Parents are the example

The tip of the day for parents is: "Live like you want your children to live!" I cringe when I hear parents fondly telling stories of the dumb things they did as teens or young people in the hearing of their children. Your children not only feel free to do what you did too ("Dad/mom did it and he/she turned out OK, so will I!") but they want to do it "better".

One couple gleefully told how the wife had had an affair with a guy before they met and had a mutli-racial child as a result. They seemed proud that it showed that they were not predjudice ...and after all, they really loved him and he turned out pretty good. Much to the horror of the parents, their daughter took off with a strange man at a very young age and tried to get pregnant.

To contrast that story, I was talking to a woman recently who is in her 60's who told me how she decided to make a significant change in her life without saying one word to her married, adult children. Much to her surprise, all of her adult children made the same change in their lives without one word being spoken.

The Bible says, in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go, And [even*] when he is old he will not depart from it." In Deuteronomy 11 it says, "18 “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth." (NKJV)

The Word of God teaches us that if we set the right example for our children they will walk the walk all their lives!! Now you know what to do. DO IT! :)

* the word "even" is implied in the original language.