10 Ways to Ruin Your Children

This is a borrowed guest post via Trey Morgan's blog at http://www.treymorgan.net/. It has some GREAT points about how to ruin your children....if you're interested in ruining your children, that is!  I don't think any of us (or at least I hope not) would deliberately set out to do anything that would hurt our children, but unfortunately some things we may do to try to "help" our children are really not helping them at all. 

Thanks, Trey, for this post and for previous permission for me to borrow them from time to time!

10 Ways to Ruin Your Children

1. 10  LIE FOR YOUR KIDS. When a parent writes their child a note to school saying their child was sick orhad a doctor’s appointment, and really they just over slept…YOU are teaching them it’s OKAY to lie. Don’t you get it? NEVER lie to help cover up mistakes for your kids.

2. DON’T GIVE THEM ANY RULES. Just let them do what they want. They don’t need any direction.

3. AUTOMATICALLY THINK EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOUR CHILD WHEN THEY GET IN TROUBLE. Your child is perfect, how could they ever do anything wrong? If your child gets in trouble it’s got to be somebody’s fault, but surely not your kid’s fault. When I was a kid, if I got in trouble at school (yea, hard to believe), I got in trouble when I got home as well. Now days, when a child gets introuble at school, the parent thinks it’s the school’s fault, the teacher’s fault or the principal is picking onmy child! Have you ever thought that your child just might have done something wrong?

4. NEVER DISIPLINE YOUR CHILDREN. Discipline is overrated. Just always threaten to punish them without ever following through.

5. DON’T MAKE GOD A PRIORITY IN THEIR LIVES. They don’t need church, faith or a large dose ofGod these days. Instead let them discover their faith on their own…once they get older.

6. PULL STRINGS TO GET YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF TROUBLE. Actually, if your child has donesomething that deserves punishment, let them be responsible for their own actions. Don’t threaten tocall a lawyer, talk to the principal or talk to a superior to get your child out of trouble for somethingthey’ve done. Have you ever heard of “you reap what you sow” or you have to be responsible for yourown actions?

7. BE INCONSISTENT. Tell your kids to do one thing then you do another. Tell them not to lie, and then let them hear you lie. Don’t practice what you preach. INSTEAD…be the parent that’s brave enough toget up and turn off a television show that doesn’t need to be on. Teach them by your example. Let yourchildren see you consistently living what you preach. Be consistent.

8. GIVE YOUR KIDS EVERYTHING THEY WANT. They may think they need a new car, the latest electronic games and the best clothes, but sometimes you have to say, “No.”

9. STRIVE TO BE THEIR FRIEND MORE THAN THEIR PARENT. Believe it or not, your children need a parent more than they need another buddy I wholeheartedly believe in being friends with yourchildren, but not at the cost of giving up the role as their parent.

10. UNDERESTIMATE THE ROLE OF THE FATHER. This coming year 40% of the children born in our country will be born in a home where there is no father. We’ve quickly become a country where the men like to fool around, but they don’t like to stay around. Despite Ephesians 6:4 telling us that it’s the father’s role to train the children, fathers are not taking responsibility for that role. Men…man-up, it’stime to be a dad.

Can you think of any I missed????