I was checking a friends blog this evening, and she posted this prayer. I was so touched and moved that I had to add it to our site as well. What an amazing prayer. The kids and I have been doing a Proverb a day together in the morning, and we close our little Bible study with a prayer. I think tomorrow I'm going to print this out and pray this wounderful prayer with them. Parenting can be such a challenge, and I do pray with them daily that God will give me patience and wisdom, and help me be a better mommy everyday. They've heard it so much that sometimes they say it when they pray:) But, I think it's so important for them to know that I mess up too, that I need Gods's help and forgivness too. So, thanks Bridget for sharing.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Make me a better parent. Teach me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say and to answer all their questions kindly.

Keep me from interrupting them, talking back to them and contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me.

Give me the courage to confess my sins against my children and to ask them forgiveness when I know that I have done them wrong.

Grant that I may never vainly hurt the feelings of my children. Forbid that I should laugh at their mistakes or resort to shame and ridicule as punishment.

Let me not tempt my child to lie or steal. So guide me hour by hour that I might demonstrate by all I say and do that honestly produces happiness.

Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. May I cease to nag, and when I am out of sorts, help me O Lord, to hold my tongue. Blind me to the little errors of my children, and help me to see the good things they do.

Give me a ready word to honest praise. Help me to grow up with my children, to treat them as those of their own age, but let me not expect of them the judgments and conventions of adults.

Allow me not to rob them of the opportunity to learn for themselves, to think, to choose and to make decisions. Forbid that I should ever punish them for my selfish satisfaction.

May I grant them all their wishes that are reasonable,
And may I have the courage always to withhold a privilege which I know will do them harm.

Make me fair and just, and considerate and companionable to my children that they will have a genuine esteem for me. Make me fit to be loved and imitated by my children.

Amen.

Author: Garry C. Myers, as quoted by Abigail Van Buren in "Dear Abbey."