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| Children are Children; Parents should be Parents. |
Preferring one child over the other(s) is a recipe for parental disaster. No two children are the same. They all have their individual strengths and weaknesses, and there is the temptation to prefer the ones that suit more our selfish definition of good. Don’t fall into that trap. Right, and successful parenting is to love each of our children alike – the good and the not so good, the ones doing well in school and the ones struggling along. I know it is not natural, and whoever said right parenting was? If it was, there would not be the many volumes of books on parenting.
Right Parenting is an art, and like any other art ought to be learned and cultivated.
The first step in parenting is to love our children equally – not for what they do or not do, but just because they are ours – our children. Does that sound familiar? Yes, it is the same way God loves us. It is called “Agape.” How many of us think we deserve God’s love? The bible tells us He did not wait for us to get our acts together. While yet in the pit, He came for us. He came after us. And, He never loved us less or more. He loved us all the same. He is our parenting model.
God is our Parenting Model.
The second step is to seek to understand each of our children. When it comes to parenting, there is no one size fits all. Each child is a unique being, with a unique calling and destiny. One would think that should be intuitive, but you’ll be surprised how many of us miss this. We are all too carried away by our own expectations and experience of life that we tend to impose on our children things that have no bearing on their nature. No two children are alike, just as no two persons are exactly alike. What works for child A might not necessarily work for child B. Just because it worked for child A, don’t force it down the throat of child B. It is no different from trying to judge a fish based on its ability to climb a tree. It sure will make it look stupid, but is it?
Stop making yourself and your child look stupid by expecting a fish to climb a tree.
Our calling as parents is to "educe" (cause to grow from within). That is the whole basis of education. Proverbs 22:6 (ERV) reads, “Teach children in a way that fits their needs, and even when they are old, they will not leave the right path.” Know your child, and parent him or her in the way that brings the best out of them. One child might be easier to raise than the other, which does not make one better. In fact, the Bible lets us know the seeming despised things often have more value than the highly prized ones.
Don't be deceived by the covering, and throw away gold.
More important than anything else, let us endeavor to cover our children with prayers. We can sow, we can water, but only God can make it all work out well. Let us stand on the promise of His word,
“I, the Lord, will teach your children, and they will have real peace.” (Isaiah 54:13, ERV)
Let’s get about parenting. We’ve got a job to do.
© 2014 Akin Akinbodunse
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