Coach's CornerMarch 2015
First: Look to the perfect parent. Our Heavenly Father, is Love. He gives us clear expectations of our behavior and attitudes, and clear consequences. He never lies — He tells the truth and He keeps His promises. (He doesn’t make promises that He is not going to keep.) He forgives when we acknowledge our bad choices and bad attitudes, but many times the consequences remain. God even invites us and draws us to Himself to help us trust Him enough to admit our sins to Him. He helps us change. He doesn’t allow disrespect even of His name. He is pleased when we converse or communicate with Him in honesty, even if it is a hard conversation.
What if you have a self-image problem? Maybe your parents didn’t raise you to respect
and value yourself. If you find that to be a problem in your life, please find that
answer as soon as possible. It is a huge challenge to raise children with self–respect
when you don’t have it yourself. Once more, the book
Search For Significance
How can we be that perfect parent? Simply put, we cannot. What we can do is allow Him to make us His child and then model our behavior after His — and pray much! When we fail, acknowledge it and ask for forgiveness and help. Realize that He keeps us humble in many ways — seeing our failure is one of those loving ways. As His children, we are gifted with the possibility of growing up like our Father and in His image.
What does this look like as expressed in the human mother/child relationship? There is an entire Bible written about how God shows His love towards us and all His children. I can only touch a few small points here. God is faithful. He promised that if we desire and seek Him with all the heart that we will find. That does not mean a flippant ritual prayer — though at least that is a start. But I challenge you to cry out to God to show you His love toward you and how you can follow His example in your parenting.
To a child: Love looks like time spent and value placed on a child’s interests and thoughts and activities. One very simple way to do so is to allow your child to see you put aside something you would like to do or are currently engaged in to choose his game or interest. This can be as simple as a pause in watching your favorite TV show or washing dishes, to listen to her words. Our child must be convinced of our unconditional love. Much has been written about how to do that. If you are dealing with a child who is insecure in your love, PLEASE find a counselor or a God-inspired book or mentor that will help you know how to show this to your child. She needs to know that just because you get mad, that does not mean you do not love her. God gets angry with us when we sin. He doesn’t over-react and He doesn’t punish us in His wrath. He disciplines us because He loves us and so that our behavior changes.
The discipline technique, PICNIC, talks about “I” for immediate consequence. That needs to be clarified here. If you are angry, do not administer the consequence until your heart is calm. Send the child to her room while you go to your room and pray or unwind. A word spoken in anger can cut deeply into the child’s self–concept, and often times, one angry word leads to another and a whole flood gate of cutting words can speed out of our mouths directly to the hearts of our defenseless children. If you spank, DO NOT spank in anger, or you will be taking a huge risk of hurting or abusing your child. If God were to discipline us in His anger, we would not be able to survive.
In summary, love and respect your child and yourself; live a genuine Christian life without fakeness; pray much; ask for forgiveness frequently; ask for help often; walk humbly before your God and get up each time you fall. Never, ever, ever give up.