Good morning. “My children don’t take me seriously.” “They don’t take me seriously until I have raised my voice several levels and threatened them repeatedly.” These are statements often repeated in my office. Parents are often wondering why their children fail to respond in the way that they wish them to. More often than not the problem in part has to do with the problem encountered by Jesus in today’s Gospel and that is familiarity. "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house." They were so well acquainted with Jesus and His family that all they saw was the son of Mary and Joseph.
Children are quite often the same way. They are so well acquainted with our established ways of parenting that they know us better than we know ourselves.
Too often children, aware of our pattern of being inconsistent in the enforcement of the rules and in the doling out of discipline, are willing to risk challenging our authority. They know from past experience that the odds are in their favor. Experience has taught them that we tend to be inconsistent and that we tend to be rather feeble in the application of the rules and that we seldom if ever follow through with our threats of retribution. STOP! It doesn’t need to be this way.
The loving application of strict and consistent limits works every time. Research indicates that parenting with warm and loving involvement, when applied with firm and consistent rules and structure, results in well-adjusted and obedient children. As parents we need to remind ourselves that parenting, that love is not for the fulfillment of self but for the glory of God and the good of our children. Parenting is not about feeling good, it is about getting our children to be good. We are reminded in the Book of Hebrews: “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” As parents we need to say what we mean and mean what we say. Make a great day!
The loving application of strict and consistent limits works every time. Research indicates that parenting with warm and loving involvement, when applied with firm and consistent rules and structure, results in well-adjusted and obedient children. As parents we need to remind ourselves that parenting, that love is not for the fulfillment of self but for the glory of God and the good of our children. Parenting is not about feeling good, it is about getting our children to be good. We are reminded in the Book of Hebrews: “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” As parents we need to say what we mean and mean what we say. Make a great day!
No comments:
Post a Comment