“Effective parents deliver both direction and motivation, which brings hope.”

A thought by Ray Johnston (2014-05-13) from his book, The Hope Quotient:  Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same. (p.163). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I’m glad you are this far.  Now stay with me.  Ray gives some very good stuff for parents.

He says, “Parents provide both direction and motivation. Direction-based parenting tends to deliver guilt. Motivation-based parenting tends to deliver hope. As a parent, you have to provide direction, but ineffective parents major in delivering direction. That tends to be guilt-based, without motivation. Effective parents deliver both direction and motivation, which brings hope.”

Let’s go on.  Ray says, “The single most profound thing ever penned on the subject of parenting is, ‘Children are a gift of the LORD… Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth’ (Psalm 127: 3– 4 NASB). The writer teaches children are like arrows. You do three things with an arrow: Stage 1: Direction— You pick up an arrow and aim it. Stage 2: Motivation— You pull back the string. Stage 3: Release— You let it go.”

Ray goes on, “When kids are young, parenting is mostly about direction. As kids get to be teenagers, however, the job is much more challenging because it’s now about motivation and direction. During this stage, most teenagers will go where they are motivated to go, not where they are directed to go. They no longer get out the manual and say, ‘What do Mommy and Daddy want me to do?’ Instead, they wake up in the morning saying, ‘What do I feel like doing today?’ and they go do that. Inner motivation has taken over.

“Our problem as Christian parents is that we tend to be great at direction but not at motivation. Many of us place our kids in Christian schools or homeschool them so they can get even more direction. We haul them to church for even more direction. Then we struggle when our kids hit the teen years and a little rebellion starts up. Many parents respond by increasing the amount of direction (at increased amounts of volume), instead of supplying good motivation. That creates a culture of shame instead of a culture of hope. The problem is, kids only flourish in a motivational culture of hope.”

This is so important.  Ray says, “We need to learn what turns them on, not off. On innumerable occasions, I’ve seen a well-meaning person do something that he or she thought would turn kids on, when in fact, it turned them off, and the person had no clue. We mistakenly think that more information will provide more desire. It usually doesn’t. As kids grow older, we have to become much better at reaching the heart rather than filling the head. One of the best ways to reach the heart is to provide hope, to help our kids see what they can become, rather than dwell on what they are.”

It is so great what God is doing in and through our two adult kid’s lives.  It is really exciting!  Am I surprised?  No way!

So what do you believe your kids can become?