Testimonials

Growing Kid's God's Way

Dear Gary & Anne Marie

Thank you so much for your ministry, Growing Kids God’s Way. It has literally changed our lives & is the best thing we’ve done as a family. We would like to share with you just some of the ways GKGW has impacted us.

First, it has brought us closer to God personally and as a family. We pray as a family daily, and before each bedtime. It has become such a part of our daughter’s life that if we are in a hurry and should forget, she tends to stop us and remind us to "pray?".

Second, it has brought us closer as husband and wife. I have to admit I was skeptical about couch time and didn’t immediately see any difference. As our daughter has gotten older, it is something that she has come to expect and will ask for "couch time!" if we wait to long in the evening to initiate it. Spending this daily time together has brought us a new closeness we didn’t anticipate, and the security our daughter has in her parent’s relationship is priceless.

Third, through your instructions we have gained confidence in parenting. We struggled for many years with infertility before finally being blessed with our daughter and without these courses, we would have certainly led a child centered home, wanting to give her everything. This is something we continue to struggle with, but our priorities as a family are now founded in Christ and secure.

Finally, because of all the growth we have experienced and witnessed in our classmates and through diligent prayer, we feel led to join and expand your ministry by leading future classes.

Again, thank you for your service and we hope that you hear it often enough to sustain you, that we believe through God, your ministry will change the future of America one family at a time. May God continue to richly bless you both as you do His work.

In Him,

Eric & Karen

Growing up I was the product of a divorced household of dysfunctional parents. One was absent and one was both emotionally and physically abusive. In fairness to them, I’ll say that my parents were also both the products of extremely dysfunctional families with absentee or abusive or emotionally distant parents. As I grew into adulthood, married, and wanted to have a child, I feared repeating the past. My most fervent desire was to put an end to the multi-generation pattern of poor parenting.

Everyone I know has always said, "Don’t worry, it comes naturally. You’ll know what to do, Mothers are filled with instincts...just listen to your baby and yourself." Well, what those folks didn’t know while saying that to me is just what would most likely "come naturally" to me would be a tendency towards abusiveness, but I knew it.

I knew that without prayer and tangible help too, that I would not be the parent I wanted to be. I did a lot of praying and I began participating more in church. A certain degree of peace came over me about my parenting and my desire to have a child. I knew my husband came from a great family, and I trusted that with his help and God’s that I would be all right.

While I was pregnant, I heard about the Ezzo parenting classes. Many of my beliefs about the introduction of a child into our home and into our marriage were echoed by a friend who had taken the first class. I called Seacost and was lead to a class.

We’ve now taken three classes: two with one couple leading and one by video. And to be truthful, I am amazed what they’ve done for us. I know to an absolute degree of certainty that I would not be the Mother I am without the classes, and that my daughter would not be the child she is without them. (Not that either of us are even near to "perfect," but I think we’re doing pretty good so far.) And as an added bonus, the classes have even been of benefit to my marriage. The battle most of my friends have in their marriages as parents is that they and their husbands are often not on the same page-some aren’t even in the same book. But in our household, we are blessed to have read the same books!

I can’t thank the Ezzos and our class leaders enough for what they’ve given to my family. We are blessed beyond belief with a child we adore and others do too. And we are blessed to have a degree of certainty about how we are parenting when most folks are worried and uncertain.

May God bless and keep the GFI family and the small group leaders, so that His will and His teachings may be shared in the most important job on earth-that of parenting and raising future believers.

The Growing Kids Gods Way program has truly changed our family for the better. God has been working in our home and we believe that he has been working on us directly through the learning tools provided in Growing Kids Gods Way (GKGW) and the programs leading up to it. The one thing that Sherry and I each continue to repeat is how much our relationship with God has changed over the past two years. The second most significant change that has occurred is our husband-wife relationship. We have found peace and solid direction in the GKGW program.

We came to the Prep for Parenting program by what we thought was an accident. We had never heard of the program. Sherry became pregnant in 2002 and we had started looking for guidance on parenting. Sherry saw a class in the church Small Group Book titled "Preparation for Parenting". We agreed that it would be as good of a place to start as any. Now we know that God put that Small Group Book in Sherry's hands and lead her to the right page. We took Prep for Parenting and realized immediately that this was exactly what we needed. What we did not realize was how our lives would be changed by Prep for Parenting, Prep for Toddler, and Growing Kids Gods Way.

The common thing that Sherry and I realize is how much more we value our relationships with God. We have both become more diligent in our praying, Bible reading and witnessing as a result of GKGW. We have both come to realize that in order to be a better parent we must first become better children of God. Sherry said that the saying that Gary uses in the video "you will only be as good of a parent as you are a wife" could easily be replaced with "you will only be as good of a parent as you are a Christian". That is not something that Sherry would have said two years ago. Now she believes it and tries to live it. I have found myself actually looking at people with a different attitude on Friday morning during my drive to work simply due to what I learned on Thursday night in our GKGW class.

Our marriage relationship has been improved through our learning in GKGW as well as our taking and facilitating previous classes. We have realized how important our marriage relationship is to our family's future. We have become much better at communicating with each other as well as praying together. We never prayed together other than asking God to bless our food prior to getting involved in these classes. Our home is also a living example of what couch time can do for a child. We love to go on dates and were thrilled to have this program reinforce our desire to continue to grow our relationship with each other.

The GKGW program is a great building block for any family. It is amazingly clear to see how important GKGW is when looking around at the direction of so many people in our society. GKGW is contrary to everything that society teaches our educators and parents. GKGW is fundamentally the opposite of what Sherry was taught in her training to be an educator and to work with children. We believe that GKGW is balanced, rounded, common sense, and it speaks the truth. We love the fact that our child stands out in a positive way. We are pleased to hear compliments from strangers concerning our child's behavior. Better than that, we believe that God is pleased to have other people affected in such a positive manner by our child's actions. The most important thing that we believe is that our children are much more likely to grow up and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior as a result of the growth that our family is experiencing from Growing Kids Gods Way.

We thank God for bringing the Ezzos into our home.

Hank and Sherry, Goose Creek, SC

Preparation for Parenting

I wasn't sure where to go to give feedback, so I hope this email reaches the authors.

I just want to say thank you for your tremendous books! My husband and I had our first baby 4 months ago. While we prepared very well for labor and delivery, we didn't prepare for parenting! Unfortunately, we didn't realize that until after the baby had arrived.

I thought that taking care of her would be easy -- we would feed her when she was hungry, and she would sleep when she was tired. I laugh now when think about how naive I was. After a couple of weeks, I was feeling desperate.

At night she was waking up many times, wide awake. I would nurse her, she would fall asleep nursing, and I would gently lay her down and tiptoe back to bed. I would lie in bed, holding my breath. Then she would start to cry. My husband would take over, getting her out of bed to rock and hold her, trying to get her to go back to sleep. Sometimes he was successful, but sometimes he wasn't. He would bring her back to me an hour or more later, desperate himself, asking me to nurse her again. Exhausted, I would start to cry.

During the day, she would sleep for long stretches. I would often stare down at her, wondering how long to let her sleep, when I should nurse her, what I should do to turn her days and nights around. I often felt sick at my stomach feeling so uncertain about every aspect of caring for her.

It was around that time that someone recommended your first book to me, BabyWise. I read it and implemented your ideas.

Today, our home is peaceful. Just a few minutes ago, my husband put our little 4-month old down for her nap. He laid her in her crib, she smiled up at him, and he left the room. Not a peep from her. She fell asleep on her own. He said to me, "Our little daughter is awesome!!!" I want to thank you for how your book has changed our lives completely. Our daughter naps great, sleeps 11 hours through the night, and has such a wonderful, pleasant disposition. I feel very confident in taking care of her because our routine helps guide me.

I know many young moms are who ardent supporters of attachment parenting. Almost all of them are dealing with difficult sleep issues with their children. Many of them are still waking up many times through the night to nurse their babies even though their children are 8, 9, 10 months or even a year old. However, my baby takes three great naps a day and sleeps all night. I avoid bragging, but I am so thrilled!

Last week I checked out from our library every single book in your series. I told my husband that I'm not making the same mistake again of not preparing for parenting!

Thank you so much.

Kristen

from Maryland