By Craig Smith

When I asked myself: what is the greatest investment my wife and I have made? The answer quickly crystallized - our kids!

Without a doubt, our children are our best assets. Since most of you probably feel the same way, I'd like to share with you five key ways that helped us develop our kids and our relationship with them.

Key #1: Parent's Priorities
While leaving the hospital with our newborn daughter, Stacey, in the car, I suddenly felt as though I couldn't drive out into the street - it would be too dangerous. Our new cargo was too precious to risk. However, before long I was back to driving in my normal fashion with her in the car. What happened? Did I lover her less? No, I just started taking my child for granted. The same can happen with our relationship with the Lord, our spouse, children, and other family members.

From time to time, we need to break from the speeding world around us, regroup, and ask ourselves the following questions: What are our priorities? How much of a priority are our children right now at this stage of life?

A good way to measure how your kids rate on your priority scale is to find out how much time you spend with each one individually, praying for and thinking about what they like, and how much income goes toward them.

I will never forget the meeting I had with Brother Dick over a new business venture. Right in the middle of this great idea, he looked at me and asked how my girls were doing. I replied that they were fine and attempted to switch the conversation back to business. Three times, he brought me back to the subject of my daughters, who were then in their early teens. Then he profoundly said, "Your children will remember the experience you have with them at this age their entire life." That statement was a priority wake-up call I needed to answer. How about you?

When our children were babies, my wife Marilyn and I realized we did not know how to raise our kids. We looked to other families whose children seemed incredibly adjusted in order to learn their secrets. We found a common denominator, which brings us to the second key...

Key #2: Discipline and Reward for Attitudes, Not Just Actions
Actions come and go, but the attitudes behind a child's actions can either bless or curse for a lifetime. As parents, we wanted our children to be happy. We realized allowing bad attitudes in our children would only lead to a miserable life. Upon this revelation, we decided to discipline our children for attitudes as well as actions at all costs.

One attitude we vowed not to allow was disrespect - either to us as parents, or church leaders, or any person of authority. If we allowed our children to be disrespectful, at some point they would be disrespectful to the Lord and His House. In turn, we also treated our children with respect. If we messed up, we asked for their forgiveness. The only person that is infallible is the Lord, so it is okay for your kids to hear you admit that you're not perfect.

An equally important attitude that has similar consequences is haughtiness. To be haughty is to be prideful, arrogant, conceited, overconfident or self-absorbed. Look up Scriptures on the consequences of haughtiness and ask your children to do the same. Our kids did this exercise enough times to learn they would not be happy campers if they were haughty.

A good parent is a good gardener, nurturing the good fruit as it grows. One of the most important aspects of gardening is to look for weeds to pull out before they grow too large and choke the good qualities that are growing. Diligently pulling out weeds leads us to our third key...

Key #3: Consistency
This key is perhaps the most difficult. When your child throws a temper tantrum in the supermarket, church, or as you're driving down the freeway, what is a parent to do? For one thing, be consistent! In order to be consistent, you must sacrifice. Pull the car over or take your child to a private place to administer loving discipline. Pay the price; if you don't, your child will.

Your children must learn that the same loving discipline will be faithfully conducted regardless of where they may be because, isn't that real life? Won't our Heavenly Father discipline them as adults wherever they are? If we are consistent in our discipline while they are growing up, their Heavenly Father will not have to discipline them with much more severe consequences.

Key #4: The Discipline Process
The discipline process itself can be challenging as well as controversial. A few important guidelines we learned have been most helpful. The first is to never strike your kids with your hands. Hands are for blessing. Instead, use a switch or some object that inflicts quick light pain. The whole object is to train your child to associate disobedience with pain. If there is no pain, you are actually teaching your child that it pays to disobey.

The second guideline is to know the location of the administered discipline. It seems God made a certain plush part of the anatomy specifically for this process: a child's rear end. Our current age of anti-spanking is completely contrary to God's Word and His ways. Proverbs 23:13 - 14 says, "Withhold not correction from the child for if thou disciplines him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt discipline him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (KJV). God's Word is very strong on discipline. You may even consider doing a Bible study through Proverbs on this subject. Also, two of the best books we found and recommend are James Dobson's Dare to Discipline and Love Must Be Tough.

The final guideline is to never strike in anger. Before carrying out the act of discipline, we always made sure our children understood why they were getting a spanking, then had them recite the reasons back to us. Afterward we would embrace them, affirm our love, and have them pray, asking the Lord for forgiveness (1 John 1:9). If we sensed a lack of true repentance, we would repeat the process. One of our children was very strong-willed and a battle of the will constantly persisted. But we would not give up, understanding that, "Foolishness is bound up in a child but the rod of reproof will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15).

Key #5: The Power of Outside Relationships - the Good and the Bad
Focus on the Family's James Dobson has said that it takes just one bad friendship to undo everything the parents have taught their child! It's true, we saw it first-hand and made knowing our kids' friends a priority. Many times we broke off friendships, both male and female, when we believed the relationship was harmful to our kids. On the positive side, we encouraged healthy relationships whenever possible.

These days, it does take a village to raise children. It is difficult for parents alone to try to build Biblical values in their kids. That is why the House of God is so important. Youth pastors, teachers, cell leaders, and other mentors play a key role in supporting parental values. They are gifts to your family. We also encouraged our children to build 'Big Sister' relationships so when mom and dad or church leaders were not with it, there was another voice speaking into their lives.

When our kids graduated from high school, we relaxed because they appeared to be doing well in every way. However, both of them had their most difficult struggles the next two years out of high school. We found that kids go through what is called a 'second junior high' or adolescent period when they begin questioning everything again. Keep in mind that this is a normal phase. And just as in the junior high phase, try not to overreact.

Parenting is tough and no one has all of the answers. Hopefully, by sharing some of the things we have learned over the years, you will find this of benefit to your greatest life investment. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a lot of prayer, you will see your children succeed in achieving the high calling of God for their lives.