by Kim Snider
I was sitting in the parlor not long ago having a pedicure, and next to me was a pretty 9-year old girl getting her nails done with her mother. She told me that her daddy and mommy didn’t let her go to a lot of places that she wanted to go, or do a lot of things she wanted to do. I explained it was because they loved her and wanted to protect her. She said, “I know.” Then, she said, “and my parents tell me how to act, too.”
In this short conversation, the girl expressed three things children need: (1) to know their parents cherish them, (2) to know their parents will protect them, and (3) to know their parents will teach them how to behave through carefully thought-out discipline if needed.
Cherish
A parent’s love is different from other people’s love for children because they are the ones primarily responsible for the emotional, mental and physical development of their child. That is why a parent’s love, although affectionate, is not indulgent. Effective parents do not always give their children what they want. When effective parents tell their children “no” they stand by their word and do not give in without a very good reason. Sometimes withholding what a child wants to do or have is the most loving thing a parent can do.
Protect
A parent’s love also includes protection. Protection in our world today comprises more than just protection from disease or bad people. Protection now must include shelter from too much Internet, too much allowance, late bedtimes, too much time with the barkada. It must include insistence on homework completion, painful immunizations and vitamins, and home-taught lessons about budgeting and human kindness. It should embrace prohibition of skipping school to hang out at the mall, and attendance at questionable parties. A parents’ protective love pushes children toward success in following the purpose for which God created that child.
Correct
Finally, a parent’s love insists and teaches good behavior. This doesn’t mean just being polite or showing respect. It doesn’t mean just forcing a child to be quiet. God says good behavior is the following: to do justly, love mercy, walk humbly… (Micah 6:8) Additionally, good behavior denotes obedience to God’s standard of conduct contained in the Bible. This kind of obedience is “better caught than taught”, so an effective parent practices all the values and virtues they want their children to have. They model good behavior as well as enforce it. They purposefully correct their children when their children’s behavior does not measure up to these standards.
Back in the parlor, our pedicure was finished. The little girl looked at me and frowned. “Now I have got to do my homework. I can’t even get on the Internet first, “ she said. Her mother looked at me and winked. “That’s right,” her mother replied. “God has a great future ahead of you, and I am doing my best to make sure it happens!
That’s it, isn’t it? Recognizing that God does have a great future planned for each of our children and our job is to help it to happen!
