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Children,
obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to
do. “Honor your father and mother." This is the first of the Ten
Commandments that ends with a promise. And this is the promise: If you honor
your father and mother, "you will live a long life, full of blessing."
And now a word to you fathers. Don't make your children angry by the way that
you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction
approved by the Lord. (Ephesians 6:1-4 NLV). Today’s reading is the same as that which we began this little miniseries with a few mornings ago. For our fifth principle in Christian parenting, there was none better to emphasize the need to understanding our children’s growing pains. It is a difficult and delicate balance to achieve, but it is essential. A couple of years ago Dr. Spock wrote
an article about some of the problems of adolescence. He said adolescent boys
may express their anxious competitiveness by steering very clear of their
father's occupation, though some of them swing around to it later when they have
matured enough to overcome their irrational fears. Psychoanalysis has also
revealed that many boys who feel overawed by their father suppress their
resentment and antagonism towards him and displace it on to their mother,
flaring up at her over quite reasonable requests or imagined slights. A
youth finds himself through finding something similar in his friends and peer
group. He mentions that he loves a certain song or hates a certain teacher or
craves to own a certain article of apparel. His friend exclaims with amazement
that he has always had the very same attitude. Both are delighted and reassured.
Each has lost a degree of his feeling of aloneness, of peculiarity, and gained a
pleasurable sense of belonging. Two
girls talk fast all the way home from school, talk for another half-hour in
front of the house of one, and finally separate. But as soon as the second
reaches her home she telephones and there resume the mutual confidences. A
majority of adolescents help to overcome their feelings of aloneness by a
sometimes lavish conformity to the styles of their class-mates - in clothes,
reading matter, songs, entertainers. These styles have to be different from
those of their parents' generation. And if their own styles irritate or shock
their parents, so much the better. A majority of adolescents become ashamed of their parents for a few years, particularly when their friends are present. This is partly related to their own identity. The sensitive parent will be aware of these "growing pains" and will not be foolish enough to react too strongly when their kids begin to untie their parents' apron strings. The balance between honor and understanding on the part of the child to the parent and the parent to the child is achieved through trial and error most of the time. Never be so proud that you cannot admit when you have gone to far either way. Seek the balance between being overly strict and permissive and you will find the way to truly instruct your child in the way of the Lord. Use God’s example of grace and you can’t go far wrong.
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