As much as it might scare you, your children mirror you. They reflect your opinions and values. They are becoming you! And that’s how it should be.
I am sure you all have met, or will meet, some seemingly ordinary teenagers who display the values needed to become outstanding, successful adults. You can see that these values were taught by their parents. You will also recognize that parenting is not a technique; it is a way of life. It is digging into the depths of your soul to find the character to transmit integrity, moral strength, and leadership to your children. This is easy if we parents emulate these qualities ourselves, but without them, good parenting is impossible.
Young people—teens especially—have acute noses for hypocrisy and abhor the insincere. On the other hand, they are drawn to leaders who practice what they preach … and good parents are “leaders” in the truest sense of the word.
It’s clear that kids adopt their parents’ values. To clarify these values for their children, parents must let their kids know where they stand and why. This doesn’t
call for a lecture, which would most likely force the kids to hold their hands over their ears, physically as well as metaphorically; instead, parents should tell of the times they saw bad or good stuff happen, why it happened, its consequences, and how we/they might avoid the bad behavior or how we can emulate the good behavior.
These teaching moments happen all the time: when we see someone drinking too much at a ball game; when we see inappropriate displays of affection in public;
when we see scantily dressed adults; when we read about an outburst of anger leading to a shooting; and when news stories tell us about drug busts, lung cancer, teen pregnancy, AIDS, and other STDs. Unfortunately, the opportunities are countless.
Our instinct is to shield our kids from these stories. Yet these everyday experiences can become the basis for teaching values, and the way we adults handle them determines what values our children will adopt as their own. To fail to discuss someone’s public drunkenness, for example, teaches that we place no value on sobriety. Laughing at such a calamity teaches that we enjoy others’ misfortune. The involvement of the parents and the way they discuss these incidents is the key. These are the discussions upon which character is built; they create impressions that kids will take with them into the future and throughout their lives. There is no better way—perhaps no other way—to teach values.
In the April 2001 edition of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson said, “There is no sex education program, no curriculum, no school or institution in the world that can match the power and influence of … parental involvement. … [These] are the parents who are present and involved, who communicate and exemplify their own values and attitudes, who ask questions, who carefully supervise their kids’ choice of escorts and points of destination, and who insist on a reasonable curfew.”
In a word then, being an effective parent is being the adult you want your child to become. That may sound easy, but it is a constant struggle for most of us. One man asked me, “Is everything you do is important?”
“Sure is!” I replied. “Like father, like son!”