Kids and Parents
July 8, 2011 (Friday)
While surfing the net, I ran across this extraordinary bit of advice for people planning to have children: “Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it — it’ll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.”
This week in this blog I began by reminiscing about Calvin Graham, an old classmate of mine who joined the US Navy at age 12. That set me to thinking about kids who did other unexpected things for their early ages, so I wrote next about a miracle baby of the early 1700’s who could speak four languages before his death at age 4. Then I decided to write about child prodigies in general and how most people have more normal kids. Today I would like to continue the part about raising kids in the right way. As hinted in the first paragraph above, I certainly do not have all the answers, but I recognize, after being on this old earth for quite a while, the importance of the home and family. I want to do what I can to encourage those who want to have good homes.
And so, I promise to pray for the parents, that they may love each other and behave themselves as adults, for the infants that they may be cuddled and fed and never mistreated, for the toddlers, that they may have patient parents who always show them affection, for the school kids, that their parents might show an interest in their school work and let them know they care, for the middle schoolers and high schoolers, that they may resist peer pressure and always stand by what is right, and for their parents to be open and receptive to conversation about what’s going on. Hopefully, by the time the kids graduate from high school, they are undamaged by growing up and are ready to take the next big step in life, whatever it may be.
Advice is cheap, so this blog is free.