Yancy Camp Parenting Tips

SHOW your kids how to serve others
*They need to witness you living a life to service to others while expecting nothing in return. Encourage them to do the same when opportunities exist (they exist daily).

TEACH the value of a dollar and the importance of earning to support vs earning to compile material possessions.
*Fun thing you can do is adopt Saturday Adventures – hitting garage sales and finding a new game to play is always a lot of fun. You’ll be surprised at the fun games you find for usually a $1 or less.

ASK your kids to forgive you when you mess up
*Teaching the value of forgiveness is one of the most valuable time investments you’ll ever provide for your kids.

SET HEALTHY BOUNDARIES with grandpartents

TEACH your kids how to communicate
*Set them up in situations where they have to use verbal communication.
*A fun challenge – every time you go to a public event where there are numerous adults, challenge your kids to have a conversation with a random person at the party/event and then after the event, have them describe the conversation and what was discussed.

ONLY 1 extra curricular per child
*It’s important to not allow extra curricular to take the place of family time at home 5+ nights a week. In our family we do allow a little freedom with this one because both our kids attend once a week Jiu Jitsu classes and we consider this a lifetime sport that will provide an extra level of mental discipline. Currently our kids are allowed to participate in one traditional sport they’ll end up having the opportunity to play in MS/HS + Jiu Jitsu. The main focus here to to ensure extra curricular activities don’t have the family running around non stop every week.

HAVE electronic free zones/vacations

PRAY! No matter what prayer looks like in your family, I encourage you to pray as a family. For our family this will often times look like an open normal conversation where we show great respect for each other as we have a healthy conversation with Jesus. No matter if you’re a believer or not, he was a pretty cool dude who hung out with us for 30+ years and showed us many great examples of how to treat people. Whatever prayer might look like in your home, I recommend having healthy conversations together with your entire family. Often times people will shy away from prayer because it seems like it’s supposed to be formal. At our house, we just have a chill conversation with JC.

Have a GREAT marriage
It’s so important for your kids to see you and your spouse modeling what a great marriage looks like. Model exactly what you’d want to see in their future marriage.

Have a family CONTRACT
*In our family we have a contract. One of they key bullet points in this contract is to ensure our kids understand they are members of the family who will always have a say in every topic of discussion. They will always have a chance to communicate their thoughts and feelings. Another great bullet point is to make it a rule that everyone in the family remember to hit the pause button before losing their temper. There’s almost never a reason to react to anything in an angry manner. Calling a family time out is a great way to have a rational discussion on topics where there are differences of opinions. It’s important to model at home how you’d want your kids reacting to situations at school, work, and in the community.

*There may be a few of these that just won’t fit around your house and that’s okay. These are just some of the things we’ve put in place around our home. Much love from the Culp family in Austin TX.