MAKING GOOD CHOICES
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives.
Proverbs 19:18 NLT
TODAY’S THOUGHT
Discipline is important when it comes to our children. Children learn how to respond to authority in the home. I believe this is why in God’s top Ten Commandments the only commandment that had a promise with it was to “honor your mother and father.”
When children are taught to honor their parents at home they are being set up for success in other areas of their lives. If they never hear the word “no” in the home, they begin to think they are in charge. Being in charge as an immature kid causes a lot of stress and insecurity. Children are not designed with the mental or emotional tools to make their own choices. Those tools must be developed within them through loving parents who want the best for them.
When a child receives loving discipline in the home they develop a sense of security, confidence, and strength. They will be ready to enter the world where they will always have someone with authority over them.
If they don’t learn to honor authority in the home, they will not honor authority in school or in the marketplace. They will not respond properly to authority figures in any area if they were not taught how to respond to authority in the home.
Some parents want to give their kids everything they want and never say “no” to them. They convince themselves this is because they love them and want them to be happy. The truth is that parent is lazy and not accepting the responsibility God gave them to be a parent. They don’t want to make tough decisions that are sometimes unpopular.
I have watched the result of such parenting. The children grow up constantly in trouble and the parents must constantly bail them out. The child resents the parent, and the parent feels helpless to change their course of action. Eventually the parent realizes the child needs to take responsibility for their own actions and now the consequences are huge. If the parent had exercised consequences earlier in life the child could have avoided such huge consequences later.
Always yielding to the wishes of your children is not love. Love is saying “no” when it is the right answer. It does not matter if the child does not understand it or like it. As parents our primary responsibility is not to be their friend but their parent. We are to love them enough to see the long-range picture of growing to be a mature adult who makes good choices and respects authority.
TODAY’S PRAYER
Holy Spirit help us as parents to make good choices. May Your grace cover our imperfections.
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