blog since the beginning. Everything relates back to parenting and how with changing times we owe it to the future generations of our families to be prepared. Prepared for what you may ask? I will tell you this, we live in a fallen world where todays temptations are going to be minor compared to what is to come. With that being said I want to address the parents, what would you be willing to do for the safety and effective upbringing of your children?
Michael Popkin is a creator of active parenting programs. He provides information on how we can make proper parenting choices. I am not a parent and most likely will not be one for a while. However, I tend to share a lot of my personal experiences from my childhood and my parents separation. Something Michael Popkin’s says really stood out to me, he claims the purpose of parenting is “to protect and prepare children to survive and thrive in the world in which they live”. I love the key word “survive” because I really do believe the future generations of our children are going to be facing a spiritual battle. The world is continuing to go into a direction which is far off of our values and morals as a congregation. For this reason it is imperative that our children are raised in a household with a strong foundation in the gospel.
When breaking it down into simpler and a more clear understanding, for our children’s sake it is important to protect, prepare, survive, thrive, the world in which they live. This includes present day, the near future which may be presenting itself, transitioning into adulthood and eternity. Now, you may be asking, why is this important? This is crucial to the success of parenting because times are constantly changing. I will tell you my experiencing as a child were different. My father worked a lot and I had to learn how to be a man from other people, some were not the best influence. My mother was sick and struggled with addiction and she was in no place to council me on the adventures and changes I was going to be facing. I found myself having to figure out a lot of things for myself. This was challenging but in the end it made me a better version of myself and I know what I want to change for my future family one day.
Michael Popkin’s lists a couple of different qualities which are important for parents to teach their children. Those qualities are: courage, self-esteem, reasonability, cooperation, and most importantly, respect. These are all things which I struggle with as a child. I did not have the courage to speak what was on my mind because I felt it was minimal compared to the other challenges which our family was facing. Self-esteem was a huge one for me. I pushed down my feelings and did not believe in myself because I felt like I did not have the support at home to do the things which made me happy. Reasonability, is an interesting one. In all honesty I had to learn the hard way, through some negative experiences, how to take reasonability for my actions. Cooperation was something taught at a young age because of church obligations and finding opportunities to be of service to others. My dad taught me how to be a team player and things get done more efficiently when working in numbers. Respect, I was always taught to respect other people and is a quality I hold dear to my heart today. I feel like within our culture we are taught to respect everyone. However, the world has a different view and I feel like the meaning of respect has lost its value. I share these experiences because I want to show you all the effects of these qualities not being taught.
With parenting being the topic, I want to close by focusing on the purpose of the father regarding his children. He is responsible to preside, provide, and protect over the family. The mother is responsible for nurturing them. We learn of these reasonability’s within the Family Proclamation. When my parents divorced my relationship with my father reached a new level of intimacy. I believe my father is the best man in the world and if I can grow up to be half the man he is then my life would have been a success. He taught me how to look after the family, even if they do not want to be looked after. He taught me how to provide and look after our family members by teaching from his example. Finally, he taught me how to protect each other over all else. He protected me from the world by creating a home with a strong gospel foundation which shifted my life for the better. Please, I beg all of you, raise your children within the guidelines of the church and they will be in God’s hands and protection.
