November 28, 2010

Tonight I was turning through the pages of my new conference Ensign and my eye caught on a talk called Courageous Parenting by Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy. I read it and really feel there was some wise counsel in it. This talk was written specifically for parents of teenagers. I don't have teenagers yet, but just like I have prepared myself mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for being a mother, I do the same thing for being a mother of teenagers (as well as other things, like serving a mission when I'm older and becoming a grandparent.) I really feel it's important for me to look to the future in that way and to prepare myself mentally and emotionally and spiritually for what I may encounter. So while I am not a parent of teenagers, I really appreciated this talk and was able to apply it to myself.

First of all, I really liked his analogy of having a child sitting on the railroad tracks and hearing the train whistle blowing. How would I act under those circumstances? Certainly I would not casually stand by and hope my child heard the whistle, or resign myself to watching them get run over by a train if they chose to ignore my warnings. "[I] would value [their] life more than [their] temporary goodwill" and do everything I could to quickly move my child to a safe place. He says, "challenges and temptations are coming at our teenagers with the speed and power of a freight train." That means it is vitally important for me, as a parent, to protect my children "spiritually as well as physically."

I want to teach my children to recognize and heed spiritual promptings from a young age, and I believe they will then appreciate my spiritual warnings because they will have experience themselves with "trying to recognize the Spirit when He speaks," and they will respect my attempts to do the same. I feel it is so important for children to receive their own spiritual witnesses and stand on their own testimony from as early of an age as possible. This is what I hope to help my children develop.

I really appreciated the counsel he gave about supporting and respecting a spouse's spiritual feelings about things, because truly it is "important for husbands and wives to be united." It takes trust, love and support to get rid of something, turn something off, avoid something, or say 'no' if one spouse "feels uncomfortable about a movie, a television show, a video game, a party, a dress, a swimsuit, or an Internet activity." I want to parent that way with my husband.

I also thought it wise counsel when he said that "peer pressure becomes more powerful when our children are away from our influence and when their defenses are weakened late at night," in talking of being careful about sleepovers. It's definitely something to be mindful of. He mentioned "five fundamental practices that have the power to fortify our youth: family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, family dinner together and regular one on one interviews with each child." Those are all practices that I am striving to develop into habits within our family because I do believe they offer great spiritual protection.