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Parenting Tips

How to Have Successful Family Devotions

Remember that teacher you had in high school who droned on and on, reciting endless facts in a monotone voice? No doubt, that class didn't make much of a positive impression on you. Your family devotions won't make much of a positive impression on your kids, either, if it's merely you giving a monologue. Interaction is the key to effective family devotions!

If you've never had family devotions with your children (or even if you have), here are some keys to making them memorable: Keep them short. The younger your child, the shorter they should be. Five to ten minutes with preschool or elementary aged children may be all you need. Let your children be the guide: if they're interested and actively involved, keep going. But, when you see their attention start to wane, it's time to wrap it up.

Keep them simple. Make it your goal to get one point across - the weeks' Big Idea - and leave it at that. Even older children are more likely to remember the devotion if there is only one major point to think about.

Keep them fun. Family devotions should be a time your kids look forward to each week. But, in order for them to have fun, you need to have fun, too. Look for ways to laugh and enjoy yourself. Your kids may not remember everything you say, but they'll cherish the fun you have together - and so will you.

Keep them consistent. Set aside the same night each week for devotions, if possible. You'll be more likely to remember to do them. Once you make them part of your weekly routine, your kids will remind you if you forget!

Having successful family devotions will take some time and effort on your part, but as you become more involved in your children's spiritual growth and see the impact these times have on your children, you won't regret it. These are the memories that will help lay the foundation for your children's life-long relationships with Christ.

*Prepare your children to be winners in life
Proven parenting tips by some of today's most respected child psychologist.

"Back to School — A homegrown approach to an outside education"

Whether you homeschool or send your kids to a public or private school, your attitude toward school will be a major part of his educational experience. School is usually a child's first proving ground outside the home-and a major benchmark for parents' expectations. It segregates children according to grade level, and then offers measures of performance based on below average, average, and above average. Whether this is wise isn't the point; it's what is done, and it tempts many parents to judge their own competence and identity according to how their children measure up. Don't expect perfect grades from your kids. Be more interested that they give it their best shot. Some parents treat even preschool with cutthroat seriousness. Many parents go nuts because their kids did not get into the right preschool. This attitude places inordinate pressure on children and may tempt them to cut corners and value achievement over character. Today's kids, driven to succeed from the day they dropped their diapers, need adults to step up to the plate and start stressing character and honesty over achievement with deception.

Does that mean that grades do not matter? Certainly not - you need to put grades into perspective. Your son or daughter will make a lot of choices in life. As they grow up, despite all the sheltering you may provide, they will always be within reach of drugs, sex, alcohol, shoplifting, vandalizing, you name it. If you are raising a child that respects your values and thinks of others first, you are doing something right. That says a lot more about you as a parent than whether their grade point average is 2.7 or 3.7. Look at your kids natural abilities, level of dedication, work ethic, and his/her life in general, and then judge the importance of his grades on that basis.

*Excerpts taken from the book Home Court Advantage by Kevin Leman.