Our Heavenly Father is so amazing. It is hard to comprehend His perfection completely. He has created a perfect plan for His imperfect children. His love is eternal and also difficult to comprehend. He loves us unconditionally and perfectly despite our mistakes and weaknesses and failures. He is the ultimate parent. We are here on this earth to become more like our Heavenly Father and He is first and foremost our Father and Creator. So what better way to become more like Him than to become a parent and to love as He loves and to teach as He teaches.

Being a parent is such a great gift as I imagine our Heavenly Father looks at it. I can imagine that it is not always easy to love your children unconditionally. I am not a parent, but I look forward to the day when I am.

Parents are to nurture, guide, teach, protect, support, and most importantly love their children. Parents need to teach their kids how to be responsible and what it means to be responsible. I believe that respect comes after responsibility. We do not simply tell our children what to do and expect them to listen just because we are the parent. We teach best through our example.

It is important to let children learn from their mistakes. I was very blessed to grow up with and be raised by parents who cared very much for me and each one of my siblings. However, looking back at my childhood, I do not feel like I was a very responsible child because my parents took care of everything, especially my mom. She wanted our lives to be easy and boy it was so easy. It is still easy! But I never had a job or learned money management or the importance of work and earning things. When I was in high school I thought life was so great, and it was! But now that I am married, I wish that my parents had encouraged me more to get a job and make my own money and learn the importance of that and the value of it as well. This is just one example. My husband on the other hand, started working when he was eleven years old and has been working ever since. So, he has money saved up and he is wiser and more responsible. 

Parents need to meet the needs of their children, especially when they are younger. There are many children who want and need attention and their parent’s kind of shrug them off, which then leads to the child wanting more attention and lashing out in absurd ways to get that attention. We need help our kids feel that they belong in this world and especially in their family. It is important to treat children with respect and to treat them as people. I think that oftentimes we think that we are above children because we know more, and we are adults. However, they have feelings and opinions as well. We need to help them grow and nurture their talents and strengths.

The way that we raise our children will affect society because our children will grow up, and although they will form their own way of doing things, they will have their whole childhood to look back on and they will look back at family traditions and such to then raise their families and help their children to grow as well. I am so grateful for my childhood and I hope to be a great parent someday. I am so grateful that I have the example of my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ to look to for direction and guidance as to how to raise great and righteous children to help build God’s kingdom in these latter days.