If you ask any parent, “What do you want for your kids?”, eventually you will hear, “I want them to have the life I never had.” They may not sound like that, but parents want their kids to have everything. Yes, we want them to be smart, courteous, have character, show kindness and generosity, but we want them to have it all.

Does every parent want that?

Almost.

If that’s not you, thanks for reading and you can scroll to the next blog.

But let me ask this question: Are you giving your kids the right life?

Are you giving your kids the right life?
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Many parents, in an effort to make sure their kids have every opportunity, get the best schooling, play on sports teams and have opportunities for future advancement, go to extreme measures. Parents work long hours or multiple jobs so that they can have the money to pay for all those activities. They run kids from one team, one program, one practice to the next. They push and push so that kids are getting less sleep and growing up faster.

Then you throw this in with what the parents think their kids want for the rest of their lives.

Let me give you an example.

I overheard someone recently talking about their kids and how much both parents were working. This parent said, “My kids are starting to complain that my wife and I aren’t around enough for them because we work too much.” Someone in the group asked, “What did you say?” The parent looked at the group and said, “I told them, ‘You want nice things, don’t you? You want to go on nice vacations and live in the house we have and do the things we do, don’t you?'”

If you can picture the scene, you can imagine the awkward silence that followed.

The answer to that question, if this child answered honestly, would probably be, “Not really.”

I walked away sad for this family but also convicted by this question: Am I giving my kids the life they want, the life they need or the life I think they should have?

Am I giving my kids the life they want, the life they need or the life I think they should have?
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It’s a convicting question.

Often I give my kids the life I want them to have. The life that reflects well on me. The life that feels easier or less stressful as a parent.

Not always, but it is easy to fall into.

This is one reason that Katie and I created a family mission statement a few years ago. I detailed the process we went through and what ours is in my book Breathing Room: Stressing Less and Living More.

The problem for parents is, in the hustle and bustle of life, we don’t know the kind of kids we are raising. We have never asked ourselves, “What is the goal of parenting? What will our kids be like when they leave our house?”

Without clarifying that, we end up giving our kids the life everyone else is going for.

But what if that isn’t the life you want for your kids or the life they need?

The post Are You Giving Your Kids the Right Life? appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

My elders have been kind enough to give me a longer summer break than normal this year. Because of that I won’t be posting anything new on my blog until July 18th (at which time I’ll be back with some great new stuff for you), so that we can rest, recharge and enjoy some time as a family. I’ll also be posting less on social media, but I’ll be posting fun pictures of our adventures on Instagram.

In the meantime, here are some of the top posts on my blog to keep you company until I get back:

Healthy Marriage

• 10 Questions You Should ask Your Spouse on Your Next Date Night
• 18 Things Every Husband Should know about His Wife
• 11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage
• The One Thing Destroying Your Marriage That You Don’t Realize
• 7 Reasons You Aren’t Communicating with your Spouse
• 7 Ways to Fight Well in Your Marriage

Productivity

• How I Structure my Week
• Slowing Down as a Leader
• What the Most Productive People Do
• 5 Things Productive People do in the Morning

Healthy Leadership

• 4 Things Healthy Leaders Do
• 11 Questions Every Pastor Should ask Themselves
• Being a Pastor’s Wife
• How to Survive Monday as a Pastor
• How to Grow as a Leader as Your Church Grows
• 10 Things Worship Leaders Need to Know

Personal Health & Fitness

• How I Lost 130 Pounds in 18 months (and Kept it Off)
• Pastors Can Make the Worst Friends
• I Can’t Sleep
• 6 Ways to Stay Motivated to be Healthy
• Burnout, Sleep, Adrenalin, Sex, and Eating

Healthy Preaching

• 9 Things I learned from Preaching on Homosexuality
• Vague Pastors
• How to Make your Next Sermon Great
• What Pastors Can Learn from TED Talks
• How to Recover from Preaching

And if you’re looking for something to read this summer, first start with my book Breathing Room: Stressing Less and Living More, and then after that pick something from my summer reading pile:

For you book worms out there, here are some of the preaching, leadership, history & theology books I’m reading or re-reading this summer/fall. What’s on your list?

A photo posted by Josh Reich (@joshua_reich) on May 19, 2016 at 8:25am PDT

Have a great summer!

The post Summer Vacation appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

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