Loving Our Kids on Purpose by Danny Silk

Author:Danny Silk [Silk, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7684-2739-4
Publisher: Destiny Image, Inc.
Published: 2010-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

DISCONNECT THE BIG RED BUTTON!

Now, as our kids get a little older and a little smarter, their “not fun to be with” episodes are going to become more sophisticated. In short, they’re going to learn to talk back to you, and when they’re not being fun, that talk can look like defiance, arguments, and disrespect. And that’s the big red button on the chest of most Christian parents—disrespect. Parents do all they can to keep the children from ever pushing this button. They know how crazy this makes them feel inside, so it becomes a priority to teach that no one is disrespectful to the parents, ever!

A kid starts thinking, I am feeling kind of powerless today. I want to feel powerful. Sure enough, the kid spits out something disrespectful and the parent goes, “Waaaa!” It’s not that tough for a child to send his or her parent right over the edge of self-control. Simply firing a disrespect missile will usually do the trick. Children, quite naturally, find out that parents are defenseless against disrespect. Thus, parents are terrified by it.

It’s a major bummer for us when we let our children control us with this fear, because their respect level goes down. It goes down because it’s very scary for them to turn their lives over to a person that they can control. It’s very difficult to trust a leader that you control. So we need a way to manage ourselves so these guys will have no success in pushing our buttons, no matter which way they poke and prod our psyche.

Your children are learning right in front of you, and you must understand that you cannot take their learning personally. The fact is that the problems your kids are dealing with are the same problems that every other kid on the planet is dealing with. Everywhere I go, I poll parents on the kinds of issues they’re facing with their children, and without fail, the list is pretty much the same everywhere—disrespect, disobedience, irresponsibility, tantrums, whining, sibling rivalry, back-talking, bullying, low self-esteem, chores, or homework. These problems that we have with these little people are pretty universal human problems. They’re happening all over the planet. They’re happening in China right now. This very second, somebody is backtalking his parent somewhere in the world. These issues are not a reflection of what you did to your children. It’s not your fault. These children are on a learning journey. Let them learn.

Parents who think that their child’s problem is their problem end up in trouble. In fact, they end up feeling just like the person they’re trying to fix—miserable. When they take their child’s mistakes personally, they are effectively allowing their child’s shortcomings to determine who they are. The only way we can respond, rather than react, to our kids’ mistakes is to stay disconnected from those mistakes.

I received an email recently from a young mom who had a breakthrough in this very area:

Danny,

Hello! I just had to share a great story with you.

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