During the past summer, my wife (Colleen) and I had the privilege of attending our son James and daughter Sians' weddings in Cape Town, South Africa. What a glorious time of celebration and rejoicing as we witnessed our two amazing, talented and gifted children say 'I do'. Making a commitment to their respective spouses to love, honour and cherish them until 'death do us part'.
As a dad, my greatest honour was to walk Sian down the aisle, and then officiate the wedding. It truly was a 'wow' and a very special moment that I will always treasure in my life.
James and Robyn (Payne) Wewege Married: 29 December 2013 |
With three wonderful and amazing children, but by no means perfect, Colleen and I often receive the following praise from people we meet; "you are so lucky you have three wonderful, talented and well-behaved children'.
Whenever we receive feedback like that, I say to them, "Please look me in the eye. This is NOT LUCK. You cannot buy ready made adults or teenagers from the local supermarket that are already perfect. What you see is a result of blood, sweat, tears, love, encouragement, discipline and prayer". What a mouthful! But its true. Parenting is hard work. It's not for the faint-hearted.
Junior and Sian (Wewege) Fesola'i 18 January 2014 |
Colleen and I are by no means perfect parents, experts in this field or authors of a number of books on the subject, but ... we did do something right! My passion is to share some insights to help you in your parenting. To help you develop a 'I can do it' attitude with your teenagers, so that you will be able to experience and truly love the precious gifts that have been entrusted to you.
Over the next ten weeks, I want to share via my blog 10 practical steps that you can use to help you parent your teenagers. They will be manageable steps. Something simple that could be life changing. Practical so that you can experience and witness the change.
If you keep doing the same thing you will experience the same result. If you want a different result, you must try something different.
From next week, I will commence with the first practical step in a ten week series called "Lets Get Practical"