Article October 22, 2018 Issue

Better parenting

Judy Cole

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column, July 16, 2015.

The overwhelming majority of parents want to do what’s best for their children. To me, good parents need to exemplify the character and behavior they’d like to see in their children and grandchildren. The great news for me has been learning that it’s natural to express good because, as the Bible brings out, it’s inherent in everyone’s true nature as the offspring of God.

Rather than depending on chance, guesswork, or human will, I’ve come to feel that better parenting is the outcome of understanding something of the actual nature of God and man. The Bible refers to God as Spirit, limitless good, and says that man is the likeness of God. Seen in this light, neither parents nor children are truly products of the flesh. Rather, the authentic identity of each individual is the outcome of Spirit—expressing the fullness of the divine nature. A growing perception of this enables us to overcome, through prayer, perceived limitations of heredity, environment, or detrimental social conditions that could get in the way of supportive parenting.

Christ Jesus proved the practicality of understanding God to be the one true Father of all. He lived the ideal, Godlike model. His teachings show the importance of being faithful to God by expressing in our own thoughts and lives qualities such as meekness, compassion, forgiveness, and moral strength. The Bible says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). When undergirded by a perception of man’s spiritual origin and nature, both children and adults are able to see the naturalness of these qualities and incorporate them into their own character and behavior.

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