God Centered Dad

I have been witnessing and observing the methods and results of a style of parenting that is referred to as "gentle parenting". According to a summary of an article by Cleveland Clinic, "The goal of gentle parenting is to raise confident, independent and happy children through empathy, respect and understanding, and setting healthy boundaries. This parenting style focuses largely on age-appropriate development." This method of parenting is contrasted with traditional parenting with a "focus on punishment and reward." I was raised traditionally. As were my siblings. We all turned out well. We are all functioning members of society with friend groups and social circles. We all avoided the teenage and young adult traps of cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and sex. And most importantly, we all loved our parents and had good relationships with them. I think this is a fantastic outcome of a parenting system that has been around since the start of time. There are, of c...

  It seems like the entire first world is preoccupied with reducing the 'carbon footprint' of the people who live in it; or at least the leaders who live extravagantly and who jet-set around the world in pursuit of this are preoccupied with reducing the footprint of the people who can least afford it. The truth is that the preoccupation with the earth is a form of religious worship, though few would agree with that statement, but please, hear me out. As Christians, is it not our belief that God is in charge of everything that happens? Is it not our belief that God designed this wonderful world for us to live in and enjoy, and that He designed it for all eras and for all people? I think that it is pompous to think that mankind can have any effect on the climate of this planet simply through the consumption of meat, for example. This is one of the more egregious things that the elites of this world wants to limit for us plebeians. The entire movement to curb our ...

   I am going to be fully honest and transparent with you, my readers. I have been struggling lately. Those of you who have been regular readers of my articles (I suspect that there are very few of those) will know that I have been called of God to not work for several years already. There have been times when I have had the opportunity to undertake some labour for somebody, but I have never requested payment for that work. I am not receiving any government handouts, I am not visiting food banks and nobody has been supporting me with regular financial contributions. God has been acting in various different ways to meet the needs of myself and my family. I know that I should be grateful for God's provision, and I most definitely am grateful; most people don't get to live under the direct provision of God's hand. But one result of this way of living is that I do not feel productive. I grew up on a farm and working is in my nature. I enjoy working and accomplishing things; imp...

 This weekend my family engaged in spiritual warfare for each other as we interceded for each other to rid ourselves of the demonic attachments that have accumulated over the course of the last year. I have written an article on this type of intercessory battle which you can read here , which goes into the nature and the process by which you can engage in this type of warfare. This article that you are reading now is just going to be a short one outlining a couple of things that I think I am beginning to figure out and understand about intercessory spiritual battle. The first thing that I want to talk about is the matter of attachments that we receive through our interactions with others. As my family took turns praying over each other, there were certain attachments that we called out and dealt with that seemed to be out of character for us; things that the individual that we were praying over has not dealt with as a temptation or a character trait. This has led me to believe tha...

   In my last GCD Short, I mentioned that kids are more sensitive to the spiritual realm than adults tend to be. Part of the reason for this is that when kids sense something that adults cannot see, the adults tend to tell the kids that what they are sensing is not real, it is just their imagination, like the monster in the closet or an "imaginary" friend. Then the child learns to ignore those things and as a result, they lose their spiritual sensitivity. It is my opinion that this is to the detriment of our children, at least as far as it affects their potential relationship with God. I will share some stories today from when my own children were young in order to demonstrate how aware of the spiritual realm kids really are. My wife and I learned a few things during those years and we would have probably done a few things differently had we known then what we know now. I want to stress that in no way do I encourage children to pursue engagement with the spiritual realm (or ...

   I recently wrote an article about the spiritual realm and your kids in regards to meal times, in particular I focused on praying with your infant at meal times, even if they are not yet eating with you. Another important time to pray with your child is at bedtime, and again this can and should start with your infant. Bedtime can potentially be an anxiety inducing time for your child. My wife and I had our newborn children in our bedroom for maybe the first couple of nights when we brought them home, but we quickly moved them to a separate room. I know that there are some parents who like to keep their infants in their own bedroom for a longer time. I don't understand why that is or how bedtimes work when one does that, but I don't think there is an issue with this practice. One can argue that keeping the child in the master bedroom reduces their anxiety and helps the child to better adapt to being outside the womb, but my view is that, sooner or later, that child has to get...

   In light of the fact that I am trying to explain, in my limited capacity, the nature of the spiritual realm, and given that I am not feeling well today and I am having trouble with the heavy research that is required, please oblige me as I post a 'Short' today that touches on, though may not go into much depth in how the spiritual realm may affect your kids and how you should engage the spiritual realm with your kids. There are different ways and lengths to which you as the parent will engage the spiritual realm depending on the stage of growth and development of your child, and today I will focus on your infants, specifically at meal time.  I want to suggest to all Christian parents that you should be praying with your infants. Prayer is not just something that you should teach your kids how to do when they become verbal; they can sense the peace of God's presence long before that time. Maybe before I go any farther, I should define what I consider an infant. In the m...

   Children are sponges of information. They absorb everything around them, at all times, in all forms, from all sources. They will particularly learn from those with whom they spend the most time. In an ideal situation, that would hopefully be Mom and Dad. I understand that there are circumstances where this may not be possible, but then I hope that an effort will be made to ensure that those who are spending the majority of the day with your children are setting a good example for your children. Family members or trusted friends would probably be the best choices for child care, given that they act as responsible adults should, but that is not always the case either. We all mess up in our actions and our words, but this should be the exception rather than the norm. And when we do mess up, we should seek to make things right. It is through our actions and our reactions that children learn how to act and react to others. This even goes so far as a parent apologizing to and ask...

   Proverbs 22:6 " Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it." What does it mean to train up a child in the way he should go and how does one accomplish this? A child is a creature that needs our protection and that also needs to be taught everything. A child knows nothing from birth except that when it reacts to it's own discomfort by crying, someone comes to try to rectify the situation. This is why a child has to learn mobility, sounds, sights. There are some things that we cannot teach a child so much as our responsibility is to create the circumstances for the child to learn these things themselves. This includes rolling over, crawling, bouncing, walking and eventually running. These are all things that animals have to teach themselves too, but because of the nature of life for an animal, this happens much faster for them than it does for people. But what of the things that we need to teach our children? Well, that is re...

   I want to tell you about a trick that I put to use when my children were very young. This is something that I still put to practice with any dog that I may get as a puppy, in particular, as it is a way to establish my dominance over them. This is not a fear based dominance, but it is simply asserting the understanding upon that which is in my domain that I expect obedience and recognition as the dominant force. When dealing with children, I refer to it as "breaking their will". Though that is an unfortunate moniker for it as it is not entirely accurate, it is the best way that I have come up with to refer to it. To be very clear, when using this on children, it is not my desire to make a completely compliant person who bows to my every whim regardless of their own desires. There is a difference between being obedient and being compliant. I expect obedience from my young children when they are instructed to go to bed, clean up their toys, come with me, et cetera; what I do ...

   It seems as though parents think that a child should only be disciplined when they are "older". There isn't really any specific age at which the child is "older", rather it appears that it is in the determination of the parent at what point the child has attained this magical stage. For some parents this may be when the child begins to understand words, or maybe when they are able to indicate a simple desire or need, such as hunger. There also seem to be some parents who think that a child is not old enough to be disciplined until they go to school, or attain adolescence or, so it seems, until they graduate high school, in which case they simply state that their child is now too old to be disciplined, shirking any responsibility for their entitled and spoiled adult child. This is not only lazy parenting, but is absolutely irresponsible! My position is that a child is old enough to be disciplined as soon as they start to assert their own will and can recognize...

   I have come up with an idea that I want to play with. I don't know if this will prove popular or not, but it will help me to post content at those times when I am otherwise busy with life or with researching a topic that I feel is or may be important, as is the case right now. I think there could also be value to this idea in that the content that I will post is of a nature that I consider to be a lost art. That lost art is the art of parenting. It seems that as the generations have progressed there has been a lack of fortitude in the upbringing of our next generations. As someone who has dealt with the years of my own children's youth and having seen how they turned out, I hope that I can add some value to the lives of other parents through my own observations and experiences. I think I will call these posts "GCD Shorts" Following is what a GCD Short text might look like.  One thing that parents seem to have lost sight of is the simple fact that you are the paren...