Facing Reality!

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

Sometimes, we miss the simple truth of this verse of scripture. Parents must train children to deal with the realities of life and not just allow them to think they will have everything they want; unless, of course, the parents have absolutely everything they want and obtained it through legal and moral means.

This a good article and unfortunately, not the first time it has been brought to the forefront. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Mickey-goodman/are-we-raising-a-generati_b_1249706.html If parents are not allowing their children to take responsibility for their actions, when will they learn--When they are sitting behind bars serving time or lying in a morgue? Hard work, integrity, and having morals have never harmed anyone. Allowing children to think that these attributes are not important, has harmed many.

The bottom line for me is very simple. Parents have to learn to parent before they can raise responsible children. Giving a child everything they want (not need) is not good parenting. If they "earn" rewards, give it to them. If they don't, don't give in to their demands. Who is a child anyway that they can "demand" anything? Are they paying for the roof over their heads and all the bills that sustain them? Who gave birth to whom? I have never understood parents who allow children to "run their houses" and then cower in fear of them.

Some may think that I'm a horrible parent when I  say that no child lives in my house who cannot abide by my rules (I have put children out of my house). I make the rules, not them. If they can't handle it, they must leave and some have left. Children don't learn by osmosis; they must be taught--everything. They must be taught about personal hygiene, organizational skills, the importance of good grades, respect for others and their property, self-respect (and so much more) and knowing how to think--about the consequences for the actions--the good and the bad.

Many parents cannot teach their children to think because they never learned to think first before doing anything. When I look at a number of teenage mothers, inevitably we discover their mother was also a teenage mother and so was the great-grandmother. One would think (at least, I would think) that someone would have figured out that being a teenage mother, with no education or job skills, would discourage others from following in their footsteps; that would make sense to me. Encouraging stupidity has never made sense to me and it is stupid to keep having children when you know you cannot take care of them, but keep expecting a state welfare system to do it for you.

The pattern I see--people dropped the ball in training the children in what they should do to become productive, respectable citizens. If they were not trained, they nothing to hold onto when they become older.

Please stop and think before it's too late--train the children in behaviors that are responsible, legal and moral and pray their training sustains them throughout life.