Parental authority and freedom within God-given boundaries seem to be recurring themes in my reading this week. In The Talks: A Parent’s Guide to Critical Conversations about Sex, Dating and Other Unmentionables, Barrett Johnson emphasizes that it is a parent’s responsibility to teach their children not only God’s boundaries for sex, but why He has given us those boundaries. They are for our own good, not just arbitrary rules that keep us from having fun.
Then while reading For the Children’s Sake for the Charlotte Mason study group, these ideas came up again:
Ah, blessed balance! The few reasonable lines, firmly laid down, and then freedom within the pasture. Note especially, the importance of:
- Taking the child into confidence. You are on his side. You are together aiming for the strength and maturity of character which will help him, later on, cheerfully to be able to do what is right, rather than what is merely wanted. You discuss it together. You are allies on the path.
- The parent has to exercise great self-restraint. It is easy to keep giving extra orders, loading up the child and turning him into an obedience-robot. We must show that we are mature enough to stick to the lines which are right, and that we don’t merely boss the child about for our convenience. Furthermore, we must only give commands that we truly intend to see carried out to the full. This last is probably more powerful than spankings and punishments. The child knows the finality of the understood boundaries.
Though I know these things to be true, putting them into practice can be difficult and discouraging, so it was very encouraging to read this verse at the end of the chapter (I think I need post it somewhere I will see it everyday):
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Oh, nice. Mystie and Brandy talk about #1 in their video chat today. They flesh it out some more in wonderful ways.
I've got to start my homework sometime very soon!
"You are allies on the path." Love this so much!