Some child-rearing practices you can bet on
My son now towers over me at 6 feet 3 inches tall and is also developing some adult-size wisdom. But I can still vividly remember the days when both his stature and his judgment were much smaller.
He was about 10 years old. I have met very few 10-year-old boys who did not think that they were nearly superhuman, and my son was no exception. One of his areas of abundant overconfidence was in anything sports-related.
My oldest daughter, though, a year his junior, has never had any particular use for sports. She started talking in full sentences at 14 months old, using words like “contemplating” by age 2 and was reading very advanced books every day by age 4. They could not have been more different.
On the day I am musing over, I came home to find my daughter bouncing through the yard, beaming from ear to ear like she had just been made queen of the world. When I came inside, though, from my son’s room I heard weeping and wailing that could have emanated from Dante’s Inferno. Dana just nodded and said, “Go talk to your son.”
When I entered his little domicile, I found him face down on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. It took me a while to make out what he was moaning through his sobs, but finally I discerned “ALL sniff sniff MY sniff sniff MONEY!”
Then the story began to unfold. He had been playing with the football in the front yard. Karis asked to play, and he, having no confidence in her, bet her every dollar he had that she could not catch a pass from him.
She accepted his offer. He rared back with all of his perceived Thor-like might and fired the ball at her.
She caught it. And was instantly $127 worth of birthday money richer.
Only a parent will likely understand how you can be brokenhearted for your child while at the same time be desperately trying not to laugh. I eased out of his room and found my daughter.
This child has forever been the most tenderhearted, trusting, easy-to-please child. I would never demand that she return the money. All I did was to ask her what she thought she should do at that moment. She only took a second to say, “Well, if it was me, I would want somebody to be nice and give it back, so I guess I should do that.”
And she did. With no hesitation or sadness at all. Then I took her aside one more time, opened my own wallet, pulled out some hidden money I had tucked away in case of emergency and gave it to her. I did not tell her I would do that ahead of time; I wanted to see if she would do right just for the sake of doing right. When she did, I responded as I believed the Lord himself would have done had he been standing there at that moment.
In addition to having his “gambling habit” forever broken, my son learned to love and respect his sister a little more that day. My daughter learned that when you do right just for the sake of right, you end up with blessings that have no guilt attached to them.
Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”
If we parents raise our children to esteem others better than themselves and to consider the feelings and needs of others rather than just selfishly focus on themselves, we will have accomplished more than a billionaire who leaves a legacy of mountains of cash to his offspring.
If we help them to join what seems to be the “me generation,” though, if we teach them to always look out for No. 1, we will be doing them and the world they will live in a huge disservice.
Do you think we can puff their little heads up so big that they think the world revolves around them, and then expect them to become soldiers, preachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses or work in other fields that offer little pay for mountains of service? Do you imagine for so much as a moment that we can treat them as divas when they are children and end up producing anything other than adults who still behave as divas?
Don’t bet on it.
Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., a widely traveled evangelist and author of several books available on Amazon and at www.wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.