The 10 Best Parenting Tips I Have Received

My father recently asked for my parenting secret during a phone conversation. After I stopped uncontrollably laughing at him, I realized he wasn’t joking. I explained his grandparent goggles were blurring his vision concerning my children. They are normal kids who, despite all my best attempts to mold them into perfect human beings, are just human. With some thought, though, I came to understand my father’s question a little better. You see, a lot of children are making their parents, teachers, and peers miserable. The reasons are complex and individualized to each circumstance, but there is hope. I believe the ten parenting tips I have followed with my husband would do those children a lot of good.

10 Parenting Tips I Have Found Essential

Parenting tips come with the territory as soon as someone hands you that little crying bundle of joy. Everyone has opinions on how to feed your baby, when to potty train, how to discipline, and pretty much how to handle every interaction with your children until you die. It can make a parent feel resentful or bitter toward perceived, and sometimes real, judgment.

I’m not judging you.

I’m sharing advice I received that has produced good fruit in my children’s lives and in my family as a whole. Take it or leave it, but know that I am simply sharing these out of love. Now, on to the list!

Parenting Tip #1: Raise Your Children In A Christ-Centered Home

A Christ-centered home is key to a healthy Christian home. If you take any of my parenting tips with you, take this one. This isn’t to say that children in a secular home can’t grow up into upstanding citizens who love their families and have good morals. As Christians, however, we understand morals without Jesus are man-centered, and good works from our own motivations are self-serving. We need to teach our children the value of good works and why we do them.

Children who go to church on Sunday and do not encounter Christ again until the next Sunday are not growing up to understand what a life in Christ looks like. Rather, they are learning that Jesus is an accessory we put on and take off as the mood suits us.

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6

If you want your children to come to faith in Christ and live faithful Christian lives, then you must train them. Training cannot happen once a week, though. Immerse them in the Word all week. Make a Christian life a lifestyle because it should be.

Kids who live their lives learning how to serve God and live in obedience to Christ stand out among other children…in a good way.

Parenting Tip #2: Fair Is Not Always Equal

As far as controversial parenting tips go, this one tops the list nowadays. Our politicians and cultural leaders are pushing for everything to be equal. Belief systems, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), rail against meritocracy and push for equal outcomes for all people no matter the circumstance. Then, it’s no surprise that parents have adopted equality as a parenting strategy.

Discipline is a good example. I have five children, and their personalities are shockingly different from one another. Like, how are these kids even related? I have one child who falls to pieces at the mere suggestion that she has disappointed me or done wrong. I have another child, though, who is entirely unmoved when I reprimand him. So, he requires more severe consequences than that sister.

Is it equal treatment? No, but it is fair. Why discipline one child more than necessary and not discipline the other enough in the name of equality? Contrary to what many believe, equality is not always fair.

Another example has to do with freedom. If your children want to go to summer camp, then equality in the guise of fairness requires you to send both. On the other hand, true fairness would be to send the child(ren) who are responsible and mature enough to handle the experience. Holding one child back from camp will undoubtedly end with, “That’s not fair, Mom!,” but it is fair to send the child who can be trusted and to hold back the child who needs more time to mature.

Parenting Tip #3: Stay Consistent

We’ve all heard it, but I need this reminder. Stay consistent. It’s all about follow-through. The days when I am tired and done being mom always make consistency a challenge. And I’m positive that I’m not the only one who struggles because this is one of the parenting tips I hear and see the most. Keep pushing forward, though, and say what you mean and mean what you say.

This consistency is important for you with your children, but it’s also imperative that you stay consistent with your husband. So, that means you two need to be on the same team. If he says “yes,” then you shouldn’t go behind his back and tell the kids “no.” How can you manage to create this unity in your parenting, though? Easy.

First, Mom and Dad need to discuss issues that could come up in parenting before they happen whenever possible. For example, your child asking to go to a sleepover should not be the first time you and your husband have thought about how to handle sleepovers.  Second, slow your roll.

If you aren’t sure what your husband thinks on the subject, then don’t give an answer. Tell your child you need to think about it or want to run it by her father. This doesn’t make you weak or unable to make a decision. It makes you and your husband a team and creates consistency in parenting for your children.

Parenting Tip #4: Be A Parent, Not A Friend

Have you met that mom who is “besties” with her daughter? No, I don’t mean her grown daughter. I mean her nine-year-old or thirteen-year-old. Parenting tips like this one are so essential to creating proper boundaries and roles in the parent-child relationship.

You are the parent, and she is the child. You’re in charge, and she needs to spend the next eighteen years or so in a learning posture. Oh yes, you’ll learn plenty, too. But someone needs to steer the ship, and it isn’t your kid.

Treating our children as positional equals puts added pressures on them and devalues our role as parents. Our children are our equals in value and should be treated as such, but they need to be kids before we can expect them to relate to us on our level. Friend-over-parent upbringings give us children beginning to live as another gender at six years old. This “parenting” style is a fifteen-year-old girl having sex with her boyfriend and getting condoms from her mom. It’s a sixteen-year-old getting matching tattoos with his dad because he knew he’d never change his mind about it.

Good parenting includes leadership. Children and teens need to be guided and lovingly instructed and corrected. I’m so glad my parents didn’t indulge my every desire in an effort to be close to me. Friendship developed later after I was old enough to make big girl decisions. And do you know what? I continued reaching out for advice later because I knew they’d be honest and guide me as best they could when I struggled with something.

Parenting Tip #5: Be Available

Parenting is exhausting, and sometimes I just want to curl up under a blanket and hide from everyone while I watch Hallmark Christmas movies in July. It’s called self-care. Don’t judge.

Part of what makes parenting so exhausting is the constant need and presence of my children. My husband and I make time for our kids as much as we reasonably can. As I look around and talk to moms, I’m discovering that might not be as common a parenting tactic as I thought.

I spent most of my childhood at school or in my bedroom. I’m an introverted only child with parents who worked while I was home or just didn’t try to engage with me. We definitely missed out on opportunities to emotionally connect and create a deeper relationship. I don’t blame them; I chose to hide in my room and withdraw. However, parents should step up and be the bigger people. Take the chance to reach out and build a relationship.

So, don’t spend all your time at work, hiding in another room for your hobby, going out with friends, or glued to a screen. Work, hobbies, friends, and screens are fine, but don’t be so absorbed in those that your children don’t feel welcome into your life. Psalm 127:3 says “children are a heritage from the Lord.” With that in mind, what is so important that we would regularly prioritize it over our children?

Parenting Tip #6: Be Honest

Christians ought to be honest whether or not we are discussing parenting. However, parents understand that honesty with our children can be a bit more complicated. We need to tell the truth, but we also need to tell the right amount of truth at the right time.

My children know I grew up in a secular home and wasn’t saved until my mid-twenties, but they don’t know everything about those first twenty-six years of my life. That would be inappropriate to share and not helpful. On the other hand, some of my past experiences may one day be pertinent to one of my children’s lives. I’ll need to choose if I will hide the truth about myself or be vulnerable and share something ugly from my past.

I choose not to paint myself in a romanticized light for kids. They know their mother was a lost sinner like everyone else. They also know I am a work in progress because they see it in action. Not to mention, I tell them when I make mistakes or choose to sin (usually because I was angry or overwhelmed).

Finally, we should remember to speak honestly about Christianity and the Church. I love the Church, but I refuse to allow my children to be naïve about it because I want them to love it, too. They know the Church is filled with imperfect people, and sometimes we will feel annoyed, grief-stricken, or hurt.

Parents tend to protect their children from uncomfortable truths, but kids grow into much healthier and better-prepared adults when we stop overprotecting them.

Parenting Tip #7: Nurture The Child’s Natural Gifts

I love to homeschool my kids, but there is one area in which I struggle every year. Art. You guys, I am not artsy or crafty at all. I get nervous tying a ribbon or cutting things out when it matters how it looks. So, of course, two of my children (so far) are heavily interested in art. Specifically, they like to draw. One of my children hopes to write and illustrate her own children’s books.

My personal preference is to ignore art and pray they forget about it, but they seem to have some natural talent in this area. I encourage them to learn more techniques, work together, and I tailor some school work to utilize their love of art. None of this is preferred or natural for me, but they feel loved when I support them and they are getting opportunities to hone a skill.

Whether your children are gifted in music, woodworking, or car repair… Nurture it. See what God may do with their talents. This might mean giving up your ideas about what your children should do in life, and letting God lead them.

Parenting Tip #8: Don’t Let Your Children Be The Center Of Your Life

We have all seen the families being run by the children’s wants and schedules. Parents are like ships passing in the night as they shlep each child to various activities and sports. Dinners together are frequently tossed aside and replaced by everyone scarfing down fast food or convenient store fare in the car. Money, time, and priorities all belong to the children.

Parents with kids in sports and with active social lives are not in the wrong. It can be tricky to balance, but plenty of families are involved in a variety of activities outside the home without turning the children into the priority. That’s the goal.

You might be wondering why it’s a problem to mostly focus on the children. First, the kids are learning a terrible and false lesson. “The world revolves around me.” These kids are at risk of becoming entitled and to struggle with limitations, boundaries and being told “no.”

Second, these kids enter adulthood with a handicap. They will lack the coping skills to deal with relatively simple challenges in life because Mom and Dad made sure everything was right for their son or daughter at any given opportunity.

Parents can love their children, prioritize their children, and still prioritize the marriage and family as a whole. We can say “no” and limit our children’s access to wants while simultaneously showing them we love them.

Parenting Tip #9: Allow Natural Consequences To Unfold

I’ve not seen this advice included among many people’s parenting tips, but I think it is extremely important to consider.

Kids need our help to navigate tricky situations and make wise choices, and sometimes parents rightly swoop in and protect them from harsh consequences as they learn. At some point, though, that has to stop. The lessons we learn stick a lot better when we experience the natural consequences.

God does this with us. Galatians 6:7-8 tells us that we will reap what we sow. This proves true in the greatest sense: salvation. We reap an eternal punishment when we sow enmity with God, but we reap eternal life with the Lord when we sow belief and faith in Christ.

We can see natural consequences in less significant areas of life. For example, I still had to deal with the consequences of my sin from before salvation after I became a Christian. Any relationships I had damaged, for instance, were still damaged. If I had broken laws, then I would have still been accountable for them. The bill comes due…

Stop rescuing your children from negative consequences. If she forgets her homework, then maybe you don’t rush it to school for her. If he gets in a fight with a friend, then don’t be the one to smooth things over. Let her get the lower grade this time, and let him humbly apologize and make amends on his own.

Again, as in the previous parenting tip, we want to avoid creating deficits in our children’s adult lives. Parents should help equip their kids to function independently in the “real world,” and protecting them from every negative just won’t do that.

Parenting Tip #10: Choose Your Children’s Influences

Parents give their children too much freedom when it comes to influences. Your kid might want to spend time with certain people, but you don’t have to allow it. This is easier when they’re younger, but it isn’t impossible when they’re teens.

Practical steps parents can take to choose positive influences in their children’s lives include fostering friendships with parents whose children you want near your kids, active church participation, taking time to get to know the peers your children spend time with, and homeschooling.

Your influence as a parent is significant, but peers have a way of pulling kids away from their parents’ guidance and under their influence instead. This can be catastrophic in some cases.

You get to have final say on who your children spend time with. Your choices might not always make them happy, but you know what is best for them in the long run. So, don’t be afraid to make the tough choices.

Sometimes the peers are not the influence we need to be concerned with. What about the adults? Some adults may not be suitable influences on your children such as coaches, teachers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, or family friends. In some cases, the answer is to end the relationship. If your child’s coach is having a bad influence on you daughter, pull her from that team. Meanwhile, if the influence is a grandparent, then you might choose to limit the time they spend together to include you rather than give them solo time.

Potentially cutting people out of your child’s life might sound awful to you or make you feel as if you have overstepped your role. But you are the parent, and it’s your responsibility to bring your children up. Think on Psalm 1 as you consider who should be influencing your children on a daily basis.

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Psalm 1

Final Thought

Parents, one of the most important, if not the most important, things you’ll ever do is raise your children. Although we might not always agree on how best to raise our children, we can agree that the Bible is a wonderful place to begin looking for parental wisdom.

As you sift through seemingly endless parenting tips over the years, be sure to measure them all against God’s Word. What seems right to the world might sound good, but it is not always fit for a Christian upbringing.

So far, these ten parenting tips have served my family well. What parenting tips would you add?

Image courtesy of Daniel K. Cheung via Unsplash.