Parenting with Love, Limits, and Latitude: Proclamation Principles and Supportive Scholarship

The chapter that I studied this week was titled Parenting with Love, Limits, and Latitude: Proclamation Principles and Supportive Scholarship. The text says, “in the course of teaching and nurturing children in a family setting, parents can learn and grow by practicing godly virtues that lead to sanctification.” To assist parents in meeting their family responsibilities, the Lord has given commandments, guiding principles, and helpful examples in the scriptures, along with the counsel of modern-day prophets and apostles.

Each individual in the world has different interests, personalities, and behaviors. These interact with what has not been revealed to us. We have been blessed with individual talents and unique abilities to be disciples of Christ, and it is important that we make the choice to show that and display our love towards Heavenly Father for blessing us with those things.

In the text it states, “research exploring genetic contributions to children’s development suggests that children may select, modify and even create their own environments according to their biological predispositions. Whatever the nature and disposition of a given child, wise parents work to adjust, relate to, and rear each child in a manner that is somewhat tempered to individual needs as parents and children learn from each other.”

When it comes to rearing children with love and righteousness, we must remember that this involves loving, teaching, and guiding them with an emphasis on teaching and preparing children rather than unrighteously controlling their wills. In order to promote optimal development, it is important to show your children love/warmth/support, show them clear and reasonable expectations, limit their boundaries with some room for compromise, form appropriate consequences, give them opportunities to make their own choices, have the absence of coercive, hostile forms of discipline, and be a model of appropriate behavior that is consistent with self-control, positive values, and positive attitudes.