Our children grow up to see how successful their parents are.
They are unaware of how many times we failed and at times grew up without the comfort they now have but yet made provisions for them. To them, life represents the ambience and flavors of the living they have come know.
Silently they begin to wonder how they could be like the parents, without which they continue to brood over what they perceive are failings and failures. Instead of parents telling them how life wasn’t also too kind to them, they rub salt to their injuries by telling them they were frontrunners in social and academic endeavors in their time.
These leads to more frustrations and tip overs.
I am not a psychologist, but I believe many children being unable to fanthom how to make themselves look like a perceived successful father or guardian leads, which them into seeking external help. In the process, they get entangled in obnoxious acts and attitude.
For such children, parents should not give up on them. Instead, let them know that failure is not a sin, but remaining ‘failed’ is. We should never be afraid of our past. We should let them know we too failed but navigated the rough stretches of life by quickly getting up with each fall, not seeing failings and failures as options and taking personal responsibilities for our choices, actions or inactions.
In the words of Mike Singletary, “I want to be able to sit with my kids and tell them some of the things I have done. Not to glorify sin. Not to justify it. Not to say everybody does it, so it must be okay. Rather, because I am not proud of it and because I don’t want them to feel unique. Most of all, I want them to know that by the grace of God, He brought me through it and out of it, and he can do the same for them.”
Amen. Parents arise!
Grace and peace!!!
