If your children see that you are seeking, they will seek-the finding part is up to God.

Whenever the child is given the notion that he needs to be entertained, learning comes almost to a halt.

We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.

Suddenly we have a baby who poops and cries, and we are trying to calm, clean up, and pin things together all at once. Then as fast as we learn to cope--so soon--it is hard to recall why diapers ever seemed so important. The frontiers change, and now perhaps we have a teenager we can't reach.

We do not have to get our children to learn; only to allow and encourage them in their learning. We do not have to dictate what they should learn; only to discern and respond to what it is that they are learning. Such responsiveness is at once the most educational and the most loving.

More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.

My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.