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If I Were Starting My Family Again		John M. Drescher
$5.00	"What have you learned from your own experiences and from counseling parents? What should I have done differently? I have young children. If your children were small again, what would you do?" These words burst from a troubled father sitting across from me. His eyes searched for help. He was suffering the awful, empty, death-like feeling of a father whose son has strayed. He felt he had failed as a parent. This father's words stay with me. Although they came to me in a direct, blunt way that day, they are not the words of a lone parent. In them are the questions that are uppermost in the minds of all mothers and fathers who take parenthood seriously. What has experience taught me? What has some experience in counseling given me? What insights and feelings have I gathered? And where would I place the emphasis if my children were small again? In answer to the father who sat across the desk I've jotted down my reflections. I've added a thought or paragraph now and again as one has come to me. Like most important experiences in life, these ideas are not new or great. Nor are they difficult to remember. I write as a father because much of what I have to say comes from my own life. I hope mothers don't find this too limiting and are able to find applicable ideas here as well! I intend this collection to be useful for all parents. These simple suggestions, I believe, can make relationships with our children more meaningful. They can help shape the future of our children more than big things that demand a great deal of time and exceptional ingenuity. They are things that God has made so simple that all parents can practice them if they will. What I offer here is what I wish I had realized more fully at the start of my own family. These remain goals toward which I seek to move. If what I share here can be a small stimulus to parents just beginning, or can become a fresh nudge to more established families, my purpose will be fulfilled. Chapters I Would Love My Wife More I Would Laugh More with My Children I Would Be a Better Listener I Would Seek to Be More Honest I Would Stop Praying for My Family I Would Try for More Togetherness I Would Do More Encouraging I Would Pay More Attention to Little Things I Would Seek to Develop Feelings of Belonging I Would Seek to Share God More Intimately 55 pages. Paperback. Good Books.

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