Teaching and Guiding Your Children With Love

Parents have the biggest influence on children and have such an impact on the values and morals that they have throughout their lives. It is important to not only teach the correct principles to your children, but to do so in a Christ-like way. Children are more willing to be responsive to instruction and teachings if the children feel loved and accepted by their parents. This is not a fool-proof way to make sure your children do not go astray, but it does lower the risk of having an unhealthy relationship between the parent and the children. Parents are instructed by the leaders of the church to provide their children with morals and values to follow and have. President Brigham Young counseld parents to  "...study their children's dispositions and temperament, and deal with them accordingly". The more familiar that parents are with our children and their temperaments, the better parents will be able to recognize if something is bothering them or something is not quite right. Parents would be able to follow up with questions and discern if action needs to be taken (i.e problems with peers, struggling with schools, ect.). Not only will parents be able to recognize those things, but children will be more willing to talk about their issues with their parents if they feel that safe relationship.

Children are less likely to fall into the traps of Satan if they have strong morals and values taught by their parents. James E. Faust said the following about the matter,"Generally, those children who make the decision and have the resolve to abstain from drugs, alcohol, and illicit sex are those who have adopted and internalized the strong values of their homes as lived by their parents. In times of difficult decisions they are most likely to follow the teachings of their parents rather than the example of their peers or the sophistries of the media which glamorize alcohol consumption, illicit sex, infidelity, dishonesty, and other vices. They are like Helaman’s two thousand young men who “had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them” from death. “And they rehearsed … the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.” (Alma 56:47–48.)" Parents have an obligation to raise their children in the church and to make sure that they are taught the coronet principles. Nothing should be forced on the children, but rather taught so that the children can make and gain testimonies of their own. All parents can do is to teach and guide their children with love and let their children make their own decisions that they may grow up to follow their teachings.