Friday, June 26, 2009

Raising Adults? Or Children?

One of my kids, I told him his path was leading to jail - he was in fifth grade at the time. Another of my kids sat with me through certain Oprahs - at my insistence. Another took a hard-earned fall from grace in front of peers and authority figures - again parental hard-headness was at fault. We sat and listened while one called a friend's parent and told the parent the sleep-over was cancelled because of lying. This child had been warned the lying would stop or the consequences would escalate. Telling a respected adult you are a liar, is escalation that works. Looked another of my kids in the eye and said, "If you get caught cheating, your daddy and I are on the high school's side 100%."
Now all of this is not mine and my husband's fault. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of OUR parents. You see, our parents raised adults and contrary to what the world told us, Mike and I followed their example.
Now that the last of the three is 18, our darlings are all adults and while they'll make mistakes and wrong choices, I believe they've been given every tool to work out their lives and be happy and productive.
Removing obstacles from our kids lives is not a good thing.
Funny how I know this about my children, but I forget it when God won't fix MY problems. Could it be he's more concerned about raising adults than children?

Check out Michael Hyatt's (CEO of Thomas Nelson blog (link is below) for a great lesson on dealing with obstacles.
http://michaelhyatt.com/2009/06/the-necessity-of-obstacles-part-1.html

2 comments:

Paula said...

YOu are so wise! I love listening to you and reading your words. God gave us many gifts and one of them is you. I am blessed by knowing you. keep on writing my friend

Kay Dew Shostak said...

Thanks much, Paula. Your encouragement means the world to me!