How to Ruin Your Kids

How to really whack at your kids… to truly mess up their innocence.—

I was flying on a plane and the folks across from you had a small boy named Alex. Alex was all boy… he was a hopelessly curious, always processing information, thinking, learning and asking questions. What was interesting about the story is that his folks were compelled to constantly correct is data. They corrected his questions, comments, deductions, vocabulary, language usage and so much more. They seemed compelled to be right more than they were about loving their Alex. In my mind, they were whacking their son, and setting them up for some sort of pathology as he grew older.

Children possess a rare innocence in Christ said, lest you become as a child you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. They’re loving innocence and kindness makes them a model to learn from.

We as parents to take this innocence away with our sarcasm and snotty and snippy words and attitudes. Our anger and frustration and ongoing angst truly tends to whack our kids. Many of us have to be correct and right all the time or else... life becomes unchecked.

All of these corrections, reality checks, and “talkin tos” in the name of helping our children equates to cruelty, madness and translating much of our own personal issues and baggage over tour kids… why can’t we just be merciful?

Why can’t we just go with it when they’re in a stream of conscious flow of thought? Why can’t we urge them on as they dream out loud? Why can’t we verbally endorse their process and not worry so much about their content or conclusions, exclusively?

We can always come back later and dialogue and discover what is truth incorrect and right and good— but how can we ever get there if we are so busy correcting little Alex and his plethora of poor communication and logic?

The madness, we parents and adults possess and wanting to be correct– coupled with our moodiness is something that truly monitor and become aware of. … so as to intentionally jettison. We need to see our issues and own and fix them. We need to be in the moment and be present and enjoy our kids rather than hurt their hearts. We need to truly encourage the development and thought process so they can eventually discover the truth, and thereby be set free.

Next time your kid begins to verbally explore their world— go with it. You don’t have to be right or correct or the boss in authority (you are). You do need to be merciful and kind and gentle. You do need to see your own issues and tendencies in moodiness and anger and own them. You do need to be intentional about your issues to fix them. Quit trying to fix other people and go ahead and fix yourself. Quit trying to be correct and illicit rightness from all those around you and concentrate on being right in your own heart.

Be here now.

Be present.

Enjoy the ride!