Being a parent is a challenge. It's as much a learning process for the adults as it is for the child we are trying to teach. There was no hard bound manual handed to us at the moment we became parents with a title that read, "Perfect Parenthood".
A lot of new parents have the idea of being perfect and think the older generation has no idea how to raise a child. Most of us who fall into the latter category just sit back and wait patiently because sooner or later we will get that phone call. That's the call that usually comes late at night and the first words we hear are, "Mommmm, he won't stop crying!"
Some of us have grandeur visions of making sure we are not the parents our parents were. Then it happens, we open our mouths and out spill those famous quotes we swore we would never use. Things like, "don't cross your eyes, they'll stay that way. If you swallow your gum it will make your ribs stick together. Money doesn't grow on trees. Look at me when I talk to you." That one is usually followed by "don't look at me that way."
"You're grounded for six weeks!" Doling that out as a parent is a life lesson in itself because six weeks is a really LONG time. One week usually works just as well.
My dad had two sayings I heard throughout my childhood. His favorite was, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." The second was "If you want to make sh*t stink, stir it up." Kids usually think in pictures and that one always conjured up a picture that made me wonder why on earth would anyone want to do that. I was an adult before I understood his meaning.
How about this one, "I will pull this car over and you can get out!" Most of the time we really wouldn't have done that, but it got a point across that there could be some severe consequences if the behavior didn't stop.
All these sayings we have passed down from one generation to the next carried the same underlying message, if you do something that is not in your best interest, there will be a price to pay.
My all time favorite, that I have used more times than I can count and have passed on to my own children is, "Life isn't fair" and guess what? It isn't.
If life was fair there would be no sickness, no poverty, no bad things of any kind. If life was fair, we would have all won two bucks when the Powerball Lottery hit 600 million. If life was fair everyone would have and be just like everyone else.
We never know the cards we are dealt. We have to play those cards the best we can. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose and when we learn to suffer the consequences of a loss, we usually come out on the other side a better person.
Not having any consequences teaches nothing but entitlement. Entitlement challenges no one to think or better themselves. If we continue down the road of no discipline and no consequences we might as well say, "Go ahead and play in the traffic, everyone else is doing it."
I
No comments:
Post a Comment