Am I Messing Up My Kids? by Lysa TerKeurst

Author:Lysa TerKeurst
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736928663
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

This Child Is Yours First

16

What If My Child Isn’t an Honor Roll Kid?

The only measure of what you believe is what you do. If you want to know what people believe, don’t read what they write, don’t ask what they believe, just observe what they do.

ASHLEY MONTAGU

SOMETIMES I’ M GUILTY OF BEING such a rule follower that I can’t think outside the box. For example, I was cooking a meal recently while on the phone with a friend. I gasped as I realized I hadn’t allowed enough time to cook a casserole before company was to arrive. My friend told me to turn up the oven temperature to allow the food to cook faster. That option had never occurred to me. Isn’t it breaking some hard-and-fast rule to cook a dish at a different temperature than what is specified on the recipe? Maybe for some things, but my simple casserole turned out fine.

This silly little experience opened my eyes to the fact that sometimes I look at things from too narrow a perspective. I can get so caught up in the rules that I miss the bigger picture. I was guilty of not seeing the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes. I prayed and asked God to get my attention the next time I looked at something too narrowly.

Well, get my attention He did! A few days later I assigned two things to my homeschooled children for their language arts lesson. First, they were to write a one-page paper about a place they wanted to visit and what they wanted to do once they got there. Second, they were to memorize a writing selection I’d picked from a book. As my kids turned in their papers, I was intrigued by the places they wanted to visit. One wanted to go to Miami to see famous basketball players. Another wanted to go to Hawaii. Yet another wanted to go to a made-up Candy Land town with her best friend. When Ashley, my nine-year-old middle daughter, turned in her paper, I was instantly frustrated because the city name was spelled incorrectly. I read through the rest of it and found many more grammatical errors and misspelled words.

I thought, She doesn’t think enough of this assignment to do her best work. Is she really struggling with spelling and grammar, or is this a heart issue? What does this say about her work ethic? What does this say about her character? What does this say about her educational future?

I sent her to her room with instructions to write the paper over and do her best this time. I rushed back into my to-do list for the day and did not give the writing assignment another thought. That is, until I saw her original work tossed aside on the counter and read it one more time. Here is an excerpt written as it was on that paper:

Monrwia (Monrovia)

I want to go to Africa and see the litter (little) kids in the orfneg (orphanage).

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