Every parent has room to grow. And every parent makes mistakes.
However, most parents don’t take the time to identify what those mistakes are until they’re obvious, or it’s already too late. But that doesn’t have to be you.
Here are five questions to help evaluate your parenting success right now and have fewer regrets later.
1. Does my child feel that their presence and feelings have value?
If you question whether or not this is important, just ask someone who grew up in a home without it.
If a child’s thoughts, opinions, and feelings are shut down at every turn, they may comply outwardly but still become a rebel at heart.
Not allowing your child to have any personal uniqueness apart from you in their thoughts and feelings squelches their God-given potential.
Children need to both be seen and heard, especially by their parents. They need to know that they are wanted, loved, and valued.
2. Am I meeting my child’s greatest need and fulfilling my greatest responsibility?
Every child has needs, but those needs differ depending on the specific season they are in.
In my book, Godly Parenting In An Ungodly World, I unpack the four different seasons and the primary needs and responsibilities in each:
Focusing on the wrong things can be costly for a parent who ends up trying to play catch up in later seasons of parenting.
3. Am I gaining or losing the respect of my child?
Very few things are as important as your kids having genuine respect for you for the long haul.
Sadly, many parents lose their children’s respect far sooner than they come to realize it.
Yes, there will always be times when your kids don’t like you, but they should never question your love for them.
Some of the biggest things that can create disrespect in children are inconsistency, hypocrisy, neglect, and anger, all of which can cause a child to question their parent’s love.
Yell at your child enough times rather than lovingly correcting and training them, and it may create scars that impact them more through the coming years than the current days.
Over time, when parents don’t respect their children, children lose respect for their parents.
But on the flip side, when parents strive to be the real dael, and their kids see that, it not only earns their children’s respect at the moment but plants seeds of that respect for a lifetime.
4. If my child got to give me a grade in “parenting”, how would I do?
Take a look at this fun “fruit of the Spirit report card” (at least some of them) and grade yourself through the eyes of your child.
5. Will my child still want to come home when they no longer have to?
This question is not original with me, but it provides a great lens through which to view and evaluate our parenting success.
Is my home a place of grace, fun, and laughter that my children will want to come back to once they are out of the house?
Am I creating a type of loving and grace-filled environment that my kids will want to recreate for my grandkids someday?
I hope these questions challenge you as they have me to continue becoming the godly parent your child deserves.
