Getting to the Root March 17, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , trackbackJoe,
Good lead in on what God has been showing us these last few days. I think the thing that amazed me more than anything was not simply that we were had become child-centered, but that we had missed the root issue.
Anyone that knows us knows that we do not like to deal with peripheral issues. If something is going on, we want to know what the root of it is. One particular problem we were having with Abby was her nap and bed times. I would spend 45 minutes getting her ready to take a nap or go to bed. As soon as I would get up to leave her room, she would do something purposely sinful to me. At this point, I would then have to spend time disciplining her. Once I finally got out of the room, she would then proceed to yell or scream from her room. Having told her that yelling and screaming were not appropriate, I would go back to the room and discipline her. this could go on for over an hour. At night time I was so exhausted!
We were just not looking at the root issue. The issue was not Abby simply being disobedient or not wanting to go to bed. Well, I guess she didn’t want to go to bed, but the reason she didn’t want to was because she wanted ATTENTION. And she would endure spanking after spanking for that attention. It finally dawned on us that all we needed to do was to say, “We are not coming back in this room.” So we endured a few screaming sessions, but progress is being granted by the Lord.
What we are now seeing is Abby is an attention addict. You can spot an addict by how they react if you take their addiction away. Abby is always looking to get our attention somehow, and we have given it to her and fed her addiction. Many parents may think this is crazy, but even a good thing can be given too much. Food, for example is good, but as Rosemond says in his book, no parent would argue that it is good to give too much of it.
So Abby is now slowly being weaned from all the attention we have given her. No longer will she be able to dominate our meal conversations or being able to interrupt when we are doing things. Parenting today tells us that we can never “love our children too much”. This has lead to giving our children attention at their every whim. This is a scary thing to do. Our number one goal in parenting is to raise individuals that treasure Christ above all else. If we constantly give them attention and revolve our worlds around them, they will never understand that loving God means enjoying making much of Him. They will only “feel love” when someone makes much of them. If this is the case, they will never love Jesus.
I desire to raise children who go out and give themselves for God and others. This cannot be done when a child is given everything they want, whether it be material goods or attention. Thank You, Lord for granting us grace to see our terrible error!
Always looking to see the root issue with you,
Erin
P.S. Today is Abby’s 3rd birthday and I just want to praise God for such a special gift He has given us in enjoying her life these past three years. She is an amazing little girl! I praise God for His work in her life and pray it would bring her into a knowledge of His Son!
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