There is a science to parenting. It’s a pity it isn’t taught.
Parenting is arguably the most important job in the world, yet most of us begin it with remarkably little training. We may spend months researching strollers, car seats, and the safest crib mattress, but almost no time learning how to raise a kind, resilient, responsible human being. Babies do not arrive with instruction manuals—although they do arrive with a highly effective alarm system.
Research into human well-being repeatedly reaches the same conclusion: the quality of our relationships is among the strongest predictors of lifelong happiness. Our children’s future happiness will therefore depend not only on their grades, careers, or financial success, but on whether they can form healthy relationships, treat people well, resolve conflict, and become loving spouses, friends, parents, colleagues, and neighbors.
Yet how much time do we spend deliberately teaching those abilities?
We teach children mathematics, history, and science. We drive them to sports practices and music lessons. We worry about which schools they attend and whether they will get into college. These things have value, but parenting isn’t simply about raising successful children. It’s about raising good people.
Every parent is raising someone’s future spouse, friend, colleague, neighbor, and parent. The way our children treat others will affect far more people than their test scores ever will.
This task has become particularly difficult in a culture that often seems to be working against us. Parents are trying to teach faith, restraint, kindness, gratitude, and responsibility while their children are exposed to materialism, overt sexuality, social media comparison, and screens deliberately designed to hold their attention.
Previous generations worried about whether their children were spending too much time watching television. Today, children can carry the entire internet into their bedrooms in their pockets. The phone may be called “smart,” but it does not always make family life smarter.
So how do we raise children with strong values in a values-confused world?
First, we must recognize that values cannot be outsourced. Schools can provide an education, churches can nurture faith, and communities can offer support, but parents remain the most influential teachers in a child’s life. Children copy our values long before they obey our rules. What we model, celebrate, permit, and repeatedly practice becomes the culture of our home.
Second, we must make our values visible. It is not enough to hope that children will somehow absorb kindness, honesty, faith, self-control, and respect. We need to talk about these principles, demonstrate them, and connect them to ordinary decisions. Values shape choices, and choices shape lives.
Third, we must remember that protecting children is not the same as preparing them for a happy, successful life. Children need love and security, but they also need boundaries, responsibility, consequences, and age-appropriate challenges. If we solve every problem for them, we may make childhood easier while making adulthood harder. The purpose of parenting is ultimately to work ourselves out of a job—to raise young people who can manage themselves and make wise decisions when we are no longer standing beside them.
These ideas inspired me to write Spaceship Parenting: Raising Smarter, Kinder, More Capable Children. The book begins when an alien named Nova lands in my backyard. She has not traveled across galaxies to discuss world peace or the meaning of life. She has come to address something even more fundamental to our future: how we raise our children.
Through a humorous conversation, Nova introduces the Ten Rules of Spaceship Parenting—a practical, science-informed framework for raising children who can think for themselves, build strong relationships, live by meaningful values, and grow into confident, emotionally healthy adults.
Its central message will resonate strongly with Christian parents: faith, morality, family, and character are not old-fashioned extras. They are the foundations of a meaningful life and a flourishing society.
Our greatest legacy will not be the possessions we leave our children. It will be the character we develop within them.
The world does not simply need more successful people. It needs more good people—and the road to a better world begins at the front door of every home.
Learn more about or purchase Spaceship Parenting HERE.
