What is Parenting About?
Discipline
Our Family and What’s Going on Today
Are we coming apart as a society? What, if anything, does the shooting in Las Vegas say about the reality of evil? What role does the family play in the development of a stable society? Why does trust or the lack of it affect our society?
The Trust Factor is critically important in life. There’s a lot in the news nowadays about trust, or the lack of it, when it comes to our government leaders. Folks all over America are doubtful of the motives and capability of many of those we have elected to serve us. We have a real ”crisis of confidence” in our country and there doesn’t seem to be much prospect of it getting better. How did we come to this place and how can it be fixed? Let’s learn to built trust in our families and with each other by what we say and how we treat each other.
TRUST is a very important ingredient in life. It is present in all healthy relationships; marriage, friendship, business, parent/child, government and between leaders in the international community. Trust is foundational to the orderly and productive functioning of life. Without it we live in uncertainty, doubtful of the word or actions of the other person or country. President Reagan said, concerning agreements with other countries, that we should “trust but verify.” There is much wisdom in that idea; trust that the other person (country) will keep their word but understand that trustworthiness is proven by action consistent with one’s promise or agreement.
I believe the family is the basic unit of our society. As the family goes, so goes the world. Families produce children and children grow up to serve many different functions in our world. Some become congress people, some senators, some become Supreme Court judges and a few have the honor of becoming President of the United States.
Everyone comes from a family of some type. But every family has the responsibility to attempt to instill the character values which make a person trustworthy. Character matters and there is no place where it matters more than in your family.
As for me, I will continue to live as a follower of the Light of the World and light my little candle in the terrible darkness. What about you?
Do You Really Want to Build Trust?
Do you really want to build trust in your marriage? If so, you need to see how things you do or do not do everyday affect your spouse’s ability to trust you.
Marriage has multiple demands that go beyond maintaining and growing the relationship with your spouse. Work, child rearing, financial management, and such things as maintaining where you live play a part in how trust is built or destroyed in your marriage. With effort a deficit of trust in any of these areas can be overcome in time. However, an unwillingness to address trust issues will lead to a growing distrust and possible destruction of your marriage.
The real issue in making your marriage work well is CHARACTER. By this I mean that people of good character really want to mature and do those things that are healthy for their marriage. They will make mistakes but will also admit them and attempt to correct them. You will not need to try to change a person with good character because they will want to change for the sake of the marriage. So, it all comes down to a couple of things: heart and head.
The “heart” part has to do with will or intention. “In my heart, do I really want to do the right thing?”This question gets at the essence of the issue. If the heart is wrong or selfish then only a deep personal change such as conversion can change this.
The “head” part has to do with knowledge or understanding. A person can have a good heart or intentions but lack knowledge. For example, you may want to live within your means but are challenged when it comes to knowing how to make a budget. This principle applies in many areas of marriage and family life. Trust grows when each of you shows yourself willing to learn new skills which are important to the overall management of family concerns. Likewise, trust in these areas deteriorates when such issues are not addressed.
Parenting and The Trust Factor
Do you realize your parenting affects the trust factor in your marriage?
One of the most important areas in which trust is built or destroyed in marriage is how you deal with your children. Having children, for most couples, is the easy part. Rearing those children to become healthy, responsible people is not so easy. Let’s face it; children are expensive and can be a lot of work if you do child rearing as you should.
There was a time in our country when the basic idea was that the husband earned the money and the wife did most, if not all, of the child raising.This attitude, I believe, is a very limited view of how parenting ought to be done. Thankfully, I see many young fathers taking a very active role in the care and discipline of their children. This is as it should be and builds strong ties with the child and trust with the wife.
However, there are moms and dads who, because of laziness, selfishness, or some other reason, put the work of parenting on their spouse. This is hurtful to the child and undermines the trust that is so basic to the marriage. What is there that a couple has that should be more important than the child they have brought into the world? To neglect the rearing of your child is a sin against the very marriage that gave the child its life. Such neglect can do nothing but destroy trust in your marriage.
As you realize, there is a lot more to rearing your child than the physical care and nurture they require. They are moral, spiritual beings which need guidance and spiritual foundations. Your time is limited,there is only a relatively small amount of time you have to lay the foundations of character and faith upon which the remainder of your child’s life will be built.
So, commit to work together to rear your child to have a positive influence on the world. By doing this you will build a trusting relationship in your marriage and give your child the character and balance he/she needs to face the challenges of life.
Personal Faithfulness
What does a marriage look like where trust is intact in many areas of everyday life? Such a marriage is not free of problems or stain but it does have a sense of partnership and cooperation in dealing with life’s issues which makes marriage very satisfying and successful.
To more completely answer the question posed above I want to deal with some specific situations in marriage where trust is a core issue. Some would say that not having trust in these areas is a “deal breaker” or grounds for ending the marriage. All the areas I mention are important but do not, in my opinion, carry the same weight in the marriage. There is only one that is, by its very nature, destructive to the bond between a man and a woman. And, this issue I will deal with first.
Personal faithfulness. The bottom line is: you must be able to trust your spouse to be faithful to your marriage vows. Marriage is between you and your spouse, an exclusive relationship where there is no room for another person.
We are all human and can be tempted to betray our vows. Therefore, great care must be taken to protect our marriage and not become involved in an emotional affair or in activities that can lead to physical acts that betray our spouse. Trust is destroyed, and oftentimes the marriage with it, if there is a betrayal in this area. A decision to be unfaithful is tragic and leads to lifelong consequences which hurt many people.
Marriages can be restored where unfaithfulness has taken place if there is true repentance and great effort to rebuild the trust that has been broken. However, the offended spouse will also have some difficult work to do. They will need time to work through the process of forgiving and learning to trust again; a process which may take years to accomplish. It can be done and a strong marriage can be built from the pain.
Guard your heart. Keep it only for your spouse. You owe nothing to another man or woman that should cause you to dishonor yourself, your spouse or God.
The Trust Factor: Marriage (part one)
Trust is vital in marriage. I recently heard of a situation where a young wife had discovered her husband was having an affair. When she confronted him about his unfaithfulness and the marriage vows he took he replied, “That’s just a piece of paper.” The “piece of paper” he was referencing was, of course, the marriage license. There are several things wrong with a scenario like this.
First, adultery is wrong. It is a breach of trust between a man and a woman who have agreed to be faithful to each other. There may be lots of excuses as to why a person succumbs to this temptation but there is no real justification for it. If a person isn’t mature enough to keep their libido in check they shouldn’t take on the responsibility of marriage. Adultery is the breaking of the trust which is vital to a healthy marriage. Trust can be repaired but only through a truly repentant attitude and hard work.
Second, there was probably a lot of misplaced trust in this situation. Sometimes, people allow passion to over rule wisdom. All of us need to be loved but we may fail to use caution when giving our love to someone else. Why? Because our desire and need for the security of being loved is so strong that we may naively accept the other person’s “I love you” as the real deal. The truth is that lots of folks talk about love without the foggiest notion of what real love is. But, we want to be “loved’ and are liable to fall for any counterfeit.In the instance cited above, trust was blind and naive.
Third, situations such as this cause me to question the character of those involved. I tend to see adultery in this instance as a symptom of a dysfunctional marriage. Something at the core of the marriage wasn’t right. There was no solid basis for trust because there wasn’t character to build on.
When a man and woman have committed to each other to be honest and meet each other’s needs a solid trust develops. The glue that holds relationships together in tough times involves the trust that has been built by the way they have cared for each other before the tough times come. We learn to trust our spouse, or vice versa, because we know them.
Trustworthiness is a part of good character and it is wise to have a good idea about the “character” you are thinking about marrying before you say “I do.”
More on this in The Trust Factor: Marriage (part two)
Is Your Child Special ?
Does your child know he is special ?
When our son, Nathan, was small his mom would often ask him this question,”If all the little boys in the world lined up and I got to pick out anyone I wanted,do you know who I would choose?” I can still hear his giggling, happy “me” in response to her question. This was just one of many ways my wife and I sought to communicate a highly important message to our children. That message was: You are very important to us.
Is there anything you could give your child that is more valuable or potentially life-changing than a sense of being special? There is no substitute or rival to his sense of being really important to you. This is an unparalleled gift, one he cannot buy or earn or should feel compelled to do so. This is a gift from a parent’s heart, a gift of grace. This gift of acceptance is the cornerstone of emotional and spiritual health. Only when this piece of life’s puzzle is in place do the other pieces begin to fall into place also.
When parents fail to give their child a sense of acceptance; of being loved for who they are, the child is left to search for that important, missing piece in other places. As you can imagine, people attempt to try to find meaning to their life in many different ways. The bottom line is that we all need to feel loved, to be accepted for who we are.
This sense of being special we seek to instill in our child is not something we can do by doing any certain thing. Feeling loved is a by-product, a result of paying attention to three aspects of your child’s life. In other words, there are three areas which are very important to your child’s sense of himself. Your child’s view of his physical self, his sense of accomplishment or defeat and the views of significant others toward him combine to help him feel good about himself or not so good. Go to my book, Parenting With a Purpose, http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/138381 for more detail on these areas..
A “Knowing” Kind of Love
How can you really love someone without “knowing” them? If the ultimate goal of love is to do what is in their best interest, how can you love someone well without”knowing” them? You can have an attitude of acceptance and tolerance or an emotional connection with people which could be interpreted as love. However, loving someone as intimately as you should love your child is a different kind of love.
“Knowing” your child is vitally important to loving him well. How well do you know your child? While your child has similarities to his siblings or other children, in general, there is a real sense each child is unique. Knowledge of your child’s uniqueness is an important key in how you relate to him and how you provide loving discipline for him.
Children reared in the same home often experience that environment differently. This is true for various reasons such as personality differences, birth order, and your growth in being a good parent. The implication of all this is that you need to be a student of each child and not assume that when you have “figured out” what makes one child “tick” the others will be like him. Not so.
Discipline is an important area in which you need to know your children individually. Parents sometimes make the mistake of assuming one method, such as spanking, is the best solution for all their children and for all offences. The reality is that what may prove effective for one child doesn’t really work for another. Why? You know the answer. Your children are different.
If one of the purposes of parental discipline is to bring about self-discipline doesn’t it stand to reason that you need to consider what method reaches your child’s heart? Any method of discipline we use to correct or encourage our child’s behavior should pass two important tests. Does it show I know and love my child and will it, if used consistently, bring about the change I desire ?
How well do you really know your child? The answer to this question probably indicates the health of your love for him.
Sometimes Saying”No” Means I Love You
Sometimes love says “no.” It is our job to decide what is best for our child. This is one of the reasons God gave children parents ; because children aren’t equipped emotionally or intellectually to always make good choices. As parents we need to teach our child how to make choices and to weigh the consequences of those choices. This is why we must learn to say “no” at times. Your child won’t agree but sometimes saying “no” is more loving than saying “yes.”
Healthy love doesn’t always give a child what he wants. Children can be very fickle. The toy they couldn’t live without; the toy they ranted and scream for; the toy that would make them happy and stop the flood of tears is often abandoned for something else in a few days. They have no regard for how much it costs. Their concern is immediate satisfaction.
Why do we give in to this immaturity and nonsense? There are at least three reasons for such behavior on our part. First, we can’t stand to see our child so upset or unhappy with us. After all, our job is to make them happy, isn’t it. This is pure foolishness.
Second, we may give in to prove we are not a bad parent. Our child may have the unfortunate circumstance of divorced parents. This can give your child some leverage of playing one of you against the other. Don’t fall for this and let your child manipulate you into proving you’re as good a parent as your ex-spouse. By the way, children will try this where marriages are intact, also.
Third, we may want to give our child what he wants because we are confused. Confused about what? We are confused in our thinking that love means you get what you want. What if what you want is not really good for you? What if what you want is not in the best interest of others? Always giving a child what he wants can be a sure way of helping him to grow to be a narcissistic, self-centered and destructive human being.
Love is doing what is in the best long-term interest for your child. Think about it.
The Healthy Love Choice
Loving your child in a healthy way is not such an easy thing to do. It is not that your child doesn’t need or deserve such love but healthy love requires a high degree of personal discipline and maturity. Good parenting can’t be done by lazy people. Undisciplined parents cannot raise disciplined children.
Unfortunately, some adults are incapable of healthy love because they are stuck in their own childhood needs. They have not grown up and cannot give a mature, grown-up kind of love. This is why I believe the first order of business for the parent after our commitment to God is to grow up. Parents who act like children cannot rear children in a healthy environment.
So, how do you know if your love for your child is a healthy love? I think of healthy love in this way: healthy love seeks to do what is in the ultimate best interest of the other person. I think you will find this definition consistent with the New Testament concept of love described in 1 Corinthians 13 and in other passages and with the teachings of Jesus.
One of the major implications of this definition is that you, the parent, must make judgments based on your understanding of what is best for your child. For example, over the course of his life, what values, skills and attitudes will best equip him for life? This is no small deal. Your choices may be contrary to the wishes or ideas of your parents, contemporary society, religious teachings or other influences. You decide.
This judgment is unavoidable. You may decide to be very proactive in helping guide your child’s life. Or, you may choose, by default, to pay little or no attention to this matter. That, too, is a choice; one which will leave your child in a “fog” about what is of ultimate value in life.
For the sake and well-being of your child, I hope you will make the healthy love choice.