Dan Clark - The Art of Raising Significant Children

THE ART OF
RAISING
SIGNIFICANT
CHILDREN

PARENTING 101-606

PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY, SPIRITUALLY, EMOTIONALLY AN SOCIALLY

BY DAN CLARK, CSP, CPAE

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR

2012 UTAH FATHER OF THE YEAR

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Albert Einstein

When we treat a man as he is, we make him worse than he is; but when we treat him as if he is already what he potentially could be, he becomes what he should be.

Goethe

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain

No other success can compensate for failure in the home.

David McKay

OTHER BOOKS AVAILABLE BY DAN CLARK

The Art of Significance-Achieving The Level Beyond Success

(Audio Book Also Available)

The Art of Significance Study Guide Training Manual

The Art of Significant Relationships

The Art of Significant Coaching and Building A Winning Team

The Art of Significant Leadership and Talent Development

The Art of Significant Speaking and Storytelling What I Learned From Zig Ziglar That You Should Know

The Art of Significant Selling, Marketing and Closing More Deals

The Art of Significant Network Marketing

(Audio Book and Study Guide)

Chicken Soup for the College Soul

The Most Popular Stories By Dan Clark In Chicken Soup For The Soul

Puppies for Sale (Illustrated Childrens Storybook)

Clarks Childrens Classics

Soul Food (The Complete Dan Clark Collection)

Puppies for Sale and Other Inspirational Tales

Dan Clarks Humor File A Repository of Jokes and B.S. Tales

A Treasury of Dan Clark Quotes, Lyrics and Poems

The Art Of Raising Significant Children

Copyright 2017 Dan Clark.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my dad, S. Wayne Clark, who inspired me to write my hit song Special Man with the lyrical chorus hook, Any male can be a father, but it takes a special man to be a dad.

To my angel mom, Ruby Maughan Clark, youngest of nine children, raised by a single mom on a farm in southern Idaho (widowed when Ruby was only seven years old), who clearly kept me out of jail, alive, and the inspirational reason I am striving everyday to be physically strong, mentally awake and ethically straight.

To My Sweet KC, wife, lover, equal parenting partner for over 37 years, who sets the high bar for every woman, wife, mother, and grandmother to also be a skin care expert, makeup artist, fitness guru, nutrition/exercise counselor, interior decorator, stage/set designer, parade float creator/builder, dance choreographer, sought after event coordinator, and female superstar who has superseded work/life balance to create harmony.

To my four amazing, talented, extraordinary and significant children Danny, Nikola, McCall, and Alexandrea for finding wisdom, comfort, laughter, learning and solace in my speeches, stories, anecdotes, systems and words. I love you and need each of you in my life forever. Proving Gods plan to be the perfect plan of happiness: Families are forever if not, then whats forever for?

To H. Stephen Glenn PhD (Developing Capable Young People), and Jane Nelson PhD (Positive Discipline), and world renown marriage counselor/family therapist Dr. Lynn Scoresby PhD for their mentorship and the opportunity to share the platform with them on numerous occasions as they shared their unique insights, research, understanding and wisdom about parenting. I have raised four amazing children because of what they taught me.

MUST-READ INTRODUCTION

AMERICAN CRISIS URGENT PARENT ALERT!

We live in a cold, cruel, disgusting, dysfunctional, evil world, that is continually going downhill as you read this. The startling, sad, negative, discouraging, and brutal facts are devastating, especially when you are contemplating getting married and bringing children into this world. Read em and weep:

Based on the fact that the things we hate to hear the most are usually the things we need to hear the most, I need to share a glimpse into the 21st century attitude towards parenting (or lack thereof), and what we should do about it.

The scariest reality-check regarding these eye-opening, heartbreaking statistics is the fact that the educated, well-trained, employed, articulate and committed married couples are having on average two children. The uneducated, untrained, unemployed and on welfare, inarticulate, and non-married couples are having on average five children. It wont be too long before the uneducated, unemployed, and dysfunctional families on the welfare rolls will out number the educated functional families, which changes our political leadership as they vote, destroys our schools because of the high drop out rate, and pretty much destroys the opportunity for these children to see a two parent team as roll models for what their relationship and family should be.

When our children are in front of a television set or a movie screen, we are permitting them to be educated (indoctrinated) by the most effective and persuasive educational tool in America today. Many of the most widely viewed TV programs have conditioned us to believe that premarital, even extra-marital, sexual relationships are perfectly all right provided they are meaningful relationships. Seventy-four percent of all sexual relationships on television are between unmarried people. This clearly teaches that sex outside of marriage is not only okay, but is exciting and beautiful.

Furthermore, a report in Christianity Today involving 38,000 victims of rape revealed that 41 percent of the victims were sexually molested immediately after the rapist had read a pornographic magazine or had seen a pornographic video. This is not being prudish, but to highlight the brutal facts of reality that the trouble with this wide-open use of pornography is not that it corrupts but that it desensitizes; not that it unleashes the passions but that it cripples the emotions; not that it encourages a mature attitude but that it is a reversion to infantile obsessions; not that it removes blinders but that it distorts the view. Pornography denies true love, and turns a perceived liberation into blatant dehumanization!

We have also been desensitized and conditioned to believe that drinking alcohol is the preferred way of life, as every seven minutes on TV we see drinks being offered.

For the record, I am not saying that the primary danger in watching television lies in the behavior it produces, but in the behavior it prevents and the freewill agency it affects in regards to choosing the higher road less traveled. Every hour of staring at the television is one less hour invested in personal development, mental creativity, physical exercise and actual interaction with family members especially between parents and our kids.

Movies are still making smoking to appear as a glamorous, macho-man, sophisticated lady habit, without teaching our children that every cigarette you smoke means that you have chosen to die fourteen minutes earlier than you would have had you not chosen to smoke that cigarette.

WHERE ARE THE PARENTS? A PATHETIC PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

According to national statistics and an ongoing Josh McDowell publication, in the next twelve months 500,000 children will attempt suicide; more than 1 million kids will run away from home; 275,000 teenage girls will give birth to illegitimate babies; 418,000 girls under nineteen will have an abortion; 12 million teenagers will take some form of narcotics and regularly use hard drugs; 3.3 million young people will end up with a serious drinking problem; 5 million children will become the victims of a devastating divorce; and 4 million children will be beaten, molested, or otherwise abused by their parents.