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Parenting Principle #8- Changing Times
By Bob Kalle
My experience as a high school teacher opened my eyes to how things have changed. For instance, many adults like me grew up under the philosophy that “children should be seen and not heard.” High schoolers have told me that they have never heard that saying. That seemed amazing to me. I heard it all the time and had to live with it when I was growing up. When we discussed this idea, the students were indignant! “What do you mean that we shouldn’t say what we want to say?” It was their belief that their opinion was as valid as any adults.
Obviously, our culture has allowed this evolution to happen. Here’s my question. If teenagers are so smart, why are they not supporting themselves or making a larger impact on our society? I wonder about the age that we start to get un-smart. It appears that adolescents believe they are as smart as their parents. They want to express their own ideas because they are right and their parents are wrong. This entire concept throws me. If we are as smart as we are going to be by 16, what’s left in life?
I heard a speaker talk about the relationship between parents and children. He said that children believe that it is our role to listen to them and not for them to listen to us. He said that it needs to be the other way around. It is important for children to realize they are supposed to listen to us and not for adults to listen to them.
There is the idea that we have two ears and one mouth because we are supposed to listen twice the amount of time we’re talking. Doesn’t it make sense that children are in the process of learning while parents are in the position of teaching from their experiences in life? How can we mentor and teach our children if they think they know it all and act that way. There is a biblical saying “that they have eyes but do not see and have ears but do not hear.”
This issue has been growing as we try to be politically correct and try to give our children as many rights and privileges that we can. But treating our children this way, are we teaching them not to respect us as parents or to respect any other authority figure?
My goal as a parent is to teach my children to be happy and successful. At times it means disagreeing with them because of the wisdom I’ve learned in my life. My children are in the thirties and forties and I still struggle with sharing wisdom with them because it may not be what they want to hear or they simply want to be right. It can be a never ending battle. But that is life. How do you deal with these issues in your family? Qc� ��(�
