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Published : April 11, 2009 |
Author : Megan
Category : J. Training, Correction, and Discipline | Total Views
: 264 | Rating :  
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 Megan
I'm 26, the oldest of eight living and still present at home: any childrearing or household-management experience I have comes from that source!
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My sister and I had a problem. We were arguing all the time. In fact, our formerly amicable companionship was almost completely gone.
Most people would say this was normal between siblings. Kids just fight with each other, right?
The problem was it hadn't been an issue before we moved. Before we started playing with the other little girls who lived around us.
Being homeschooled, we'd never been submerged before in the classroom environment of exclusive societies. We didn't realize big kids who were eight shouldn't associated with the babies who were six. We didn't know it was okay for girls to make fun of their sisters and want to be with their friends instead. Since we hadn't known it, it hadn't been a problem. Our new friends educated us quickly. They were good girls and didn't fool around with really bad stuff, but they'd been allowed to do a lot we hadn't and we'd begun to long after their way of life and try to be like them, in spite of what we'd been taught at home. We were looking over the fence at the grass that was a lot greener on their side and we began to have less and less value for the way we were being raised.
Hence, the arguing and spitefulness...and the growing restiveness with the restrictions our parents placed on us. We could only play two days a week: but we were thinking about that the rest of the time and we became very upset if anything interfered with our dedicated play days. We wanted to be a part of our friends' worlds more than the one we were living in.
This is a common problem many parents are faced with. Their kids have friends who are allowed to do what the parents don't want their kids to do, and kids nearly always long for the greater freedom their friends have. How many people have heard or recited the old phrase, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?"
Kids are spectacular imitators. They want to go along and do whatever everyone else is doing whether it's wise or not. They imitate almost everything they see, but they definitely lean toward the foolish things instead of the wise things. As Proverbs says, foolishness really is bound up in the heart of a child. Parents have the job of protecting children from their foolishness and teaching them to think on their own instead of just following along blindly with whatever their friends - or culture at large - come up with.
Many parents cope with similar unrest by trying to manage their kids' friendships and supervise as best they can. My parents did this also. It didn't work too well. The problem with tightening the restrictions but letting the interaction continue is it only compounds the feeling kids get that their friends get to do what they want, but they're hampered by all the rules their parents hang on them. They're forced to choose between two worlds: their parents' world and their friends' world. And the friends' world looks a whole lot more enticing.
As Jesus said, nobody can serve two masters. Kids are going to choose what world they want to be part of, and eventually parents are no longer able to hold them to anything different. That's what rebellious teens are all about. When we were running around with the neighbor kids, we began to want to imitate them instead of our parents and it created a lot of unrest in our house. As we got older, this only got worse. By the time I was twelve, I felt in a constant tug of war between doing what I knew my parents wanted me to do and doing what my buddies were doing. I was willing to swallow a lot or do a lot to fit in. My friends were getting to do more and more neat stuff I couldn't do because my parents didn't want me going off to the mall or the movies or the skating rink or the summer camp. God protected me at this point since my friends never tried to draw me into the same dangerous territory other girls got into; but life was not peaceful. And my poor sister took a great deal of abuse from me she didn't deserve.
My parents came to the conclusion the strain was getting way too great. Either I had to be allowed to do the things my friends were doing or it was time to stop playing with the neighbors. They didn't want to put me in the dangerous situations they felt I wasn't ready for yet by sending me off to spend all the time I wanted to with my friends, which only left the option to stop playing with the neighbors. I saw their point. I didn't like it and it made me sad, but I didn't like the tug of war and could see the sense in just ending it by no longer trying to participate halfway.
With that decision, life became much, much more peaceful. To my surprise, the sadness lasted all of about a week before I realized what a relief no longer trying to fit in was. In the end, I didn't miss playing with my friends much at all. I don't want to imply we no longer saw or interacted with anyone or even anyone our own age. But when we did, we visited as a whole family and all the kids played together without splitting into specific little groups of "friends". My sister and each other were at peace again and I didn't want to try to avoid her all the time. I didn't keep feeling like I had to keep being the naysayer who couldn't do anything. Things were all so much easier!
As I've gotten older, I've gradually gained friends who are more or less just "mine" again, but there's a critical difference: I'm much stronger in my own beliefs now, and if I'm challenged to do something different by a friend I'm able to weigh whether it's good or not. Friends are a great joy in life, but as a child they were a huge trap for me.
What you immerse children in is what they learn. Put a child with other children and they'll learn all about how to be a child. Put a child with Godly adults and they'll learn to be Godly.
To any parent who's struggling with trying to carefully supervise their children's play dates and feeling guilty about wanting to deprive their children of the "necessary" socialization of one-on-one play time: one of the best things my parents ever did was to stop letting us run around with the neighbor kids. It brought a peace to our home that's so often missing between parents and their kids. It gave us the time to learn wisdom and maturity so we could make real friends as adults. It absolutely was a gain rather than a deprivation.
So if you want your child's heart to turn toward you, and yearn for them to imitate what you believe is right, don't send them away. Don't put them in a situation where they have to divide their loyalties, and you will be astounded at the peace that results.
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