Millennial Marriage
There are some different methods of parenting styles, and many of us have heard of them: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. You could also add neglectful as a parenting style as well unfortunately. Anyways, I always felt that those were kind of obscure titles and didn't really help me understand HOW to be a good parent, it just seemed to label parents. But what I am going to share with you, wow, this, this to me is really helpful for HOW to be a good parent - an involved, active, loving, raising-healthy-children kind of parent. It is called, the Parenting Pyramid! (For visual help if my model is ineffective, think the Food Pyramid - hopefully that helps...) At the top we have correction...
If correcting and teaching are not working on helping our child's behavior, then we need to look a layer deeper on our parenting pyramid. Perhaps there is something amiss with our relationship with our child? Children are not ours. They are entrusted to us from God, and we are stewards. In reality they are our spiritual brothers and sisters, we are not superior and they are not our inferiors. They deserve respect and kindness if we are to expect that ourselves. No, it isn't always going be perfect, sometimes children will be disrespectful, but aren't adults that way to? Oft times correcting a behavior can come from simply becoming better friends with our children. No I don't mean become a permissive parent (being best friends and allowing our children to walk all over us), I simply mean to build a relationship of trust with our children, this so they see us as "allies to confide in, not police to run from" (Brother Rareick). So what if a focus on your relationship with your child isn't working? Well, how is the relationship with your spouse?
I've heard many times, the greatest thing a father can do for his children is love their mother. Strong families come from strong marriages. In this world of turmoil and confusion, we need to be not only living in the same house or sleeping in the same bed with our spouse, but we need to be a team when it comes to parenting. We can't have a "good" parent and a "bad" parent, we can't communicate solely with our spouse through our children, we can't treat our spouse poorly and expect our children to treat each other nicely. Children are incredibly perceptive, not only can they sense that you are being insincere with them, but they can also sense when you are your spouse are being insincere with each other. Sometimes bettering your relationship with your spouse can improve everything above this layer on the parenting pyramid. Finally, if things with your spouse aren't quite working - do some introspection and humble praying, and ask "What is my personal way of being? What do I need to fix?" This is the hardest part. Most of us don't want to admit that there is something that we are doing wrong. But isn't this life a time to become like Christ? Aren't we striving to become like God? Heavenly Father is the perfect parent, and there is so much we can learn from Him. If we really want to raise emotionally healthy, productive and contributing adults, and if we truly want to become like Him, we need to change ourselves. Then everything else in the pyramid will work itself out. Sure things are going to be perfect. In fact, they may be painful and excruciating, but guess what? We will have peace because our personal way of being is in alignment with God. Well, that is my schpill.... What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? Why?
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