How do you teach your child to rely on the unconditional love of God? Your job as a parent is to help her understand her G.O.D. purpose: G stands for heart of gratitude, O for the soul of obedience, and D for the mind of dependence. This will deepen your child’s understanding and appreciation of God’s love for her.

As much as we would like to be able to dictate to our children, simply telling them what to do, that is often insufficient in helping them grow. We must demonstrate the values that we advocate. That means we need to model the heart of gratitude, soul of obedience, and mind of dependence.

• Having a heart of gratitude means reflecting on what we are thankful for on a regular basis. It means vocalizing that gratitude and reiterating that God has given us all that we have. 
• Having a soul of obedience means trusting and obeying God even when we don’t understand what’s going on or the path isn’t clear. Even when we can’t discern what God...

When your teen becomes old enough to choose a mate, you’ll want her to come to you with an open heart and open mind. “Mom, Dad, do you think this is the right person for me?” This would be music to the ears of many parents who would love to help their children identify a great marriage partner.

Often, however, conflicts arise because children aren’t asking — they don’t want input, only approval. The euphoria that accompanies infatuation can only be partly responsible for this. We want our children to choose both carefully and wisely, not being swept away by their feelings. That means helping them understand how much there is to learn about another person — and playing the role of a consultant who wants to help them experience the greatest possible success.

It takes time for our children to see us not simply as their parents, but as human adults who are also people with feelings and needs. Once they see us as people, they also need to see us...

When your child becomes a teenager, she wants to be treated like an adult more than like a child. But her behavior can often still be very child-like. As your teen is in the transition phase of adolescence, your job is to help her become more like an adult — and that means empowering her to take on more responsibility.

He wants freedom, and responsibility is freedom’s counterbalance. He must learn how to take care of his own things and also take care of others. So how can you empower your child instead of hounding him into doing this important work? One way is to involve him in something significant on a regular basis.

Young children are not put in charge of things. Their obligations are trivial. Your teen wants to be treated like an adult and be involved in significant things — and so she should be. She needs to understand the weight of responsibility, recognizing it as a privilege and not a burden. You can involve her in the process of making an important...

Our job as parents is to love and protect our children. When they’re very young, we spend a lot of time telling them what they can and can’t do, especially to keep them safe. As they get older, this turns into policing (where we play a cop role) to keep those guardrails in place and help them learn to discipline their impulses and desires. But as they become adolescents, policing becomes a source of contention. Your teen wants freedom. She’s smarter, stronger, and more capable of watching out for herself. But she still needs you to keep her safe. Acting like a cop can cause constant tension in your relationship. You don’t actually want to be the one saying “no” all the time, and she gets tired of hearing it.

Our children will be looking for sources of validation. They want to know that they matter. Not understanding how much validation you’ve already given them — and not understanding how God validates them — they may seek...

What should you do when your teen asks, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” One of your responsibilities as a parent is to help your child discover their God-given bent. Why? Because you’re the person who has seen her grow up. You’ve known her interests, habits, and talents since she was very small. She may have a hard time seeing how she can contribute to the world, which is why your perspective is so important. You can guide her toward some possibilities and opportunities that may fit her gifting.

If your teen is struggling to find his purpose, that’s normal. It may take many years to discover the right fit. You can encourage him in the process that he’s doing what he needs to do. Purpose is not a destination, but a journey. God is the author of our purpose, and He has said he will fulfill his purpose for us. It’s not something that is hidden from us and that we are constantly failing at. He is directing us every moment, and...

Does your teen complain a lot? You may be wondering why your child, having all that she has, is so prone to negative talk. The first question we must ask on observing this is, how much do we as parents complain? It’s likely that we have no idea how much we casually gripe about things that aren’t going our way.

Take a day and observe how often you make negative comments, whether it’s about circumstances, conversations, or even the weather. Once you know how much you’re complaining, see if you can redirect those statements into gratitude. You wish it would have been sunny? Express your gratitude for the rain. You would have liked for your week to be more predictable? Say that you’re thankful for an opportunity to learn how to improvise. This may be challenging and uncomfortable at first. The more you do it, however, the faster those grateful thoughts will come to you. You can even explain to your teen that you have a problem with complaining but that...

Whether at church or at home (or both), your teen may have learned about how God has worked in Bible times. They may be well-versed in what Jesus did — from teaching to healing, being crucified, and being raised. However, they may not know or understand how God is involved in their everyday lives now or how to see His hand at work.

Often our children aren’t frustrated because of how God has worked before. They’re frustrated because they want to see His work for themselves. Otherwise, God seems like someone who helped others but isn’t helping them. What does it mean to hear from the Holy Spirit? What does it look like to get strength from the Lord? When you don’t understand something, or why God won’t answer a prayer, it can be easy to think He simply doesn’t care for you the way He cared for people in the Bible. But we know this isn’t true. In fact, God is working constantly in our lives and in our children’s lives — and we...

What can you do to improve your relationship with your teen? One idea is to share with him what you’re learning about how to be a better parent to him. We all know that education doesn’t stop when you finish school. In fact, there are plenty of things in life that require a lot more study, and many more tries, than we expect. Instead of trying to prove that we know everything, maintaining a learning mindset actually helps us grow, make greater contributions, and improve the way we respond to the world. Your teen needs to see this in your life.

You’re used to being the authority on things with your child — and you’re still his parent. But admitting you don’t know everything and sharing the things you’re learning allows him to see that you’re also a person “in progress.” Our worth and credibility doesn’t come from knowing everything (or seeming to), it comes from Christ. As we keep learning, we’re able to adapt...

You’ve experienced them already. You’re sure to experience them again. There are moments when you have simply no idea what to do as a parent. It may be because your child has disobeyed for the umpteenth time on something, or when she seems inconsolable, or when you just can’t see the road ahead — and it’s paralyzing. You want to steer him in the right direction. You want to give her peace. But everything you’ve tried has come up short. You might even be ready to give up.

When this happens, you may feel completely hopeless — but you are not. You have hope in God, who sees all things and cares for our children far more than we do. The only thing to do when you have no idea what to do is pray.

The secret of committing things to God in prayer has long-lasting benefits. God is your child’s real Father. When you acknowledge that He’s in control and that He’s capable of doing what’s best for your teen, you’ll have...

It’s hard to watch your child deal with pain or adversity, especially as she grows into a teenager and experiences more of the world.

As a parent, your immediate impulse is to rush in and make her feel better. You want to fix it, just like you did when she was little. But no one becomes successful without facing challenges. This is especially important as our kids grow up. One day, they won’t have us around to fix it for them. They have to start learning now how to handle uncomfortable and even adverse situations. We’re allowed to help and come alongside them, but resolving their problems all the time will get both us and our teens into trouble.

At JH Ranch, we know this is especially true of fathers. A father becomes successful through overcoming adversity, and with his success, he banishes from his children’s lives the very thing that made him successful. Isn’t that a sad irony? Once we become aware of this truth, we have the opportunity to learn from...