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Do your children need you as a parent or a friend?
CHILDREN REARING PARENTS
Proverbs 22:6-Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Let me be perfectly clear about this, children do not need you to be their friend, they can make friends at school and down the street, they need you to be a parent. They need leadership at home or they will look for it elsewhere. Do you want someone else teaching your child what is right and wrong? Remember, you can give respect to your children and still maintain authority over them. Too many children are being trained on the streets today and too many of them are dying on those same streets. Be aware what your children are doing. If your child comes in with a $150 pair of shoes, cell phone or anything else you didn’t buy, don’t you know something is very wrong?
Ask questions and get involved with what your children are doing. Don’t have time? Do you have time to attend a funeral or make prison visits?
We see everyday a mother crying over her dead son and talking about what a good boy he was. Next thing you hear is how he only sold a little pot now and then but was not a bad boy. Can you not see how this works? The only thing wrong with a little pot is that it is illegal in most states!
What has caused the change in relationships, respect for life, disrespect for elders, crime rate increase, lower church attendance and deaths of young people in Alabama? In a nutshell, breakdown of the family unit.
Many factors have contributed to the breakdown of the family unit, which started in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Mainly, parents are evading their own responsibilities. Children and parents spend less time together as parents spend more time at work and socializing. If your child asks a question while you are watching something on TV, how do you handle it? If you are texting and the child wants something do you tell him to wait? The message the child gets is that the TV or texting is more important than he is! A child who receives little or no attention and time from his parents are more likely to run away from home, get involved with drugs and gangs, get in trouble with the law or wind up dead, just another statistic.
Secondly, children are no longer receiving a moral education. Basic moral values and specifically, simple respect for their parents and other people are no longer being taught or emphasized in the schools. So, if they do not receive this at school nor at home they do not have a moral compass to go through life. Instead the child is taught to be assertive and fiercely independent and is usually encouraged to believe in the ignorance of their parents and the older generation.
Finally, the child in his own resentment, discontent and depression will turn to the streets to what seems like a much more refreshing and exciting life compared to the troubles of family life.
Does your child live in a house with yelling and screaming all the time? Respect your children and expect respect in return. Giving respect does not mean giving up parental authority. Same for you younger folks, you want respect, give respect to your elders, teachers and authority figures. That certainly does not mean you are weak. In fact, the strongest person any of us have heard of is Jesus. He took the most terrible whipping and torture and was then crucified. And he did everything he did with humility, honor and with an attitude of serving others.
I have some very good news for you in regards to going to church. These are some of the reasons you should go to church (other than the obvious ones) some people need more motivation than others.
These are results by several studies done by The University Michigan and San Francisco General Hospital.
1. Reduced blood pressure, smokers who do not attend church regularly are 7 times more likely to have abnormally high BP. So, if you are going to smoke make sure you go to church J
2. Better behaved teenagers, in high risk behavior, found that regular church attendance had fewer bad behavior problems, less substance abuse, and better life style choices.
3. Answers to prayers, people who were prayed for had less congestive heart failure, required fewer antibiotics, fewer episodes of pneumonia, fewer cardiac arrests and less frequently on a ventilator. Drs. and nurses could not understand this, I don’t know why!
4. less suicides, greater resistance to cancer, stronger marriages, safer communities, a longer life, less alcohol abuse, improves self image and has a positive influence on future generations.
In conclusion, when will we make a difference with our children, our family and our community?