Starting tomorrow my friends and often-turned-to parenting mentors, Dr. Duane and Barbara Scarborough, will be sharing some of their parenting best practices!

Often Sherri and I call Duane and Barb for parenting insights. Some time ago it occurred to me that I should not keep these nuggets to myself so I’m going to share them!

A brief introduction from Duane and then we’ll get started… tomorrow.

I feel honored that Paul Peterson, a man I greatly admire as a parent, would ask me to write a couple posts on best parenting practices for his blog. Parenting is one of the greatest joys and most awesome responsibilities that we can have. It can be filled with inexpressible joy and can have unbelievable pain. I do not have any special training or degrees that make me an expert in the field but do have some experience. I have been a parent for 32 years. I have three daughters and an adopted son. No grandchildren yet. Hopefully not because my kids’ childhood was so traumatic that they choose not to have children of their own. I have been blessed to grow up in a stable Christian home with loving parents. I am further blessed to be married to a loving, wise and, supportive wife for 33 years who is the biggest reason (besides the Lord’s grace) why my kids turned out as well as they did. Lest you think that I believe that I am an expert and perfect parent I will also tell you that we had our son’s biological brother with us for five years before it became necessary to have him leave our home. The boys were 7 and 8 when they came to us out of multiple abuse situations. We naively thought that love and a good Christian home could overcome any difficulty. Even with extensive counseling (to help us survive) that was not enough.

I would like to share some things I observed, learned, or wish I had learned sooner in my experience as a parent. I hope some of it may be helpful. I realize many are parenting alone today. I don’t know how you do it. Any opinions I offer do not necessarily reflect the views of Paul Peterson.