We have a choice: Either we teach our children good values or we abandon their future to chance. If we don't teach our children, somebody else will.

Consider the influences on your children: other neighborhood kids, 30 or more hours before the television each week, questionable printed material and unrestricted peer pressure from classmates. Who is really teaching them?

For most parents, the honest answer is that others have far more influence on children than they do.

How can we gain and maintain proper influence over what our children learn? How can we help ensure that they learn proper values and standards? Here are practical keys to bringing up successful children:

• The key of education. The pattern of a child's life is often established by age 3. After this age basic patterns of behavior change only with considerable difficulty; the child's personality is largely set.

After age 3, however, a child will learn a great deal through formal education. Reading to your children while they are young broadens their world and sets the stage for them to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. You can help your children learn to love books.

Suggest books that match their interests. If they're fascinated by one author, encourage them to read other books by that same writer. Let your children choose some of what they read. Make time to take them to the library to browse among the books of their choice. Reading to your children teaches more than just learning skills. It also brings families closer and makes children feel they are loved.

Do not fail to give your children spiritual guidance. A good way to do this is to read to them from the Bible. As you go through biblical stories with them, note the problems the real-life men and women of Bible times faced and how they dealt with them. Point out the lessons they learned and the cause-and-effect relationships described there. The Bible is a book of cause and effect and often shows the consequences of right and wrong behavior. Its lessons can help your children through difficult times in their lives.

• The key of personal involvement. Many parents, busy with their jobs, careers and other pressures, are quick to give money and other things to their children. It's too easy to overlook that, rather than money and other things, what they really crave is our time with them.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of parental involvement. Children simply need their parents. They want and require their love, attention, support and encouragement. If you take the time to look around and notice well-balanced, secure children, you can usually follow the involvement trail right back to their parents. Get involved with your children. You will reap rich dividends for yourself and them.

• The key of loving discipline. Parents should sensitively and lovingly guide their families. They should set sensible rules for their children, appropriate to each child's age. Peace requires order, and order requires certain rules. Parents must take the time to explain why each rule exists—in a way the child can understand at his or her age—showing that rules are set to help, not hurt.

Of course, parents must follow the same rules. If children are expected to eat good breakfasts, Dad shouldn't head out the door with a doughnut clenched between his teeth. Scripture describes the value and effectiveness of self-discipline (Proverbs 7:1-2; 8:33-36; 10:17; 13:1, 18; 19:20), which takes patient teaching and a good parental example. When small children understand how things work and how they benefit from doing things right, they are more apt to successfully govern themselves.

• The key of hugging, holding and reassurance. A parent should never feel embarrassed to show affection through hugging and holding his children. All children need affection and reassurance to know that their parents really love them. When they succeed at just about anything, encourage them, letting them know you are pleased to see their success. Of course, say it in your own words, but say it. Children need reassurance, just as adults do.

Life is short, gone before we know it. Parents, love your children and teach them while you can. Take advantage of the time you as a parent have with your children. GN