are you raising your child for today or tomorrow?
Goals are wishes with a timeline attached to them. We all have wishes for our kids, but do we have goals for our parenting?
Every single thing we do as parents is a choice and with that comes consequences, as adults this glaring fact goes without saying, but do we pass that same reasoning to our kids as we raise them?
It a very interesting how many things we assume when we’re raising up our young ones in this ‘doggy-dog’ world. For example, We assume because we were good in math then our kids will equally be good and when our kids still use their fingers to count in their first year at the university, we’re shocked!… but wait… that would be creepy though, right?!
Parenting, like marriage, has no one-size-fits-all way of going about it but there are some principles that cut across and have been tried and tested and proven to be beneficial and in parenting, one such principle exists.
Stephen Covey in his book, ‘7 habits of highly effective people‘ talks about picking one end of a stick and picking the other end too. Both ends exist simultaneously.
Dads as the designated Superman in the house would want to keep harm away. And while we’re on that harm topic, check out the difference between hurt and harm in parenting here. But as we carry out our task as Dads, do we do it with the aim of raising good people for the society or for ourselves? Those two are not always the same thing!
Parenting for today is just a matter of ensuring they’re comfortable and that nothing ‘bad’ happens to them and all is flowing smoothly. This is mostly done by removing the consequences from their actions. When a child refuses to pick after themselves, what do you do? Do you ALWAYS do it for them or do you let them suffer the consequences for their actions?
You see, in the world where they’ll be going sooner than later, every action has a consequence and if we don’t introduce this fact of life to them early, they will be ill-prepared for life outside the nest.
In Proverbs 22:6, it talks about training a child in the way they should go that they may not depart from that training in their latter years (paraphrased)
Training for tomorrow means training them for their life in the world where we’ve been called to be the light and salt. This cannot be done without making sure that they learn to appreciate that every action comes with its consequences- good or bad. You can choose your action(one end if the stick) but the consequences are already attached to those actions (the other end of the stick).
Parenting for today is for our convenience while parenting for tomorrow is for your child's effectiveness in the World. Click To Tweet
Let us, as Dads, not remove the consequences from our children’s actions but rather teach them to consider them for themselves.
Parent for tomorrow!
Points to consider:
1. Are you ill-equipping your child by removing the consequences?
2. How will you do it differently?
Share your thoughts in the comment section below.