Seven Key Relationships #4
Your Children: Loving Them No Matter What… and Even If
There are few relationships in life as profound, emotional, and transformational as the one you share with your children. This relationship shapes you in ways you never expected — stretching your heart, testing your patience, inviting your growth, and expanding your capacity to love.
According to Dr. Paul Jenkins, parenting isn’t just raising children.
Parenting is the world’s most important job — and the ultimate personal development program.
It’s the place where your heart is refined, your character is strengthened, and your love is tested again and again. And unlike any other relationship, your children depend on you to learn how to navigate the world.
But here’s the piece that many parents overlook:
👉 Your job is to love your children no matter what… and even if.
No matter what choices they make.
No matter what emotions they express.
No matter how challenging, messy, or imperfect the journey becomes.
And even if they disobey, push boundaries, make mistakes, or struggle.
Your job is unconditional love.
Their job is growth, learning, and developing maturity — at their pace, not yours.
🌼 Why Parenting Comes After the First Three Relationships
In the seven key relationships, children come fourth for an important reason.
You can’t give what you don’t have.
You cannot parent well if:
Your relationship with your Creator is shaky
Your relationship with yourself is depleted
Your relationship with your spouse is strained
Those three relationships create the emotional environment your children grow up in.
When they’re strong, your children feel safe.
When they’re unstable, your children feel it long before you say a word.
Order matters because parenting draws from every other relationship you have.
🌿 Your Child's Maturity Determines Your Level of Control
One of Dr. Paul’s most grounding insights is this:
👉 The level of control you use must match your child’s level of maturity.
Small children need high external control:
clear rules, structure, direction, boundaries.
As they grow, your job is to gradually shift control from you to them, allowing them to choose, experience consequences, learn, and rise.
Too much control leads to rebellion.
Too little control leads to insecurity.
Parenting well is balancing:
✨ Love
✨ Discipline
✨ Support
✨ And gradually releasing control as they become capable
This rhythm builds leaders, not followers.
Get Your Control/Maturity Model Graphic FREE!
http://DrPaulJenkins.com/Stages
🌾 Your Support Team Matters More Than You Think
Parenting is not meant to be done alone.
Dr. Paul emphasizes the importance of intentionally building a support team — teachers, coaches, grandparents, babysitters, mentors, trusted friends.
Not to replace your parenting…
but to widen the circle of love and wisdom around your child — and to support you emotionally and practically.
Your support team helps you breathe.
Helps you regroup.
Helps you show up as the best version of yourself.
And that matters.
🌸 The Relationship With Your Children Is One of Life’s Deepest Meanings
Parenting isn’t a duty.
It’s a purpose.
This relationship brings meaning, joy, depth, and connection in ways no other relationship can.
Children remind us:
to slow down
to be present
to delight in small things
to grow emotionally
to let go of perfection
And ultimately, to learn unconditional love.
This relationship is not about shaping them into who you want them to be — it’s about creating the environment where they can discover who they already are.
Parenting is not only about their transformation.
It is about yours.
🌱 Reflection Questions for Your Journal
What does loving my child “no matter what… and even if” look like today?
Am I matching my level of control to my child’s maturity?
Where could I offer more emotional safety or unconditional acceptance?
What support do I need to parent well in this season?
How is parenting shaping me as a person?
🌿 Closing Thought
Your relationship with your children is sacred, meaningful, and irreplaceable.
It will grow you, stretch you, and fill your heart in ways nothing else can.
Your job is not to control everything.
Your job is not to guarantee outcomes.
Your job is not to fix every mistake.
👉 Your job is to love — no matter what, and even if.
Your job is to guide with wisdom.
Your job is to nurture maturity.
Your job is to offer presence, structure, and unwavering acceptance.
And in doing so, you’re not just raising children.
You’re raising future families — and shaping the world one loving interaction at a time.
DOWNLOAD your 7 KEY RELATIONSHIPS Journal HERE
🌿 Inspired by Dr. Paul Jenkins, PsychologistHow to Experience Joy in Your Seven Key Relationships
This series draws inspiration from the work of Dr. Paul Jenkins, Positive Psychologist and author of Pathological Positivity. His teachings on the seven foundational relationships—and his mission through Live On Purpose Central—invite us to see life differently, choose joy intentionally, and nurture the connections that shape our fulfillment.