Several years ago Kim and I attended a 12 week class entitled, "growing kids god's way."

A key lesson learned was: Instead of making rules, Mom and Dad must agree on a set of principles that you teach to your children. When a child makes a mistake you correct them in terms of the principal instead of a specific rule. These principals should be short, sweet, easy to remember, and scriptural. For example:

Respect the property of others. (scripture = do unto others...)

Proper application of this principal means you don't need to make the following rules
- don't run in the house
- don't enter your brother's room without asking permission first
- ask before borrowing my stuff, etc.

The goal is to raise children that understand a few guiding principles and can apply them to new situations - ALL BY THEMSELVES when you're not around.

So ... Off the top of my head ... here's a list of principles for raising kids followed by a list for having a good marriage.  Did I miss anything? Do you agree, disagree?

Here are my guiding principles for life and raising children.
1. Love God
2. Love your neighbor
3. People are more important than things
- I will not verbally abuse you because you wrecked my new car.
4. Total Honesty, Total Integrity
-Always tell the truth - even when it hurts you
- if you make a commitment you must keep it
- Trust is VITAL ... easy to lose and hard to regain
5. Never try to hide bad news - in the long run Mom and Dad eventually find out and it's easier to fix the situation earlier than later.
6. Honor your parents, honor those with more wisdom and experience than you
7. Work as hard as you can and be the best that you can
8. Dad supports Mom's decisions 100% and vice versa.
- and we usually discuss it in advance
- when we disagree we do it privately and we publicly support past decisions
9. Life isn't fair and neither am I. Each child is different, just because Matt got to do it doesn't mean you're allowed to do it.
10. Once I make a firm decision I almost never change my mind.... hence I try not to make quick decisions without getting all the facts first.
- no amount of whining or crying will make me change my mind
- If you bring me new data I may make a new decision ... next time, but I'm probably going to stick with the current decision right now ... It's your job to bring me all the data before forcing me to make a bad decision.
11. I'm not perfect. I admit it when I made a bad decision, and try to do better next time.

Guiding principals for marriage
1. all of the above
2. The husband-wife relationship is 2nd only to God.... more imporant than parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, the boss, etc.
3. Before getting married you and your fiance' MUST agree on several critical issues

a. this is how we will handle our disagreements
b. this is how we will handle our parents, family, in-laws, out-laws, ex-wife, etc.
c. this is how we will raise our children
- we'd like to have this many children...
- we agree on abortion, adoption, in-vitro, surrogates, sperm donors, etc...
d. this is how we will choose a local church family to join
- this is our theology and we both agree 100% of these critical issues
- we disagree in these areas, but we're both ok with the other person's opinion
e. we agree on these basic premises for handling money
f. marriage is permanent and sacred. I will never leave you. We agree on these basic ground rules for sex and how to handle disagreements.
g. I will never deliberately do something to hurt you ... if you are hurt it was an accident/oversight on my part ... we will work together to fix the problem. Fixing a marriage problem will always be top priority.
i. I've spent some time praying and discussing the above decisions with my fiancee, with my parents, my preacher, my best friend, etc. Everyone understands that my new priority will become my spouse.
- see rule #6 above ... honor means listen to their advice, but it doesn't mean you have to take their advice - ultimately adults make their own decisions.