“Modern mums equate the word wellbeing with ‘happiness’, as if happiness is all that counts or is at least more valuable than discipline, responsibility or overall health,” says social trends researcher
Sure, we all want our kids to be happy, but to expect happiness all the time in life is unrealistic. Loss, hard times, sorrow, disappointments come. They are part of life. How are our children going to cope with them if they have not been trained properly, during their growing years?
My children both tell people they had happy childhoods. We spent lots of happy hours, reading to them, playing with them, talking to them. But that didn’t mean they got everything they wanted and it didn’t mean they were not disciplined. We loved them enough to want to help develop their character. If that meant they sometimes went without, or had to wait for a particular item they wanted, then so be it. They also learned we had rules and if they broke those rules there were consequences.
I look at them now as adults and see a caring man and woman of strong character who hold responsible jobs in society. Both are committed Christians, active in their churches and committed to whatever task they undertake.
Some of the most useful verses in the bible and ones as parents we need to remember are Romans 5:3-5. ‘We exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope.’ How will our children ever learn these qualities if we give into them all the time, if we spoil them and do everything for them?
The aim of parenting is to bring children up to be caring and responsible adults, not dependent on some one to do everything for them and solve every problem. That does not mean, as in the case I heard of recently, allowing an adult son or daughter not living at home to drop in their washing and ironing each week to be done by their mother. Sure, if they were sick or having hassles this would be appropriate for a time but not as a regular event. Yet this woman did it every week. Even though it left the mother feeling resentful that her son did this, she lacked the will to say ‘No.’ Maybe if she had learned to say, ‘No’ as he was growing up, the problem would not have arisen.
Parenting is the hardest task but the most rewarding and the most effective field for ministry you will ever have. What do you think?
Bible verses from The New American Standard Version
Please visit these related blogs
setting healthy boundaries for your children -1