Your Child's First Leader

By: Anthony Martin 

Did you know that you have the first opportunity to affect change in the life of your child? You have this amazing chance to help mold and shape this innocent soul for Jesus. This is how God intended for it to be as He placed this delicate and tender human being under your care. Just think, you get the first look at your child’s physical appearance and personality; you have the first opportunity to see your child take his/her first steps; and you are first to feed, clothe, and nurse your child. You get to care for them in mind, body, and spirit before anyone else has an opportunity to become an influence in their life. 

God gives you the gift of leadership to influence your very own image in the earth (your child). When you look at your children, who do you see? You shouldn’t see any image, other than yours and the other parent’s. You have reproduced another human being as an extension of yourself. This human is considered your offspring because he/she “sprung” from you. Now, what this human learns, grows to understand, and ultimately becomes has a lot to do with the type of leadership in his/her life. This is where your influence as a parent comes into play.

There’s no greater charge committed to parents than to provide leadership and direction in the life of their child. This involves molding the child in the Lord Jesus—from the cradle to independent adulthood. All of your child’s first experiences with people will begin with you. Your leadership will impact your child’s emotional and psychological development. The problem we are facing as Christians today is we have delegated the responsibility of leading our children to others such as: grandparents, schoolteachers, principals, guidance counselors, religious leaders, civil leaders, and even sports coaches. Everyone seems to have some kind of influence with our children except for the one God intended in the beginning of the child’s life, which is the parent. 

There are many parents who have reduced their leadership responsibilities to cooking their child’s meals, checking homework, and taking the child to school, doctors’ appointments, and church on Sundays. There is a difference between being a caregiver and a leader in your child’s life. While caregiving is important, it does not substitute for teaching, reinforcing, and leading. In order to provide these dynamics, a parent must be willing to invest personal time emotionally and spiritually. What many parents must understand is the child doesn’t know anything; he/she is raw and new to life. If the child isn’t taught and led under godly and secure leadership from his parents, destructive patterns will occur, which will lead to immoral behavior.  

Maybe many Christian parents are in the home with their children but not into the lives of their children. Leaders must be willing to invest in the lives of those under their care.  They must be willing to go to the core of a person to help bring forth growth and development from those they are leading.  The parent-leader must be willing to see him/herself as just that—a parent-leader. This type of leadership comes by way of the Lord Jesus through the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is under God-ordained authority and must grow and produce the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). 

The parent-leader must be willing to fellowship with other spiritually productive parents and must be self-sacrificing and willing to make the child their number one priority. This leadership should be loving, transparent, affectionate and willing to live as an example before the child in all things.  

As you can see, every child has parents but not every child has a parent-leader in their lives. It’s obvious that many children are turning to leadership from other sources, which can be extremely unhealthy. This can stop if Christian parents will seek to learn and develop in their God-given roles as parent-leaders.