Joey and Carla Link
October 22, 2025
Last week we talked about being positive when you parent your children. Yelling, being harsh and angry or critical of them is being negative in your parenting and your children don’t need that. Being calm when you talk to your kids is one way you can be positive when you work with them. We shared 4 ways you can accomplish this in Part 1 of this series (click here to read it) and will share 5 more now.
Ways to Be Positive in Your Parenting
1. Inconsistent parenting confuses your kids because they never know what to expect from you.Consistent parenting teaches your kids if they do a certain wrong behavior they can count on a consequence.
Joey and I, when our kids were growing up would go on weekly dates. The first week of each month we called our “kid date”. This wasn’t because the kids went on the date with us, but rather because this was the only date we allowed ourselves to talk about the kids. On this date we reviewed where our kids were at on the behavior we were working on with each of them and on behaviors we had seen victory in as well.
We gave letter grades to how they were doing and if they didn’t get an “A” or “B”, we came up with one way we were going to be united in working with them until they pulled that grade up. If we fell into the trap of reminding, we decided on an appropriate consequence to give them instead of constant reminders. This date kept us on the same page in our parenting and neither of us were caught trying to remember what we were supposed to be doing with a particular child.
2. Don’t forget about context. Is your child overtired, overwhelmed, overstimulated? All of these will produce cranky kids and requiring them to obey or follow family rules during these times may be more than a particular child can give.
When the winter months hit the Midwestern United States, Joey made sure he found ways for our kids to get physical exercise because we knew that too much pent-up energy was a recipe for disaster.
3. Have couch time at least 4-5 nights a week. This is a time you chat with your spouse and your kids don’t have the freedom to interrupt you and they have to know you are doing it. Seeing a positive relationship between their parents gives kids of all ages stability and security.
4. Don’t forget to meet your kids’ love language needs. Each of your kids need you to speak love to them in one of these 5 ways: Giving gifts (doesn’t have to be material things), giving your undivided attention to them, giving them cuddles or hugs or just being in close proximity to them like sitting next to them on the couch when watching a movie, giving them words of encouragement (which is not the same as praising them), or serving them in a unique and unexpected way.
5. Do remember to praise and encourage your kids. We get on them when they do something wrong, but are we consistent about getting on them when they do something right? Praising your kids is more than saying “Good job!” What did they do a good job in? Be specific. “Your room looks great! I can tell you put extra effort into cleaning it” will settle into your child’s heart for a long time.
Encouraging your kids is literally “giving them courage” or hope. “I know you can do a good job on that project for school. Dad and I can’t wait to see it when it is done!” is giving your kids courage.
We hope we have given you pro-active, positive ways you can work with your kids and we hope we have given you courage to get into the habit of putting some of them into practice.
“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good
for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Ephesians 4:29
Have you listened to this Mom’s Notes presentation?
“Fundamentals in Biblical Parenting” discusses ten often overlooked principles by parents such as meeting your child’s love language, giving him praise and encouragement, couch time and more. This Mom’s Notes Presentation gives fresh, practical tips for applying them.
Use code Oct26 at checkout by 10/26/25 for $1 off the MP3 & PDF
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