Here are some tips on ways to cultivate openness with your child…

• No matter how much you think you know your child, be willing to let your child teach you about themselves.
• Listen with the goal of understanding—not just to assess right or wrong, guilt or innocence.
• Model good non-verbal behavior in communication.  Negative non-verbal communication can drown out

what is being said verbally.

• Let your walk match your talk—kids can spot a phony from a mile away!
• Be consistent.
• Encourage and help to create time for all family members to have a quiet time with God.  Hearts can be

drawn apart if each person isn’t seeking God on a daily basis.

Guiding Passages:

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”  Proverbs 22:6

“Whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.”  Colossians 3:17