Parenting and representing Christ in our home has been something on my mind a lot lately. Setting values in your home is a very important topic when thinking about family or starting a family. These are areas that the parents need to discuss in order to establish a solid foundation. Here are some points take from the book Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp:

• What is important to the parents?

• What is worth a fuss and what passes without notice?

• Are people more important than things?

• Do parents get more stressed over a hole in the school pants or a fight between schoolmates?

• What philosophies and ideas has the child heard?

• Are children to be seen and not heard in this home?

• What are the spoken and unspoken rules of family life?

• Where does God fit into family life?

• Is life organized around knowing and loving God or is the family in a different orbit than that?

• Are the values of your home based on human tradition and the basic principles of this world or on Christ?

These questions are so good and also so challenging. I know for myself I can get worked up about the smallest things, like my daughter getting a hole in her pants, but really that does not matter in comparison to heart issues. I strive for our home to have values based on biblical values rather than shallow values of the world.

Another important aspect in all of this, is boundaries within the family. Boundaries can range from how open you are with friends, what secrets should be kept within the family or shared, honesty with one another, etc. We need to be very careful to not have our walls too high, especially from the people closest to us. It is our job to raise our children up in the ways of the Lord and based off of what scripture tells us. The book of Proverbs is always a good start to get a handle on this way of thinking.