Parent-Centered Homes March 16, 2007
Posted by Joe in : General Lessons , trackbackErin,
That was a good lead-in yesterday. I am sure you can expound upon what I have to say today, but I’ll definitely get things rolling a bit.
Essentially, Erin and I have had our eyes open to a few things that we sort-of knew, but not really. I trust that most people can relate to this. There always seems to be things in our lives that we are aware of, but that we don’t really understand the depths of. Well, there are numerous things in our lives for sure, but this past week a few things have been exposed–big time.
First, I saw for the first time how child-centered our home has become. Of course, at the time of this writing, this is no longer the case, but it was the case just a few short days ago. The ‘epiphany’ of sorts came while reading the first chapter of John Rosemond’s book, The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children. I don’t agree with everything in the book, but I still recommend it quite heartily. Anyhow, his first chapter (and first point) is that the home must be marriage centered and parent-centered for a child truly to thrive.
Now, Erin and I have always known this. I mean, duh right? We need to keep our priorities in line. And I knew that we might be struggling in this area, but it wasn’t until I received Rosemond’s clear teaching and description that I realized we had become a child-centered home. How did it happen? Oh, like anything else that takes over–gradually. It wasn’t a full sweep, but bit by bit, our strong-willed Abigail began to take center stage. Then came Elijah and the battle became harder. Well, Rosemond was describing us and our children. It was a freeing realization that served to bring rapid change.
Another realization will wait until another day. I want to end up mentioning the magnificent way we have been freed by the various philosophies that have actually led us to ‘harm’ our children by paying too much attention to them! That might sound odd to some, but the happiness of our home even over the last few days bears witness to the reality that it is very possible to pay too much attention to your kids. For whatever reason, we had (have) been led to believe that often children who are causing problems need more attention in order to fix the problem. I see clearly now that this is some pop-psychological nonsense.
Of course, we aren’t advocating spending no time with them. But we are making some serious cutbacks and seeing some wonderful results. The wisdom of this world is folly with God.
That is enough for now. There is much more…much, much more, but there are plenty of more days for the Sinners Raising Saints blog!
Getting my priorities straight with you,
Joe
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