5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Child Deal With Negative Influences

In this post, I will share with you how you can help your child to handle negative influences.

I have simply lost count of how often do I have to ask my children

“Where did you hear that from?” or “Who taught you that?”

A Godly parent’s greatest concern is that their ‘well-behaved’, Godly child will pick up bad habits and be negatively influenced by other people and things.

There are several factors that serve as a point of negative influence to a child – it could be things or people.

As much as we desire to raise children whose desire is towards the things that God wants, we cannot isolate our children from the world or keep them in our cocoon forever.

“…so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky” – Philippians 2:15

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How then can we help our children to deal with negative influences they may encounter in their daily interactions?

1. Understand The Risks in Your Child’s World and Prepare Accordingly: There’s no point hiding or pretending that evil does not exist in the world. The earlier we came to terms with the issues at hand, the better for us. We must know and understand the kind of negative influences that can impact on our kids and have a plan in place to deal with them.
2. Be a Godly Influence and Model a Godly Lifestyle for Your Child: Children are most likely going to pick up what they see very often than what we just tell them to do. We can run out a list of rules for our children to follow but they will be better influenced by our actions of Godliness. We should also endeavor to let them know what our values are and what we expect from them as members of our family and especially as Christian children. When our kids see us show who we are over and over again, they are more likely to choose our family values when they are confronted with the negative choices.
3. Give Time. Love and Attention To Your Child: Show your child that you love them unconditionally and they will be willing to be open with you and not be afraid to let you know things about them that may be awkward. It takes spending time with our children and constantly giving them room to have a connection with us for them to be truly open about the important areas of their lives. If you want your child to regard you as someone for them to run to when they are pressed with difficult choices, then you need to make yourself available to them. When they know that they can talk to you about anything and you will not run them down or make a big issue out of it, then they can be confident to approach you whenever they are faced with negative choices.
4. Let Your Faith Be Practical In Your Home: Don’t just shove Bible passages down the throat of your children. Let them understand why you practice your faith and let them see you apply God’s word in your daily interactions. Let God’s word be the yardstick for taking discussions and involve your children in those decision making moments so that they can also learn from you.
5. Set Limits and Stick To Them: Kids need limits and boundaries and it will do them a world of good if they know those limits and understand the consequences for breaking the limits. While it is great that you are open to communication with your child. They should still understand what you regard as misbehavior and what stepping out of line looks like. Children need the guidance of parents to navigate the challenges of their interactions and of the world in general. Knowing in advance what is acceptable and what is not will make them more likely to make the right choices. There will also be times when you need to put your foot down if you find a troubling friendship or relationship and explain why that may be toxic to your child.

I hope I have been able to help you deal with this pressing issue on your mind.

Do you have any method you have used that has worked for you? I will love to hear from you about it.

Just drop your comment for me below, will you?

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Love,

Oluseye.