{"id":1093,"date":"2009-12-06T16:05:28","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T22:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=1093"},"modified":"2009-12-06T16:05:28","modified_gmt":"2009-12-06T22:05:28","slug":"today-the-gathering-parenting-%e2%80%93-wimps-need-not-apply-how-to-raise-super-confident-kids-in-a-super-cynical-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/today-the-gathering-parenting-%e2%80%93-wimps-need-not-apply-how-to-raise-super-confident-kids-in-a-super-cynical-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Today @ The Gathering: Parenting \u2013 Wimps Need Not Apply; How to Raise Super-Confident Kids in a Super-Cynical World"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Today @ The Gathering<\/a> we continued with installment number 7 in our current series, \u201cThey Promised Me Chocolate: The True Confessions of a Disappointed Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember we\u2019ve been talking about getting honest about our disappointments. <\/strong> There is absolutely no way to go through life without facing them.\u00a0 And if you really understand why God allows them, you can embrace them and move past the disappointment to delight.\u00a0 But be careful.\u00a0 Most people collect their disappointments and become cynical, sour, and angry as they get older.<\/p>\n

But the opposite ought to be true.\u00a0 The older we get, and the wiser we get, and the more we understand the concepts that make life worth living, the more we can embrace our disappointments and realize that they are simply pathways that push us on to a deeper relationship with God.\u00a0 And what is that deep relationship characterized by?\u00a0 Trust.\u00a0 And when we trust God, we have confidence in God.\u00a0 And confidence is really all we need; not certainty, not clarity; simple confidence that God will never let us down no matter what the circumstances may appear to be.<\/p>\n

Today @ The Gathering we talked about parenting and the disappointments that come.\u00a0 We talked about the four things that make parenting miserable.\u00a0 Things like:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Expecting that <\/strong>parenting would just come naturally<\/strong>.\u00a0 Nothing could be further from the truth.<\/li>\n
  2. Expecting kids to fix problems that are broken in you or in your marriage relationship<\/strong>.\u00a0 Kids just complicate your relationship.\u00a0 They don\u2019t make it easier, or simpler. They can bring out the worst in you if you\u2019re not careful.<\/li>\n
  3. The idea that kids want your presents more than your presence.<\/strong> And as a result we raise kids who are experience rich and relationship poor.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to need to help your kids learn how to relate in a loving way with their families, their spouses, and their children; not to mention the people they work with.<\/li>\n
  4. One of the things that makes us terrible and miserable as parents is the belief that having kids won\u2019t change us. <\/strong> I\u2019ve heard people say that.\u00a0 It will<\/em> change, but it can change for the better if you know how.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So we talked about the four absolute essentials in successful parenting.\u00a0 Here they are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Successful parenting is done heart to heart.<\/strong> The greatest motivation<\/em> for having children and raising children is love<\/strong>.\u00a0 Heart to heart simply means that your kids know that you love them.\u00a0 And love means that they can trust you.\u00a0 Trust builds and develops confidence.\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what your kids need and they get it from you; not their intelligence, not their test scores, not their friends, but from their parents.\u00a0 Successful parenting is done heart to heart, expressing love at the core of every decision, every challenge, everyday.<\/li>\n
    2. Successful parenting is done face to face<\/strong>, which means the greatest parenting currency<\/em> you have is time<\/strong>.\u00a0 The real issue in how many children you have is not how much money you make, but how much time you have to invest.\u00a0 If you can only invest time for one child, don\u2019t have two.\u00a0 If you can only invest time for two children, don\u2019t have three.\u00a0 Money, trust me, is not the issue.<\/li>\n
    3. Successful parenting is done word by word. <\/strong>The greatest parenting posture<\/em> is that of a teacher<\/strong>.\u00a0 You are your child\u2019s greatest teacher whether you like it or not. Because children, like adults, learn by example; not theory, not rhetoric, not basic information, but by watching people implement the things that they teach us are important.<\/li>\n
    4. Successful parenting is done day by day.<\/strong> This means that the greatest parenting asset<\/em> is trust.<\/strong> If your children trust you, they\u2019ll follow you, they\u2019ll listen to you, and they\u2019ll cooperate with you.\u00a0 And as they trust you, you\u2019ll be able to trust them.\u00a0 And that ultimately becomes the joy of parenting.\u00a0 Loving face to face, word by word, trusting relationships that grow into their adulthood, and their married lives.\u00a0 And you get to be a part of that the rest of your life.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Yes, there are disappointments in parenting, but parenting is not that complicated, and you can do it because the Scriptures teach us that children are a reward from God<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 They\u2019re a gift.\u00a0 And no gift that God gives is anything less than good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Today @ The Gathering we continued with installment number 7 in our current series, \u201cThey Promised Me Chocolate: The True Confessions of a Disappointed Christian.\u201d Remember we\u2019ve been talking about getting honest about our disappointments. There is absolutely no way to go through life without facing them.\u00a0 And if you really understand why God allows … Continue reading “Today @ The Gathering: Parenting \u2013 Wimps Need Not Apply; How to Raise Super-Confident Kids in a Super-Cynical World”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}