Body: | How To Understand Your Teenager & the Bible
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A few years ago one of our major magazines reported the tragic story of a
father who shot and killed his seventeen-year-old son in a "violent
showdown over drugs." This hardworking father was on the job ten hours
daily, plus handling a part-time job. He was a little league coach and a
Cub Scout Committee member. He said he had deeply loved his son but nursed
a hatred for what the boy had become.
The shy son had sought adjustment through drugs, had become a pusher, and
had fallen into a pattern of arguing and fighting with his father. The
"showdown" saw the son, crazed with drugs descending the cellar steps with
a steak knife in hand, and the father standing at the foot of the steps
with a pistol.
This example tugs at the heart of every father who has repeatedly called
home explaining that he must work late, or whose nerves will not tolerate
children's play at the end of a working day. We fathers sometimes point the
finger at working mothers as the cause of children's downfall. After all,
forty percent of today's American women Are employed outside the home. We
insist that rearing children is primarily the mother's responsibility. Who
decided that? Most likely men. The Bible certainly did not.
The Bible's description of family relationships begins with God and ends
with human understanding (Colossians 3:18; I Thessalonians 2:11-12). And
understanding begins with love. Who has not noticed that grandparents
usually get along with grandchildren better than parents? Grandparents have
learned, by the experience of years, the tremendous effectiveness of love.
Security and stability come, not through material things, but through real
love in the home. The child must be made to understand, even when he is
punished that is for his own good. Our understanding of our children and
our expression of love for them involves "being with them" - in mind as
well as body. Since parents and children do not work together in the fields
or in prolonged household chores as they once did, other opportunities of
being together must be found. Work and school responsibilities result in
prolonged absences from each other. And even when we are at home, the
newspaper often gets more attention than the child.
Observing a "Family Night" can help bring us together with regularity. But
there is also a need to lunch or play with one child at a time in order
that individual needs can be sensed. If we come home tired, or upset, or
bring work responsibilities home through worry and long evening hours of
paper work, relationships are sure to suffer. Tragically, we often reserve
our worst behavior for those we love most.
In developing understanding between ourselves and our children, we need to
be as affirmative as possible. Children reared in a positive atmosphere
develop more wholesome personalities than those who constantly hear the
words "No Stop - and Don't." Although firm discipline is clearly taught in
the Bible, in passages such as Proverbs 29:15-17, the scriptures also warn
that we can discourage our children by "overcorrecting" them (Colossians
3:21). A half million youngsters in the United States run away from home
each year, while many of them leave as a result of headstrong attitudes
brought on by a loose and permissive upbringing. Thousands of others are
driven away by the unreasonable and over-reactive criticism of parents who
find it easier to provide harsh, critical outbursts than to be a real
parent.
Seeing things from the child's point of view is difficult, but necessary
for real understanding. The concerned parent does not ignore hair length or
dress codes, but he seeks principles rather than pointing only to customs.
The child should be given reasons, not simply flat commands. Success in
forming a friendship with a child comes in direct proportion to our
willingness to get on our knees and talk with the child at eye level. We
look like giants to them, but when we consider their viewpoint, they warm
to our interes
Patience is a vital factor in understanding, also. There is a difficult
balance between not expecting children to become adults too soon and not
trying to keep them babies too long. We show impatience when we measure
them by our own years and scold them because they have not reached a t
expectations. Even when we have been impatient, our children respond with a
goodnight hug as if nothing unpleasant has happened. And gradually we learn
patience with their faults as they must with ours. In closing this
discussion may we emphasize again that the purpose of this presentation is
not to encourage a lack of firm, loving discipline, but rather is to
encourage each of us to remember that children are people too, and as such
have rights and feelings which are as real as our own.
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