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Well, if you're like most of us you promised yourself I am not going to be like my

parents and yet if you're a parent you have undoubtedly become like your

parents you've made some of the same mistakes and you might have made a few of your own along the way as well.

I'm John Fuller along with Danny Werta. He's the Vice President of Parenting and Youth here at Focus on the Family.

And today we're going to hear from Pastor Jim Putman and his father, Bill.

Jim tried to correct his parents' mistakes in his life, but realized that he couldn't

guarantee a perfect childhood for his own kids.

Let's go ahead and listen now to that conversation.

You had, as a prodigal son yourself and then becoming committed to Christ and following Christ, you also had a

Particle son. Yeah, it's interesting because I thought, all right, my dad did such

a great job in some aspects. He swung the pendulum to the love side away from the

authoritarian side and I had always thought if he would have just would have

been tough enough to stop me I would have stopped. So here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna keep the love side but I'm going to keep the love side, but I'm going to bring it to the

middle. And if I do it right, then my kid's not going to deal with everything that I don't.

So you had the formula?

I had the formula.

And what happened?

Yeah, and at a very young age, some things that happened in my son's life.

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