The Best Parenting Book

"This is where the parenting seminar will be held tomorrow afternoon," said the pastor of the school sponsoring the event.

What I saw was a gym with many chairs, arranged facing the stage. And that intimidating podium! "No podium for me," I stressed. "I am more comfortable walking around."

But with almost 300 parents with some millennials and Gen Z-ers from different churches, I was prevailed upon to go up the stage. Walking around just wouldn't work.

One hour into the seminar, I divided the crowd into 10 groups for the workshop, a must-do in all the seminars I facilitate.    

All groups were active, complete with discussions, questions, some arguments, and agreements. The reporting by the leaders earned us more knowledge about the topic: Understanding Your Millennial and Gen Z Child (based on my book "Present!" written for millennials).

From the post evaluation, I think we all came out of the seminar more aware of how the young generation today and the generation after it differ from their parents.  “When I was your age . . ." doesn’t work anymore; their brains are wired differently!

We went back to Scripture, to what it says about understanding and bringing up the children God entrusted us with.

In sum, our net take away was: we are swamped with parenting books today. But we must always go back to Scripture. It is the best parenting book ever written, with the same truth yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

And it begins with, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

P.S.

Post-seminar fun: