Loving your children is your obligation as parents. Sometimes children make repeated mistakes. Though, some of them may be unintentional. All parents get anger with their children when they make mistakes. Some, however, do it more frequently than others. You have to correct them whether those mistake are intention or unintentional. The type of correction given should depend upon the type of mistake made. For simple mistake the correction should not be severe. But for serious mistakes the correction should be such that they will appreciate the severity of their offense. Remember as parents you are your children’s models. Family is the first training institution for children.
Speak gently to the wayward child. A pleasant smile and a word of kindness will often restore good humor and playfulness. “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bone.” (Proverb 16:18). Children have their joys and sorrows as well as the adults, and their little heart will quickly yield to the power of gentle, loving kindness. Children’s hearts are much like flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up their petals in the violent torrential rain. Just like violent rainfall shuts up the flower that is how, “Reckless words pierce like the sword.” (Proverb 12:18). Therefore, when you have occasion to rebuke your children, be careful to do it with overt signs of kindness and gentleness. The effect will be incalculably better.
Sidney Newton Bremer wrote, “Children love to bask in the warmth of a sunny, positive disposition. It brings out their confidence, stimulates hope, and secures success in all their efforts. It makes obedience a pleasure and work a pastime.” There is nothing that pays a higher dividend than when you see your home radiating with happiness sending out its effect all over the occupants, and creating a congenial atmosphere.
In loving your children regardless of their mistakes, you must also help them to become a better person. Love is beautiful and noble. What obstacle will it not overcome, and what sacrifice will it not make rather than give up. A child should be brought with the firm belief that he is born to succeed. You should not create an unfavorable milieu for this success to be attained by constant distortion or expressions of doubt, because of his mistakes.
Every child should be trained in the thrifty habits. They should learn the value of money early in life so that they can exercise wisdom in handling money during their later years. They should be taught that debt is a burden to be avoided. Debt has ruined many people of the most promising careers.
Even if any of them is caught in the trap of substance abuse, you must ensure that he grow up responsibly by doing all you can to help him break the habit. You must love your children wholeheartedly. But then, if they are mired in the habitual wrongdoing, you must love them enough to help them get out of it. Although, ultimate restoration is in almighty God’s hands, you as #parents must play your part.
Some parents rarely take time to consider what they say to their children. but as loving parents, you need to know that what you say can have a significant, lasting impact on your children. if you choose to speak encouraging more than condemning words to them, you will build a better household. Scudder N. Parker said, “People have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be – not what you nag them to be.” Most parents know that they have to be encouraging parents; but somewhere between endless pursuit of #money and domestic chores, they lose the motivation to build up their children.
Johann Von Goethe said, “Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” You have to constantly encourage your children with such statements as, “You are smart.” “You are creative.” And, “I know you will make it.” Many men are now in prison or living out a miserable existence in the slums of some cities in the world, bent over, uncouth, and rough, because they were not lucky to have had efficient and systematic training, which would have made them develop into responsible men, and a gift to the #human race, instead of the smelling, half-starved wretch they are today.
Children should be taught that they were born for success; that the object of their creation was to be an achiever. Children should be taught that they have the same opportunities to succeed as others. And that they can even do what no man has been able to do before. Their teaching should always emphasize their looking upward and not downward. As a result of this the children will develop a positive perspective and look forward to achievement. When achievement is constantly held in the mind, it becomes a reality.
You should try to teach your children, from the beginning, to be orderly in their habits; and insist on the popular sayings, “A place for everything and everything in its place,” and “A time for everything and everything in its time.” Disorder, confusion and discontent and unhappiness breed mental and moral discord, and a discontented, unhappy life. A youth who does not do his work at any time, who always throws things down wherever they have been used, and leaves them lying about in confusion, is starting on the pathway to failure.
Start now to do things it takes to resume a cordial relationship with your recalcitrant children. Speak kindly to them. Help them to be persons they have been destined to be. Bless them, don’t curse them. When you choose to let go resentment toward your children, even if you think you have the right to feel so, your children feel relieved. You have given them the opportunity for a fresh beginning.
The risk you take in loving unconditionally is that they may choose to continue repeating those same mistakes. But resentment always stifles and stagnates. Loving these children, though risky, carries with it an enormous potential for change in them leading to healing and proper growth. The love between children and their parents should be unique. It is indefinable, indescribable, fresh and beautiful. This love if pure, unselfish, and discreet constitutes the catalyst for happiness in the family. Without it there would be no organized household and, consequently, none of that earnest endeavor for competence and respectability, which is the hallmark to human efforts. Those sweet, softening, restraining, elevating influences of domestic life, which alone can fill the home with the happy influences of refinement will be lacking.
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