This truth begins as soon as a child is born. There are consequences to certain choices, and the consequence has to be felt - or at least hinted at - before behavioral change can take place. Parents who swoop in to "bail" their child out are only harming the child by depriving them of a learning opportunity. How else will they connect their actions with the repercussions? As a parent, nothing might be harder than standing by and watching a child make a wrong choice. As the tidal waves of embarrassment, pain, grief, and inconvenience threaten to drown them, our sympathy can sometimes make us lose sight of the fact that our children still need to learn accountability in all areas of life. Every parent wants to minimize the pain a child faces, but our desire to do so shouldn't trump our mandate from heaven to "train a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22:6). To not let them feel the effects of their choices - to an age-appropriate degree - does them a disservice. When our child sits on the sidelines of a game, we shouldn't teach them to blame the coach. If past a certain age they don't clean up and wash themselves, we don't force them because they need to feel the negative social consequences of poor hygiene. If they get detention at school, we don't accost the teacher in the grocery store. These types of daily interferences are the easier kind to deal with, but if the action has what we perceive to be a spiritual consequence, it's much harder. Even more so, we don't want to sit back and let them bear what they can bear. So what can we do? How can we be both comforting and sympathetic to our children as they experience these hardships, especially as they grow older and the consequences grow direr? Here's a few suggestions:
When a child faces learning the lesson of accountability, trust that God will give you the wisdom to know what to do. Jeannie Campbell is a Christ-follower, wife, mother and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, in that order. She got her masters of divinity in psychology and counseling from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and her bachelors in psychology and journalism from The University of Mississippi. She's a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and American Christian Fiction Writers. In her spare time, she writes feature articles for magazines and local newspapers and blog posts for The Character Therapist. Email Jeannie. |
Comments in this Category
All Comments