Intentional Parenting Esimerkki

An Identity to Impart

Your children will steal your identity. But in this case, that’s generally a good thing. That’s because kids tend to take on the character traits, wisdom, and morality that the adults in their lives put on display for them.

But it only works well when you’re present. Your children need your time and attention, in a warm, peaceful environment.

Emotionally healthy adults can point to parents who were not only physically involved with them, but also emotionally and mentally engaged. Kids need personal interaction more than they need stuff.

God, the perfect Father, demonstrated this for us. He so loved the world that He came. That’s what the first half of the well-known John 3:16 tells us. He sent His only Son, the incarnation of the Father Himself, to be with us—God in the flesh, present in our lives, spending time with us in order to impart his nature to us.

To a significant degree, that’s our calling as parents. We intentionally enter into our children’s lives not just as authoritative parental figures but as accessible, available, engaged parents who are committed to being with them in an environment of love.

In doing so, you are defining their identity in powerful ways. You are shaping their future lives as adults.

And you are representing the perfect Father’s love to them in the same way He has done for you.