Cliff McNeely - Kid CEO: How to Keep Your Children from Running Your Life

Copyright 2004 by Edwin B. Young.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee 37214. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the KING JAMES VERSION.

Scripture quotations noted TLB are from The Living Bible, copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Any emphases or parenthetical comments within Scripture are the authors own.

Warner Faith

Hachette Book Group USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

First eBook Edition: September 2004

ISBN: 978-0-446-51025-7

This book is dedicated to the men and women
who wake up every morning in the trenches of parenthood.
I applaud your selfless devotion and dedication to the toughest
assignment on the planet. My prayer is that the following
pages will help you discover the rewards of building both
your marriage and your family Gods way.

Many people helped me bring this project to completion. I thank my wife, Lisa, for being a constant source of knowledge, help, and encouragement. She has been my marriage partner for over twenty years and my partner in parenting for nearly seventeen years, and I could not have written this book without her. I thank my parents, Dr. Ed and Jo Beth Young, for teaching and modeling the kind of parenting I write about. I thank Cliff McNeely for helping me organize material and develop the final manuscript over the past year. I also want to acknowledge several other staff members at Fellowship ChurchAndy Boyd, Laura Strickland, Preston Mitchell, Troy Page, and Rob Johnsonwho assisted me with research, editing, and proofing the manuscript at various stages. And I thank the great people of Fellowship Church for allowing me as your pastor to discover these biblical parenting principles along with you over the past fourteen years.

For years we have been living in a values vacuum in America. Our culture has become increasingly more permissive to the point that practically any kind of behavior or lifestyle is considered acceptable by at least some group. We are now reaping the results of decades of self-centered individualism: every thirty seconds there is a divorce in America. Sexually transmitted diseases are at an epidemic level. Every fourth child born in America is born to an unwed mother, and millions of other children are growing up with absentee parents.

The family is under attack from all sides. Some say the family is obsolete and irrelevant in twenty-first-century society. Others want to change the biblical and historical definitions of marriage and family. Still others want the government to play a greater role in raising children and want parents to be less responsible. These trends can be discouraging, but the family is not finished; its just fragile and fragmented, and needs to be strengthened.

To strengthen todays families we must return to our Owners Manual for life, the Bible. Since the creation of families was Gods idea, he, not some current talk show host, is the trustworthy source for principles of family living. Kid CEO is based on Gods timeless principles.

This is an important book for our time. My good friend Ed Young has done us all a great service by writing it. It is filled with practical wisdom on parenting that we all can benefit from. My prayer is that you will not only read this volume but also apply these principles as a parent so both you and your children will serve Gods purpose in your generation (Acts 13:36).

Dr. Rick Warren
Lake Forest, California

Im Not Kidding!

Parenting has become a joke!

Thats probably not what you expected to read at the beginning of a book on parenting. But Im not kiddingits the truth. It is not some flippant, broad-brushed statement just to get your attention. Im simply communicating what Ive observed over the past several decades as a speaker, author, pastor, and parent. And the sad thing is, parents, the jokes on us. Our kids are kidding us when it comes to leadership in the home. They have taken over the family, and we have let them.

Thats why Ive written this book. This book has emerged from a series of talks I put together on marriage and parenting. The response was so overwhelming, I was encouraged to put the series into print. I dont say that to pat myself on the back but to indicate to you the tremendous need for the tried-and-tested parenting principles in this book. In the pages to come I want to answer the burning question: how can parents take back control of the family?

The principles addressed in this book apply to all types of parents and all types of households. Whether in a nuclear family, a blended family, a single-parent family, a foster family, or any other type of guardianship, the caregivers are the parents in that household. And all parents, regardless of the makeup of their particular household, must understand and live out these parenting principles if they hope to create and maintain control in the home.

I wrote this book to call parents, whether single or married, back to the leadership role they were meant to assume in the home. I will share some of the parenting struggles my wife and I have experienced over the years, and some of the valuable lessons we have learned in bringing up our four children. More important, I will share with you what I believe to be the Source for the answers we seek in parenting and in life. I truly believe that the principles in this book, taken within their context, can change the trajectory of your family like nothing youve ever experienced.

In these introductory pages, I want to say a special word to those who are single parents. Figures from the 2000 U.S. Census reveal that 31 percent of households with children under eighteen years of age are single-parent families (an increase from 13 percent in 1970). If youre doing the parenting thing alone, you have a heavy load to bear as the provider, the caregiver, and the disciplinarian in your home. My deepest admiration is reserved for those of you who find yourselves in this difficult role. As a single parent reading this book, you might begin to think, This isnt for me. Hes writing to married parents, and this really doesnt apply to my situation. Let me put your doubts to rest right now and assure you this book does apply to you as a single parent.

While its true I will be upholding marriage as the central relationship in the home, your role as a single parent represents that vital relationship in your family. In other words, your family will be a reflection of your life and relationships, just as the family where both parents are present will reflect the life and relationships of the husband and wife. You are the leader. You set the agenda. You determine the course for your family. The temptation, unfortunately, in single-parent homes is for the reverse to happen. With the dizzying demands of work, family, and any remnants of a social life, it is so easy to allow your kids to take over. You may have just given up because you dont have the energy to fight the battles anymore. But let me be as clear as possible on this point: giving your kids control is not the easy way out. Whatever battles you dont fight now will turn into a full-blown war later on.