To understand your parents’ love you must raise children yourself. – Chinese Proverbs
Chocolate cake for Breakfast? "Eggs are in chocolate cake. And milk! Oh, goodie! And wheat! That's nutrition!" - from Bill Cosby: Himself
What does that mean?
This will be a challenge to explain. If you have kids, you already know what the quote is talking about. If you don’t have kids, it’s going to be hard to explain this to you.
One of the things that children don’t see is the sacrifice the parents go through to make life easier for the children. Not all parents do this as well as one might hope, but the majority do try. Parents usually do the things they do for the benefit of their kids.
Love and responsibility often seem at odds in the near term, but if you look at the longer term, or the big picture, the job of the parent is to make sure the child is ready to take care of themselves in the real world. In looking back, I hope you can see the love of your parents, mixed in with their human faults.
Why is parental discipline important?
While many injustices and injuries have been done “for your own good,” most parents do what they can to make the life of their children better. Most children don’t know what the real world will require of them, and it is the job of the parents to prepare them. While it might seem cruel, demeaning, and just plain mean, these things are usually done with good intention and love in the heart.
The parent usually does not show love in the way the child desires. But how well would we have grown up, eating nothing but candy and cake, and riding ponies all day? Would the grown child know how to eat a balanced meal or do a good job at anything? How would they teach their kids any of these skills? Discipline, however appreciated, is required to achieve the best results.
Where can I apply this in my life?
There are probably dozens of things your parents made you do when you were young that you promised never to make your children do, right? Make them clean their rooms. Make them pair the socks and fold the shirts (and hang the nice shirts). The list goes on and on.
While some methods are generational, and society has evolved (how many of you remember the use of paddles, both at home and at school – and not just at Catholic schools), most of these promises will (or have) come back to haunt you.
Some people don’t believe in tough love. I do, and have seen good results from it. I have also seen it used to excess, with less than good results. Discipline is how we get results, but the skill of application is often the place where problems occur.
I’m no expert, and every kid is unique, so we are all on a voyage of discovery. What works for one child might not work for the next, or even for the same kid one week later. Good thing we humans are good at adapting to changing circumstances!
For my kids, I try to explain why I don’t like what they were caught doing. I especially get on them when they do something that hurt me when I was their age. It seems to strike a little resonance, but with my son in his early teen years, those days may be numbered.
Communication seems to be both the best thing to have going, and the most difficult to initiate and maintain. Sometimes my kids won’t be quiet, other times I get one word answers. It’s become a running joke at our house.
“How did school go today?” “Great.”
“What did you do today?” “Stuff.”
They actually now try to get a couple one word responses before talking about how their day went. And I play along, trying to make questions that are as difficult as possible to answer in just one word. But the game helps keep the communication lines open, and helps to keep the situation light.
By having open lines of communication, discipline can (hopefully) be handled in a conversational tone, instead of being relegated to a screaming match. Check back with me in another ten years, and I’ll let you know how well it worked for me. 8)
I would be interested in hearing what others have to say, both what has worked and what has not worked. Please leave any comments as to how you dealt with children, if you’re a parent. If you’re not, please consider leaving a comment regarding how it looks from your end, so we all might have another view point.
As my mom told me, her revenge would be her grandchildren, and watching me go back on all the promises I had made when I was a child. Even now, she loves me, and tries to help me with my children, as her mother did for her, and I will try to do for my children. Yeah, it can be kind of mushy, but that’s what the love of a parent is.
From: Twitter, @AncientProverbs
confirmed at : http://thinkexist.com/quotation/to_understand_your_parents-love_you_must_raise/152475.html
Photo by tenaciousme
