Intentional Godly Parenting

Raising children is not for sissy's! Neither can I get away with 'going with the flow' or   'swinging it'. More likely then not I'll end up reverting to old patterns and ways my parents brought me up. Not that it was all bad or wrong, the are many things I can learn from them and many things i appreciate and admire about them! There may also be things that weren't so beneficial. doing anything of worth requires more then allowing habits or assumptions to lead the way, no matter how effective or ineffective they are. Ethan Hawke says " you have to constantly keep in check why it is your doing what your doing and not just let inertia carry you forward". This is A quote I have loved since my late teens and has effectively been one of the things that has defined me as a person. The bible says the heart is the wellspring of life ( proverbs 4:23), we are instructed to guard it. We don't usually guard or watch over something that's worthless, we don't care if it gets destroyed or stolen or thrown out, it means nothing to us. Our heart should be different because out of it flows all the issues of life! Only a foolish person would take no notice of it. Out of our heart flows thoughts, behaviors and actions.
This is why I find it so important, especially in raising my boys, that i am willing to lay to the side human traditions, ungodly assumptions and goals, peoples opinions if necessary and my own family's accepted norms and concentrate on  'training up' my child in Gods way's. Gods objective is that we train our children, not for the sake of having well-behaved children, but so that one generation can learn from the other and follow Gods ways. Deut 6:2-4 says :"

 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. ³ Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you"

People have said on my search to understand the heart of my child that I'm taking this parenting thing too seriously, that I'm over thinking it and should just relax. I fully understand that there are those  that can become obsessed to the point of making parenting an idol and an end goal to their own fullfillment of righteous good works, or even verging on O.C.D. All I know, that it is my christian  duty and conviction to not let 'any of these little ones stumble and  fall', Matthew 18:6. James Dobson is convinced that

 "raising healthy children becomes a highly developed art,requiring the greatest wisdom, patience devotion and love God has given us. Paul the apostle called the christian life a 'reasonable service'. We parents would do well to apply the same standard of behavior to our children". 

And not only should we apply the same standard of behaviour to our children that God requires of us, but we must be willing to apply the same diligence that we put in to our own christian walk to 
training up our children under the Lord. T. Tripp askes in 'shepherding a childs heart', are we willing 
to sit down and analyze our children's strengths and weaknesses, our training objectives, short term 
and long term goals, strategies for parenting and our own strengths and weaknesses in parenting? We 
must alway know what, how and why we do what we do, never letting tradition, assumptions or ignorance dictate our actions.