Insights on the Family: Parenting with Love

"Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

In this video clip, Elder Neil L. Anderson quoted a mother's blog that Parenthood is "not something you can do if you can squeeze the time in, it is what God gave you time for."

In my own experience, motherhood has been the most fulfilling job I could ever have done. That isn't to say that I haven't had bad days where I wonder how I am going to survive being a parent, but it means that having my children has deepened my sense of what love is, what sacrifice means, and what real joy means. It is almost like the struggles and tired days make the good times all the sweeter.

Having children exposes you to your fears and weaknesses. You worry about your children. You worry whether you are doing well as a parent. You worry for their safety when they are not with you. You worry what they are being exposed to in the world that will taint the brightness in their eyes.

In my searching for ideas and tips on how to take care of my children and help them in the path of life, I found these tools from Mormon.org on parenting:

• Listen tirelessly, and speak openly
• Don't neglect your child's spiritual side
• Teach your children how to behave
• Let children solve their own problems
• Show love, no matter what

Each topic goes into more detail on the the website, but I felt that these points are very powerful. We often want to let our children have fun and live life free of sorrow. Yet we know that if we allow our children to learn to work through their own problems and receive consequences for poor actions, they will be better people in the future. On top of it all we must always love them.

In chapter ten of Successful Marriages and Families, Craig H. Hart and colleagues share that parenting needs to have "Love, Limits, and Latitude." They have a similar list to the previous one I shared, children need:

• Love, warmth, and support
• Clear, reasonable expectations for behavior
• Limits/Boundaries that leave room for negotiation
• Appropriate consequences for breaching limits
• Opportunities to competently make choices
• Absence of coercive, hostile, harsh discipline and punishments, and no shaming, love with-drawal, or infliction of guilt.
• Model appropriate behavior of self-control, positive values and attitudes.

As we practice these tools in our families, our children will grow with confidence that they are loved and understand that in life we have to live within boundaries to succeed. Hart and colleagues share that "one of the most powerful tools that parents have in teaching positive values to their children is their religious faith. ... In short, religious practices and traditions create conditions that engender greater moral maturity." This teaching helps young people to see beyond themselves and have eyes that are open to what they can do to help others.

President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

Of all the joys of life, none other equals that of happy parenthood. Of all the responsibilities with which we struggle, none other is so serious. To rear children in an atmosphere of love, security, and faith is the most rewarding of all challenges. The good result from such efforts becomes life's most satisfying compensation.

We are never happier than when we are serving others.
Even after serving all day to clean-up after a hurricane.