Effective parenting is godly parenting.  God has a purpose and plan for the family. God is sovereign in that the book of Genesis, the record of the beginnings, has it that "In the beginning God..." We read this in Genesis 1:1.  This speaks to the fact that life is all about God. It is clear that apart from God there is nothing else. No God, no beginning; no creation. It is that simple. We must understand this as it also speaks to the fact that God assumes sole ownership - patent right over all creation. Hence, God dictates and decrees the way. We read in Genesis 18:17-19, the demands of God as he apparently boasted about his friend Abraham. That he was fully aware that Abraham would unfailingly direct his children and household after him to follow God's way by obeying all his commands. God was confident that Abraham would be a role model in children's proper upbringing. We thus realise that God's purpose and plan for the family is that the name of God should be tr...

Child Growth and Development fall into a specialist area of psychology and one of the family life education books referred to in my course of preparatory studies for marriage, by Allan Petersen J., The Marriage Affair, devoted a voluminous chapter to the issue of how the child develops with respect to age and necessary character traits and behavioral patterns to expect and hence properly manage in order to achieve positive behaviors and characters in contrast to the natural bent based on proven research and informed experience. Natural bent refers to the tendency of the individual to do things the wrong way unless a corrective or disciplinary measure is applied to stop or minimize the unapproved behavior, character or action. Parents who allow their children to grow with such traits with the hope that they will drop them later in life when they become conscious of what is good or bad live to regret their failures or develop defense mechanisms to cover their ignorance of this ...

From conception, the mother begins to play her role somewhat naturally. However, the natural attachment has tended to cause the mother to neglect proper information that will help make her a better parent. The foremost being that her role in proper upbringing of the child is complementary notwithstanding how naturally attached the child has been to her. Unless she knows that God made it so she will engage in rivalry with the husband for the leadership in the house. This rivalry as a result of ignorance of her proper role will cause her to engage in undue protection of the child from the father's influence hence fracturing the child's proper development. In fact, a child so shielded by the mother from the father's proper influence in his early years of development can easily be spotted out there in the society due to character deficiency. What then is the proper role of the mother in the upbringing of the child? Now, the mother should concentrate on the natural roles and su...

We have attempted to place the responsibility of children's upbringing squarely on respective parents. We have seen that parenting is a very serious business and that it requires certain maturity levels to qualify as a parent judging from the point of view of divinity as man is known to be a divine creature. We now have to go into concepts and ideas about the art of parenting. Parenting is largely a form of life long mentoring of offspring with the view of imparting acceptable character traits and behaviors into children. The chief person with the gravest responsibility in this case is the man of the house. As the head of the family, he is looked up to by the creator and the procreation for provision for and direction in all ramifications. Having been mature enough to marry, and studied to gain knowledge, he then understands how to influence the child from birth for positive character traits and how to exert the necessary disciplinary measures on the child for correction of tenden...

We have attempted to place the responsibility of children's upbringing squarely on respective parents. We have seen that parenting is a very serious business and that it requires certain maturity levels to qualify as a parent judging from the point of view of divinity as man is known to be a divine creature. We now have to go into concepts and ideas about the art of parenting. Parenting is largely a form of life-long mentoring of offspring with the view of imparting acceptable character traits, attitudes and behaviors into children. The chief person with the gravest responsibility in this case is the man of the house. As the head of the family, he is looked up to by the creator and the procreation for provision, direction and protection in all ramifications. Having been mature enough, he understands how to influence the child from birth for positive character traits and how to exert the necessary disciplinary pressures on the child for correction of tendency for natural bent. By n...

The world has been in crises since the much-preached "fall of man". The fall refers to what happened to the first man, Adam and first woman, Eve in the garden of Eden.  The woman had listened to a strange but beautiful creature identified as Serpent to do what he, the Serpent, suggested to the woman against the clear instruction the Creator gave to Adam after he settled them in the garden to tend it. Eve had curiously examined the fruit from the tree  in the middle of the garden of Eden and identified it as good for food, pleasing to the eyes and desirable for gaining wisdom and knowledge of good and evil and so she took fruit from the forbidden tree and ate as well as served her husband the same fruit. That was a clear case of disobedience which God could not tolerate! God not only bannished them from the garden but he also put enmity between the man and his wife and the serpent. This clear case of disobedience created enmity between the creatures and God. This case of diso...

It is understandable that character molding has become an age-long hard work which has nearly become impossible in most countries of the third world and beyond. This is so because there has been no schools for the tutoring of prospective parents. People generally find themselves grown up and join the bandwagon of marriage and procreation without giving any thought to the ways and means of training their children for development of acceptable characters, attitudes and behaviors in a given society. Many are aware of the influence of the environment on the general behavior of inhabitants of a given place. Hence, some have abandoned their parental roles for societal pressures hoping that anyone can find the right direction for themselves. This error is the fundamental reason for the crises of character traits in most contemporary societies. We will begin to find solution to this in our attempt to provide proven concepts and ideas for proper parenting from the point of view of experts in f...

Have you wondered and pondered the kind of news flying all over our planet earth over the years? Even these days there is no moment passing without one issue or the other of wars, escalation of hostilities, kidnappings, rapes, cultism, terrorism, political persecutions and whatever can disorient even the most stable minds. In recent times, Israel and its neighbor's in the Levant region popularly known as the Middle East, who had enjoyed relative peace for some time now has been thrown into deep darkness. Although Israel claims that the Hamas first fired rockets at civilian populations in Israel, the reports and reactions across the world paint a picture of Israeli aggression against Palestinians. The disorientation of families in both regions cannot be quantified in terms of the adverse effects on family life and liberties, especially women and children. Homes, schools, offices, markets and all social activities have been jolted to a halt and families are sent to safety bunkers, a...

This writer noted in some chapters of the eBook Proper Parenting of Children in Formative Years, by C. N. C. Ejiofor, that the discipline of children rests squarely on the father of the child although the mother has limited role to play notwithstanding that she is naturally attached and bonded to the child. The raging question has been centered on the use of the cane for the discipline of children. Most people rush to some texts of Scripture which plainly specify the use of the rod to correct children because foolishness is bound in the child's heart. Although we have acknowledged that God has the final say in matters of conduct of people, those Scriptural passages are not a blanket approval for child abuse or brutality.  The controlling Scriptural text should be that in Proverbs chapter twenty-two, verse six which stresses, "starting up a child in the way he should go". "Starting up" here means training and training entails a process. Disciplining the child for...

The 76th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), held in New York, United States of America, witnessed the demand by young people around the world for their right to a nutritious diet. Their clear message was the need for urgent actions to connect every child with healthy eating uptions. World leaders must address their responsibilities to ensure, not only food security, but also the adequate provision of food options that guarantee balanced diets for growing children all over the world. Healthy physical development of children affect the development of other aspects of their lives like, mental, psychological and emotional growth. There is no gain-saying the fact that both parents and children have been subjected to man-made scarcity of ordinary food supplies talk less of food options that guarantee balanced diets. The causes of this anomaly range from failure of many governments, especially in developing economies, corruption, political crises, climate change, social crises like wars ...

People often make frantic efforts to get involved in marriage related activities once they find themselves growing out of adolescent age. Even before they leave adolescence, their minds are usually preoccupied with issues relating to the opposite sex, especially with respect to the permanent relationship with those they cherish. At least several preparations are made regarding what it takes to get married to the one they eventually choose as either wife or husband, as the case may be. Preparing for marriage is usually taken for an end in itself as far as people are concerned in this digital era. Once a young man grows to the point he gets preoccupied with getting married, his concern consumes him to the point that he may not even bother to know if there is any thing like preparation for the marriage itself, not to talk of preparing for any other thing beyond marriage.  Most marriage counselors also fall into the same short thinking in dealing with what to expect from each marriage ...

The stability of societies depend largely on the interplay between parents and their children as well as families with other families. Obviously, the family unit consists of parents (husband and wife) and their children.  We have posited, according to working research findings, that the attitudenal, behavioral and character development of children depend on their age-growth, developmental stages, and the input of parental controls embodied on the principles of proper parenting which is godly parenting, in the final analysis.  Research became necessary because several opinions and practices followed by peoples of all ages sprung from many factors including cultural, traditional, religious, superstitious and even political beliefs and creeds. This is because over the years, past and present, people have either felt disappointed, embarrassed, or frightened by the delinquent and deviant activities of a good number of children born and bred by they themselves.  While some were...

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is,” John the Apostle wrote, while addressing believers in Jesus Christ who were scattered all over the then world a little after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Believers were described as children and God was described as the Father! It is unimaginable, but it is true. In the eBook, Proper Parenting by C.N.C. Ejiofor, the writer made a case that God as the creator has the ownership right to humans. This submission drives it further home to reflect what happens in the natural family where we have parents and children living in the bond created by God which is love. This same apostle describes God as t...