day sixty-five: develop accountability in your parenting endeavors—part i of ii

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up…" Ecclesiastes 4:9-10


I have talked for a while now about doing the things in your family that are the most important to you—attaching things to the already-scheduled activities in your kids’ days so that you can be consistent in faith training; doing things with your kids more often than you miss doing them; understanding that priorities are the things in our lives that we really do; and knowing that when we say yes to something (or someone!), we say no to something (or someone!) else.


So what if you know what you want, but you just can’t make it happen? What if you feel led to be the type of family that is your child’s primary faith and character teacher, but you find yourself day after day not fulfilling that role? What if you want to talk to your teens every day, but you get to the end of the week and realize that you were “ships passing in the night”?


Maybe we need to call for an intervention! An accountability intervention that is! Do you know someone else who is in the same boat as you are? Not someone who “wishes” they were parenting differently, but someone who truly wants to make things happen in his or her family? If so, that person might be a good candidate for an accountability partner for you in your parenting endeavors.


Ray and I have pretty much been each others’ accountability partner our entire marriage (though I have had prayer partners who were similar to accountability partners, as well as small parenting groups who definitely were similar to accountability partners). However, I have often thought during rather difficult times that it would have been nice to have someone on the outside checking up on us. A parenting accountability partner can do just that for you.


Join us tomorrow as I give several tips for choosing/developing an accountability partner. Then stay with us next week—as I introduce our “Recipe for Rebellion” with our teens—and how NOT to make that disappointing “dish.”