Four Parenting Principles to Create Strong, Loving Families
By Paula Fellingham

I love helping young parents learn the principles that will help them create strong, loving families. I’d like to share four of these with you today:

1. Kindness: Kind thoughts, kind words, kind tone of voice, and kind actions should be family goals. Mother Teresa said, “Spread love and kindness wherever you go. First of all in your own home. Show kindness to your husband or wife, to your children, to a next-door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” Frequent expressions of love, appreciation and admiration are heard in the homes of families raising kind, confident children.

2. Commitment: Just like the garden which flourishes when it is lovingly cultivated, our children need to be nurtured with our best effort and our time. We should be willing to give both quality and quantity time to our family. Quality time means that when we’re with one another we’re 100% there, focused on family members’ needs and happiness. Quantity time means that we’re with our families as often as we can be. This is a challenge sometimes, but if our family relationships truly are our highest priority, time needs to be given to those relationships. There is no substitute for unhurried time with our loved ones.

3. Communication: There is no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful relationships than to learn and practice the art of communication. Communication can be negative or positive. When we speak unkindly to one another it destroys the loving atmosphere we want in our home, and it makes family members feel unloved. On the other hand, those who hear praise, encouragement and loving words usually have good feelings about themselves, and they can more easily be loving and thoughtful to others.

4. Choices: Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can offend me without my permission.” Parents who take responsibility for their thoughts, words and actions give their children a priceless gift. They teach through their example that blaming, criticism, and negative talk are unwise choices. Far better is choosing to originate thoughts, words and actions from our places of love and goodness within. We each have such a place. The more we think, speak and act from our inner places of love, the happier and more peaceful we’ll be.

Paula Fellingham, an internationally-acclaimed speaker, the author of 5 books, and the mother of 7 children, has spoken at the United Nations and at conferences across the globe. Paula is a former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist. Paula is currently the CEO of The Women’s Information Network, www.TheWINonline.com. Her mission is to strengthen women and families worldwide.