The older I get, the more my list of “if onlys” grows. I turn 40 this year, and there are all kinds of situations I wish I’d handled differently. There are choices I wish I’d made another way. There are conversations I wish I would or wouldn’t have had. There are some relationships that I wish I would have pursued more and others I wish I had avoided. There are things I wish I would have tried and others I wish I hadn’t.

But most of my regrets come in the area of parenting. There are so many times I walk away from a situation and think, “I wish I would have handled that differently.” And because of my perfectionist nature, I start thinking about what a bad dad I am and how much better other parents are. Why can’t I be like them? Why can’t I handle everything well?

The reality is that there is so much emotion mixed up with parenting, isn’t there? The stakes seem so high. I want to make sure my three boys navigate their way through life with less scars and fewer regrets than their dad. And when it comes to disciplining their behavior, it feels like I have to “nip it in the bud” because I’m always thinking about the worst-case scenario.

Just the other day, my oldest son was lying around playing video games. His room was a mess, and the trashcan in the kitchen needed to be emptied. And in my head, I didn’t think, “Help him learn the consequences of these decisions.” Instead, I thought, “Oh my gosh, if I don’t do something about this now, this kid is going to be a total slacker who can’t take care of himself. He’ll be living in my basement when he’s 40!” I know, it’s a little extreme. Like I said, the stakes are high and I want him to succeed in life. The problem is, I don’t always go about helping him do that in the best way, and I regret it later.

I want to be better at being a dad. I want to help my sons grow up into men of character. The reality I have come to terms with—because it stares me in the face every day—is that I’m not going to get this right every time. As a parent, I’m going to mess up. I’m going to handle things poorly sometimes. Hopefully those will be the times my kids look back on and make fun of me, and not the ones they bring up in a therapy session.

But for me, I can’t just stop at naming my regret. So when I overreact to something stupid, or don’t address something I should have, I try to learn from the “if only” moments. I try to make a different choice the next time something happens. I try to take a step back and look at the actual situation instead of the one I fear.

Now, I know I’ll mess up again. I probably will have a repeat of this “if only” just because I’m a slow learner. But hopefully at some point, the “If onlys” will start to decrease. I’m never going to get it right all of the time, but hopefully I’ll start getting it right most of the time. I’ll always have regrets—it’s just how I’m wired. But when it comes to my kids, I want to have the “if onlys” less and just enjoy the process, even when I’m not at my best.

It’s no secret that middle school and high school students are dealing with identity issues.
They want to know who they are, why they matter and where they fit in. The trouble is that while their natural self-awareness is heightened, comments that are intended for discipline and correction are easily interpreted as personal character attacks.

Maybe this sounds familiar? You are frustrated because your son brought home a progress report showing multiple homework zeros. You try to correct him, but he gets defensive and starts telling you that he’s sorry he’s not smart enough for you or sorry you think he’s such a worthless son. Maybe nothing so dramatic has happened in your house, but that doesn’t mean the potential isn’t there—it may be just under the surface.

Discipline and correction are an important part of parenting, and they sometimes seem almost impossible with a teenage son or daughter. But don’t give up. Your child needs you to be involved and alert to what is happening in his or her life, and actively correcting behaviors that could lead your child to places he or she doesn’t want to be. However, the language you use when correcting him or her can make a big difference.

Because we are human, we are wired to react to our children out of frustration when we see them making choices that are inconsiderate, lacking in self-control or potentially self-destructive. When we respond this way, we often make “you are” statements: You are so lazy. You are so selfish. Or we will make broad sweeping “you never” and “you always” statements. What we really intend as correction ends up sounding a whole lot more like an attack on the value and worth of our child.

Understand, we all do it. It’s just a natural reaction to the frustration and hurt we feel as we navigate the tumultuous waters of adolescence with them. But there are better words for us to choose.

This month, try to be especially alert to the words that you use when correcting your son or daughter. You may need to allow yourself time to step back from a particular situation before you enter into a correctional conversation. That’s okay. You can let your child know you are going to discuss it after dinner, or tomorrow when you come to pick them up from school. Then when you do have the conversation, try to use specific language to address the behavior that you want to correct. You can think of it as using “You are doing” statements. Words that let them know that while what they have chosen to do or say in this particular instance is not okay, that doesn’t affect who they are, how you love them and whether you believe the best about them.

When you are intentional about the words you use when you discipline, you can have a positive impact on your son or daughter’s self-image and also help them make wiser choices.

The average child hears their mother or father utter six expletives a week with up to 86 per cent saying they felt their parents' swearing as well as the language of celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay and Jonathan Ross set a bad example.

The poll of 3,000 11-year-olds show two out five children were using swear words at an earlier age, admitting to using them in their everyday language because they heard their parents use them.

More than one in three however have asked their parents to stop swearing in front of them with almost half admitting it upset them.

Peter Foot, chairman of the Campaign for Courtesy said: "We need parents to be the ones to put their children right before they ever get to school with 'please' and 'thank yous', rather than leaving it to teachers.

"But this is awful, appalling really. There are some age groups now who can't say a single sentence without the F-word in it."

A spokesman for research site youngpoll.com, which carried out the study, said: "When youngsters hear their parents use swear words so frequently, it's inevitable that they will pick up bad habits.

"Parents should be aware that children are easily influence and will try to replicate what they say whether it's swear words or not.

"When adults hear a young child swear it's very easy to find it humorous, yet any use of bad language should be nipped in the bud at an early age."

This article was copied from churchrelavance.com .

This is a post from one of the Blogs I follow. "Pastor Steven Furtick" This is great advice for parents but is also great wisdom for Christ Followers!

But He’s always loving.
Don’t confuse God’s love with like ability. He is most certainly a loving Father. But that doesn’t always mean He’s like able.

When a parent sets out to be like able, the primary intention is to make the child happy. Like able parents want their children to have favorable opinions of them at all times. So, in order to enforce this opinion, like able parents give their children whatever the children want, whenever they want it.God is not that kind of Father. He is entirely unconcerned about how He fares in the paternal popularity poll.And every parent knows that in order to be truly loving toward your children, sometimes you have to be utterly unlikeable.

Sometimes being loving means saying a firm no, refusing to capitulate no matter how much your children scream or cry or beg.Sometimes being loving means taking something away from your child because it’s bad for them, even if they don’t understand the danger of the object they’re playing with.Sometimes being loving means measuring out discipline to correct and train, even though you hate giving the punishment more than they hate receiving it.

Maybe you don’t like what the Lord is doing in your life right now.That’s okay.He’s infinitely more moved by how much He loves you than how much you like Him.

Hebrews 12:5-7And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,because the Lord disciplines those he loves,and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

All families fight; we just fight in different ways. But regardless of how your family handles disagreements, we can choose what we will fight about. In The Good Fight series, we will begin with the sometimes difficult call to honor our parents, found in Ephesians 6:1. Then we’ll build on that to show that God desires for children and parents to turn their hearts toward each other and have a relationship. In order to have the good relationship with our parents God intends, we have to learn how to change the fight first. We have to stop fighting against "their way" and start fighting for a relationship. That sometimes means surrendering our right to be right and prioritizing relationship regardless of the cost.