As a parent, one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is a home where safe means home and home means safe.

Emotional safety, above nearly every other factor, is key to raising children who live, love, and lead well.

Parents have first access to the deepest places in a child’s heart. By extending big and small acts of kindness, respect, and thoughtfulness to one another, consistently, through good times and challenging days, family members form relationship glue, those touch points that hold a family together through crisis and celebration.

Connections, poignant moments, and laughing-until-milk-comes-out-our-nose experiences create a shared history. They confirm something every child needs to know:

We belong. Together.

Within the safety of home, children can learn:

• I experience feelings and emotions because I am a whole person.
• I can choose my response to the emotions I feel.
• Anger can provide energy that I channel into constructive action to right a wrong.

At its core, parenting is helping our children develop healthy attitudes, learn to experience and manage emotions, and gain the skills they need to become capable adults.

Do the Dos

As a parent, the number of to-dos can feel overwhelming. So how do we decide where to invest our limited time, energy, and funds?

Start with three priorities.

1. Bible Time: Learn Who God Is and How to Know Him

Read Scripture aloud together and pray daily. Prayer is simply talking to God.

Our children need opportunities to know God, recognize His character, understand His Word, and develop a relationship with Him that can become their own.

2. Character: Develop Lifelong Integrity

Integrity means doing the right thing even when doing so is hard—and even when no one is watching.

Character includes concern for others and keeping their best interests in mind. Character also includes learning appropriate self-care: personal hygiene, adequate sleep, nutritious food, and exercise.

Children need both compassion for others and responsibility for themselves.

3. Academics: Build Skills for Life

Help your child become adept at reading, writing, and mathematics.

These foundational skills prepare children for adult life and equip them to be ready for wherever God calls them.

Keep the Don’ts Simple

While the list of things we want our children to learn can seem endless, the list of family don’ts can remain short:

• No hitting.
• No stealing.
• No lying.
• No name-calling.
• No deliberately disobeying Mom.

Clear boundaries give children room to grow within the security of knowing what is expected.

Be a Student of Your Child

The dos for parents begin with becoming a student of your child.

Get to know this remarkable person God purposely placed in your temporary care. Discover your child’s strengths, interests, fears, humor, questions, and dreams.

Then parent the child you have.

Be clear about what you expect. Inspect what you expect. Be consistent—even when consistency is hard and even when you don’t feel like following through.

Speak to your child with respect. Respectful communication teaches children both how to respect others and how they should expect others to treat them.

Parenting is People Before Things

Make people before things a family motto. Relationships matter more than possessions, spotless rooms, or perfect appearances. Teach family members to remain tender toward one another through disagreements and adversity.

Say yes as often as reasonably possible. Rather than responding with an instant no, brainstorm together: “How can we make this happen?”

Encourage your child to ask questions and make requests. Helpful responses include, “Good question.” “Good idea.” And even, “Not this time, but thanks for asking.”

Tell children what you want them to do rather than only what you want them to stop doing. Instead of, “Don’t put your feet on the furniture,” try, “Feet belong on the floor.”

Look for strengths. Notice the As and Bs on the report card rather than allowing the C to receive all the attention. When children develop confidence in their strengths, they become better equipped to address areas where they struggle. Those strengths may also offer clues to the work they will someday love.

Introduce your child to experiences, opportunities, and interests from archaeology to zoology. You never know what encounter will awaken a lifelong fascination or reveal a God-given gift.

Teach your child how to work. Chores provide opportunities to learn lifelong skills, experience the satisfaction of mastery, and know that their contribution matters to the family.

And have fun working together.

Prepare Your Child to Live Without You

As much as we may resist the thought, one of our responsibilities as parents is to prepare our children to live successfully without us.

Invite your child into the everyday tasks of adulthood. Let them help complete paperwork for everything from a library card to medical forms and, eventually, the college FAFSA. Teach them how to make appointments, ask questions, solve problems, and find reliable information.

Whenever possible, resist doing for your child what your child is ready to learn to do.

Independence develops gradually, one skill and one opportunity at a time.

Build a Legacy That Lasts

Families come in many configurations. A single-parent home is still a family and can be a rich environment where children learn the relationship and life skills they will carry into adulthood.

Parenting is among the most consequential work we will ever do.

The conversations around the dinner table matter. The boundaries matter. The apologies matter. The Scripture read together matters. The laughter matters. The chores, questions, hugs, ordinary Tuesdays, and seemingly insignificant choices matter.

What you do today impacts a forever soul.

And day by day, you are creating a legacy that can outlive you.

For You

For additional practical parenting encouragement, see The Ten Best Decisions a Single Mom Can Make by Pam Farrel and PeggySue Wellre children learn people skills that last a lifetime. A person who parents is doing the most right thing possible – single or otherwise. What you do today impacts a forever soul, and creates a legacy that will outlive you.

For additional tips, see The Ten Best Decisions A Single Mom Can Make by Pam Farrel and PeggySue Wells.