Priority 4: Training
By: Dennis Rainey
The best parenting is proactive, not reactive.
The best parenting is proactive, not reactive.
The reactive parent stays in a defensive posture, continually reacting to a child’s mistakes.
A proactive parent goes on the offensive and does what is necessary to become the child’s trainer. 
Effective training involves at least three parts.
First, parents need to see clearly the goal.
First, parents need to see clearly the goal.
They need to know what they are trying to achieve in their child’s life.
Second, effective training involves repetition.
A Green Beret once told me, “As Green Berets, we train to learn what to do in every conceivable circumstance—over and over and over again.
Then in times of battle we know what to do. It’s just second nature to us.”
That is a picture of what we parents should do.
That is a picture of what we parents should do.
We train our children and instruct them in making the right choices in the circumstances they will face.
And we do it over and over, until it becomes second nature to them.
Finally, training involves accountability.
Finally, training involves accountability.
One of the major mistakes parents make is giving our children too much freedom without appropriate oversight.
This is especially true if a family has more than two children.
We tend to over-control our firstborn child and release the younger children prematurely.
My mom was the master at accountability during my teenage years.
My mom was the master at accountability during my teenage years.
She demanded to know where I was and what I was doing. I can still hear her saying,
“Where are you going?
Who will be there?
What time will you be home?”
And my dad was right in there with her.
The first night that I was allowed to go out in the car he wrote down the mileage on the speedometer and gave me a five-mile maximum limit.
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