Children often don’t understand why parents instruct, correct, or limit them. Your kids likely question your wisdom and motivations. Although your children may resist your parenting, don’t give up. There will be times when you’d rather escape than confront, rest than correct, or do the job yourself instead of instructing your children to do it. Parenting requires sacrifice and work. Be courageous in challenging your children in spite of their resistance.
Hebrews 12:11 reminds us that discipline isn’t easy to accept, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” A child screams when he’s about to get an immunization. He doesn’t care whether it’s going to prevent a disease or not; he just doesn’t like pain.
None of us wants pain in our lives. But discipline does involve pain. Whether we’re doing physical therapy, trying to lose weight, or saving money, we must give up some things in order to gain something we want.
Be careful not to let resistance from your kids get in the way of their training. Children don’t usually have the foresight needed to work hard unless there’s some kind of immediate reward.
But then there are those occasional moments when your son brings in the trashcans without being asked or your daughter cleans up her room on her own. Those are the small indications that maturity is just around the corner. Encourage your children and determine to hang in there beyond the resistance. Your kids need your self-discipline and persistence as they grow to develop their own.
This parenting tip comes from the book Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and Your Kids by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.
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