Accessibility mindset makes you to be available for your children. Your children will need to be free to communicate with you, they will need your counsel and your perspective about vital issues in life. When you don’t put this mindset into practice in parenting there are agents of destruction outside that will take your place and very likely ruin the future of your child. I will illustrate this mindset with two examples, the first one was culled from my WhattsApp chat history while the second one was a personal experience with one of my sons.

The Sexual Fast!

Daughter: (Coughs out) Hmmm…

Mum: (looks up at her, then continues picking her beans) Any gist for momma?

Daughter:( Looks at her) Mum, I think I am not normal anymore…like, I am sick

Mum: (Chuckles) Sick?? Why?

Daughter: Because I am over-sensitive. Whenever I see a guy, I have this weird feeling compared to when I meet a girl. Mum, I get worried often times if I would scale through adolescence without defiling myself

Mum: (Laughs) you are afraid?

Daughter: It seems you don’t understand mum. When I see a guy’s bicep, oh my God! If he mistakenly exposes his abs, then I would almost faint, feeling as if I should run into his strong, muscular arms and be cuddled.

Mum: And so? That’s why you are not normal?

Daughter: (Eyes widen) Mum!

Mum: That shows that you are very normal my baby girl

Daughter: I don’t understand mum

Mum: You fasted recently right?

Daughter: Yes mum. A three-day dry fast

Mum: There was an occasion that I made plantain and fried egg for dinner for the family. How did you feel that day?

Daughter: Mum, it was sensational! As if I had never tasted plantain . I wanted a bite so bad.

Mum: So, why didn’t you get into the kitchen to get yourself some?

Daughter: Mum, I was fasting

Mum: Nice one! Son, can you hear us from there? Put off the TV please.

Son: Ok mum.

Mum: As an adolescent boy or girl, don’t think it weird when you are attracted to the opposite sex. His or her stature or the like might appeal to you but it shows that you are normal. You wouldn’t say, you are abnormal because you can perceive the aroma of fried plantain while you were fasting. Would you?

Both: No mum

Mum: All unmarried people in this world are on a sexual fast until they get married. Different food like juices, fried fish, chicken; Shawarma and the likes would appeal to them clothed in handsome men and beautiful women of different shapes and sizes but you’ve got to block your perception! You are fasting!

Daughter: (nods repeatedly) Hmmm…I am getting it now

Mum: The aroma could be pornography, sexy boys and girls, devilish games and all but be warned, you are what?

Both: Fasting!

Mum: So my daughter, you are normal. It means all the parts of your body are responding well but the Bible says you should keep your body under control.

Daughter: Mum, I can’t thank you enough. I expected you to scream at me , frown your face but You are trustworthy and I can count on you. And that is why mum is our… (Signals to the boy)

Son: Confidant! (Both laugh)

Mum: (Smiles) Blessed children…very very blessed!

Both: most blessed mother

Mum: But never forget the lesson learnt today…(expects an answer)

Both: We are fasting!

Mum: Yes. The fast would soon be over and your dish of dodo, freshly prepared with well garnished fried egg with a chill bottle of wine would be delivered to you but first, wait! Say, I will wait

Both: I will wait!

Mum: And the Lord will bless you.

Both: Amen (They hug their mother and she blesses them both)

As a parent, imagine what would have happened if the parent above had not been the listening type. Let us look at lessons which we may learn from above.
Lesson One.
In the first place, the girl would not have raised the issue with her mum. Are you a parent from whom her teenage boy or girl can ask personal questions like the above?
Lesson Two.
Look at the innovative way she gave her teenage girl and boy a profound lesson on sexual abstinence. Notice that it was neither a formal or prepared teaching but imagine the effect it would have on those two young minds.
Lesson Three.
If she had not taken time and just shouted down the girl, the girl would have kept quiet for the moment but because she had not got the answer to her inquiry, she would have asked from another source. Imagine that she asked from a friend of hers who is already into fornication! The likely answer she would have received was that her feelings is a sign that she is ripe enough to have boyfriends, and I can assure you that the girl would have taken that advice.
Many of our young ones have been lured into immorality through the inability of parents to spend time with them.

Dad Be Praying For Me!
A few days after one of our sons was registered into a university for his undergraduate studies, I received a text message from him; “Dad, be praying for me cult guys are after me” The simple message caught my attention immediately and I called the attention of my wife to it too. The question we asked ourselves was how cultists could find room to establish themselves in a private university. We prayed about it and called the boy back that he should be careful not to go out with anyone and should not be left alone with anyone. He should ensure that he carries his bible about , make it visible and identify with a fellowship and known Christians on campus. We also wrote to the authorities of the university about cult activities in the school. However, we finally decided after a few days that the best we could do was to withdraw the boy from the university and enrol him into a mission based university from where he graduated.
Can you imagine what would have happened, if he had not trusted his dad enough to let him know the pressure under which he was?
The most likely thing would have been that after much pressure, he would have responded to them and who knows what the end of the story would have been? That is how many pastors children become cultists and join other dangerous gangs since we are too busy attending to other families but have little or no time for our own children. Does your teenage son or daughter trust you enough to call you and express concern to you will do something about it?

The following are some of the reasons why they don’t trust us enough to share with us their thoughts;
i. They feel we are too busy to listen to them.
Many of us are really “too busy” to be with our children. We are too busy with our jobs and with other activities to the detriment of our own family.

ii. They feel we don’t think their questions are important.
There are information that are vital to them at their various stages of development that we may not feel that are important. In the first story above, some parents might have wondered why the girl asked such foolish question or wondered whether she should not have even been ashamed for asking such question.

iii. They feel we believe that they should know.
We often assume that our children should know certain things. Indeed they have access to information which we did not have when we were growing up. Despite that however, the lessons they learnt from us have a special way of clinging to them because it has authenticity to them.

iv. They feel we believe that they should have been taught by others.
Parents often believe that most things should be taught by the teachers at school and probably the Sunday school teachers. Yes, there are a lot that they will learn from their teachers formally in a classroom setting but as parents there are so many touches that the home will have to make in the life of a child that no agent of education can make.

v. They feel we believe that they are too young to ask those questions.
Depending on their ages, there are certain questions that children may be too young to ask. However even if they ask such questions, we should find a way of bringing it to their level, letting them know the ones they should know now and postponing the one ps that are too advanced for them.
vi. They feel we believe that they should be able to take care of themselves.
Some parents, if they receive the message that my son sent in the second example above may have the feeling that he should be able to take care of himself. We really should train our children to be independent but there may be some issues that may be beyond them or which the implications of failure to handle it right may have untold consequences on their lives and even that of the rest of the family in the future. In such matters, it may not be wise to leave them alone with it.

vii. They are often afraid of us.
Many parents handle their families in such a way that make their children to actually be afraid of asking questions or seeking counsel. Being too much afraid of us makes our children to seek for help from where they should not seek it, with dangerous consequences for the future.

Dr. Mike Oluniyi.

Will you sincerely be able to tell your child to ‘do as I do?’ The mindset of modeling is so important in parenting because most of the things your children will learn from you are not really going to be formally taught like in a school setting. They are going to be taught through informal means, most of which will be non verbal. In other words, most of the virtues that they will learn from you will be through their observation of your ways of life. That means the way you do things as a parent matters. Whether you like it or not, you are like a model for your children. If you have this mindset, you will pay attention to the following as the areas where you may model the right attitudes for your children:

Your Relationship With God.
It is possible for you to deceive outsiders about your relationship with God but you may not really be able to hide the real you from members of your family. Your children will definitely discover how sincere you are in your relationship with God. There is the story of a small boy whom his Sunday school teacher had just finished teaching about tolerance. The teacher explained that Jesus expects us to be able to tolerate the weaknesses of one another. The teacher said further that every true child of God must be tolerant of others because none of us is perfect. The boy raised up his hand and told the teacher that that is possible only in the church but the teacher insisted that it should be practiced everywhere. The boy who is the pastors son reflected after some time and declared that from the look of things, “all of us are actors” the teacher asked for the reason why he said that and he explained that his daddy and mummy always act nice as a loving and peaceful couple in the church, but as soon as they enter the car to go home, trouble starts. According to him, daddy is always shouting at mummy, that’s why he feels that everyone is just an actor that acts nice in the church and shows their true nature at home. The Sunday school teacher could not say anything other than the closing prayer!
You must be able to model the true life of a believer at home, if not, you are just a hypocrite and you can be sure that your children will rebel against your God in the future.

Your Marriage.
You can successfully model a lot of appropriate godly virtues to your children through the way you relate with your spouse. There is no better way of demonstrating love and acceptance than the way you relate with your spouse. Respect for spouse and others is also a virtue that you can teach your children through the way you relate with your spouse. Your relationship with your wife serves as the laboratory where to demonstrate the practice of so many of the godly values that you may wish to teach your children. Forgiveness is a virtue that virtually everyone preaches but it is so difficult to really practice it by many believers. Your home is the place where it is better taught to your children in the way you treat offenses between you and your spouse.

Your Attitude To Money.
You may successfully model your belief about money to your children through the way you handle money and conduct your financial engagements generally. If you are ready to tell lies, cheat and commit fraud in the course of looking for money, you are only modeling to your children that there is nothing wrong with doing anything to make money. Don’t be surprised that one of them may graduate to actual robbery or be ready to even use human being for rituals or make money.
You must also not because of the search for greener pastures separate from your family for a considerable length of time so that you don’t send the wrong signal to your children that money is more important than the family. Many separate themselves for almost indefinite period of time in search of money that by the time they got money, they had lost their family. Many even eventually lost their family and also did not really make money.
If you are also someone that is careless with money without any considerable serious commitment to investments or savings culture, don’t be surprised if one of your children turn out to be a waster of resources.

Your Relationships.
The value you place on people will be revealed through the way you relate with them in relationships. Do you just make use of people, only to discard them later? If you are are such a person, you are modeling lack of appreciation of the helpers of their lives. You may discover that one or more of them may actually go beyond your own level by discarding even their spouses.

Your Handling Of Disappointments And Success.
Your life may be used to model to your children that it is only God that will never disappoint them. As for human beings, they should not be surprised if someone they trusted so much ended up disappointing them. Make them to realize that it is in the nature of human beings to disappoint. If they have that mindset, they will not be too hurt when disappointment comes. Model to them too, that their joy should not be dependent on what another human being does. If they do, they will be grossly disappointed and hurt.

…“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,…(Jer.17:5)



Teach them through your own life too, how to handle success. Let them know through your life that it is by the mercy of God that success ultimately comes;

…“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
(Rom.9:15-16)

Your Attitude To Work.
Model your aversion to laziness through the conduct of your life. This is one of the virtues that is difficult to teach your children theoretically. How do you handle your business and that of others?

Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no captain,
Overseer or ruler,
Provides her supplies in the summer,
And gathers her food in the harvest.
How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep
So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.
(Prov.6:6-11)


Let them know that even walking with God requires some hard work. For instance, you need to sacrifice considerable time that you would have been sleeping, in order to have your quiet time. Let them know that excellence in educational pursuits is also not complementary to laziness.

Attitude To Time.
If you have the model mindset, you will also note that your attitude to time also matters. The scriptures make us to realize that there is time and purpose for everything under the sun. (Eccl.3:1) It is not something that you just teach verbally but they should learn it through the way you handle your time. Do you identify the most important things and give them priority or you just do things as they come? Let them know through the way you handle time that it is the most invaluable commodity in life. Time wasted is gone forever, never to be regained. Let them know that if they while away their youthful days, there will be a time that they will look back with regrets. However, it is better taught with your own life as a model to them.

Your attitude To Integrity.
One of the best ways to teach integrity is to use your life to teach it. For instance most people only tell their children where they got it right in life, you hardly tell others where you failed. Virtually all parents will tell their children that they were on top of the class when they were in primary school, even those who were at the bottom! To teach integrity, you need to model it by telling your children where you missed it. For instance, if as a woman you did not get your degree because you were too much in a hurry to get married, you may use it to counsel your children that they should be patient to finish their education before going into marriage because it may not be as easy to do it once married. You don’t need to create a Superman image about yourself when you are not. Your children will appreciate you more as a person of integrity than someone trying to impress.
You must also pay attention to little things such as telling lies in the presence of your children.

Your attitude about heaven.
The importance of heaven in the journey of the believer is also better modeled by you in your day to day activities. Talk about it, demonstrate your hope for it as well as avoid those things that may make you not to make it. It will be more real when demonstrated at home that anywhere else.

POSITIVE PARENTING MINDSETS (2):
THE HONOUR MINDSET.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.

‘Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee’. (Deut.5:16)

Despite just being the caretaker, your role is an important one, having being assigned by God. Because your role is significant to God, He desires that you must be honored by your children. This is so important to God that He made it one of the Ten Commandments and the only one to which a promise is attached.
The Honour mindset is therefore the mindset that makes you to train your children to attract the blessings of God by honoring their parents both biological and spiritual. If you possess this mindset, you will do the following:

Demonstrate this mindset by honoring your own parents.
If you want your children to honour you, they may need to see it in the way you honour your own parents. When you speak to your parents, do you accord them respect? If you do so, your children are watching you. When your parents advice you, how do you take it? Sometimes, the advice they give may be at variance with current realities, but the way you discard the idea matters. Don’t forget that a time will come too that you will give outdated advice to your children in the future, will you be happy if they discard the idea as if you are a fool? One thing I have noticed in old people is that they appreciate those who can sit down with them and listen to old stories; stories of occurrences that took place long time ago, with little or no relevance to your current life realities. On the other hand, you have more relevant and important things to do now. It won’t harm anything for you to deliberately spend some time with them once in a while to make them happy as they relive those memories. As you are doing it to make them happy, you are passing a message across to your own children.
One important fact to note is that the parents of your spouse are also your parents, honour them. When I was in the university, there were some girls who were my course mates then who always said then that they would not marry any man whose mum was still alive. I doubt whether God would answer such prayers but I can imagine the way such ladies would treat their mothers in law! There are also men who would insist that their parents in law could not visit their family and stay overnight. All such unfair way of treating your parents are bound to be replicated by your children. When you are doing it, you are just like telling them that that is the way they should treat you in the future.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
(Gal.6:7)
You need to remember that in the way you treat your parents, you are just sowing for you to reap in the future from the way your children are going to treat you. Being conscious of this reality of life will make you to treat your children right so that your own children will learn from first hand experience that parents are to be honoured.

Let your children value your role and sacrifices in their lives.
You must learn to communicate with your children. They must know the reason why certain decisions are taken concerning them so that they will appreciate your role in their lives. Let them have a feeling of some of the sacrifices you made concerning them.
There are some specific sacrifices you made in the past which unless you tell them, they will not know and appreciate.
I read a story somewhere of a man that would not allow his mother to visit him because of the ugly look of his mother which was caused by a fire incident that affected her face so badly, earlier in life. It was after his mother died that he learnt that the fire incident that disfigured her mother occurred when she was trying to save him as a baby from being burnt in a room where he was trapped. The fire did not affect him but almost snuffed life out of his mother in the process of saving him. Today, he is full of regrets that had he known that his mother did so much for him, the story of their relationship would have been different.

Don’t diminish the value of the efforts of your spouse over the children.
Comparatively, you may have the privilege of contributing more than your spouse into the life of the children materially or otherwise. However, you must not consequently make the children to look down on the meager efforts of your spouse. As much as possible, speak well about your spouse before the children. As much as you may humble yourself by making your children to value your spouse, the children will still discover the enormity of your contributions, and it will make them to honour you the more. When you are running down your spouse for the children to value you more, it often backfires and reduces your own value.

You should make him believe that his parents are to be obeyed because they normally will not lead him astray.
You must earn the trust of your children enough for them to believe that you can not lead them astray. You may earn their trust by upholding your integrity. When you say something, mean it. Once your children discovers that you are truthful and fair, they will be ready to trust you enough to be led by you without looking back. They will obey you because they have discovered over the years that you may be trusted.

He must learn to accept the discipline of his parents.
Your children must learn to see your discipline as an act of love. You may achieve this by communicating with them. Don’t assume that they know. Often, lack of understanding lead to rebellion among especially teenagers. You must teach them that discipline is an act of love, they must not interpret it as sign of cruelty or hatred.

For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”
(Heb.12:6)

Let them also know that any kind of discipline which you make them to go through is for their own good.

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. .(Heb.12:11)

Unity Of Purpose Between You And Your Spouse.
One of the ways through which you can demonstrate the honour mindset is by being united in purpose with your spouse. If there is an issue of discipline at home and you take different stands and are openly antagonistic to one another, you will be sending the wrong message that will diminish your value in the reckoning of your children.

POSITIVE PARENTING MINDSETS (1)
THE CARETAKER MINDSET.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward…(Ps.127:3)

The mindset of caretaker in parenting is the attitude of seeing yourself and your spouse as a caretaker that has been commissioned by the owner of a property, to represent him and be in charge of the property. Such a mindset makes you to see God as the owner of your child and that you are just a steward who will ultimately render account of how you raised the child to God.
Be aware of the following as a caretaker of the children that God has given you;

You are not the property owner but a privileged representative.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward. (Ps.127:3)

It just pleased God to give you the privilege of being the vehicle through which your children were born. If you look around you carefully, whatever your age, you may discover those of your age, who never had the privilege of getting pregnant for once. Some of them never had the privilege of getting married in the first place while there are those who got married but never experienced the joy of parenthood. For some of them, you may say that it is because while they were young, they lived promiscuous lives. However it may be wrong for you to generalize that all that are barren are so because of their own faults, many have never become pregnant, not because of their own fault but because somehow it just did not happen. Have you also not seen those that have been pregnant several times but the pregnancies always get aborted through no fault of theirs. Thank God that you got married and the children came but never you have it in mind that the pregnancy came because it is your right. The challenge of barrenness has driven many women to drop their faith out of ignorance and embrace other gods just to experience the joy of parenthood; many homes have been separated just because one suspect that the other is the cause of unfruitfulness in the home, sometimes it is the extended family that separate them; many also had to go through a lot of tests at great cost at specialist hospitals to be able to go through artificial insemination so as to experience the joy of parenthood. If your own was successful, thank God that you experienced the process and became pregnant because it is not even in all cases that it is a success story.
Therefore, that you have children of your own is just because it has pleased God to assign you to be in charge on His behalf, they belong to him.

You are to care for the property according to the instructions of the owner.
If your children belong to Him, and you are a caretaker, it follows that you must take care of the property the way the owner asked you to do it. One of the most important assignments of the owner of the children is that of teaching and training.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.(Prov.22:6)

Consequently, your children must be properly trained because that is one of the most important assignments that God has for you as a parent. Such training involves that of the word of God, home training and conventional academics. The dangers posed by children that are not trained by parents or who for one reason or the other did not receive training is that they always become problems for the society. In a lot of cases, there are parents who just bear children and never cared whether or not they are trained as result of broken homes. There are also parents who leave others to train their children for them by putting them in the hostel right from the time they were very young. If you have this mindset of the caretaker, you will know that there are matters that has to be attended to in the life of a child which Sunday school and conventional school teachers alone may not be able to do justice to.

You must neither abuse nor allow the abuse of the property.
If you are the caretaker of a building, you won’t allow any kind of misuse of the property because there are likely to be sanctions from the owner, it is the same for the children that God has graciously given to you. There are children that are sexually abused or maltreated by those who are supposed to care for them. As a parent, you have a responsibility of ensuring that your children are always paid attention to, so that they don’t get into wrong hands. Though girls are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse, boys are also not left out. If care is not taken they may be introduced into all forms of pervasion and immorality such as homosexualism and pornography at tender ages. Apart from sexual abuse, there are also other forms of abuse to be guided against depending on circumstances surrounding the family. These other types of child abuse are physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse and neglect.

Your wages will depend on how satisfactory your stewardship of the property is.
God has not asked you to labour in vain over these children. When you bring them up in the ways of the Lord and they become great in the future, your joy over them is one of the most significant wages that you will receive for your stewardship over them.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.(Ps.127:4-5)

There is a kind of satisfaction which gives you fulfillment when you are getting old and you see your children doing well: There is a kind of respect that people give you as a result of them knowing that your children are doing fine in their various vocations in life. Apart from being able to provide for your need, (if there is need to do so), knowing that they are doing well gives you joy. You may contrast such situation with one in which children were not trained while they were young and they grow to become irresponsible; imagine the sorrow of such parents in old age. Such children may continue to demand for sustenance from their parents even in old age and may be praying that such parents die early so as to be able to dispose their properties. There are even those who sell off the properties of their parents while still alive.


However long it takes, a time of accountability will come.
If you are given a property to manage, a time of accountability will come when the owner will arrive and you as the caretaker will have to render an account of how you took care of the property. Many fail to remember that a time of accountability comes. Even many of those who are supposed to do it right still fail when the time of accountability comes. Prophet Eli was a repository of the word of God, He was a great man of God. However, in the area of the training of his children, he was such a colossal failure. At the time of accountability, though he succeeded as a prophet of the LORD, he failed in the area of the training of his children.

And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.
In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.
For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.
And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.(1Sam.3:11-14)



The Way You Handle Your Children May Determine How Joyful Your End Will Be.

There are people who spend their later years in sorrow and even die early as a result of the effects of lack of training in the life of their children. An old woman once told me that joy is the food of the elderly. One of the greatest source of satisfaction for old people is seeing that their children are doing fine. On the other hand, there are old people whose properties were disposed off while they were still alive by untrained children or children who turned out wayward. Parenting is a very serious assignment that when you fail at it, it may make you to be sorrowful during old age or even make you to die before your time.