Do you know each of your children’s favorite way to spend his or her free time? When is the last time, you stopped everything, dropped what you were doing, and fully entered your child’s world?
Now this isn’t for parenting wimps! You may end up playing tea party or dressing tiny little dolls in tiny little outfits. Or you may be putting together a model car. Or playing an intense game of something.
If your kids are older, you may end up at a concert with thousands of screaming pre-teens. Or it may involve running 3 miles on an early summer morning. For your sake, I hope it doesn’t involve jumping out of an airplane or hang-gliding off of the side of a mountain!
Why is this important you may ask? What does it have to do with Christian parenting? It matters, because in order to reach your child’s heart, you have to know it. You have to have a healthy relationship with it. You need to be willing to go into their worlds and see life from their viewpoint.
So the next time you see your kids doing what they love, stop, drop and enter. The chores will wait. Your relationship with your child may not.