The One About Parenting

Parenting is definitely the hardest job I've ever had. I struggle with allowing my children to develop their God-given personalities, likes/dislikes and wills. Some days (A lot of days) I'd rather them all be quiet, genteel, meek children. I remember that when I was growing up there was a lot of talk about "breaking the will of the child" and "spare the rod, spoil the child" (Which interestingly enough I thought was a Bible Verse, but it turns out that it isn't!)



Anyway.. some days I wonder if parenting that way would be better. Spank for every misconduct. Discipline for every little wrong doing and don't ever back down until their will is broken.



But then I think... where did they get that will? What if I break the will that God was going to use for His glory one day? And if I do break that will, what is going to happen? Will that child, when s/he comes of age, use the will however s/he chooses because s/he was never taught that it was ok to have that strong will if they are using it to glorify God? I have seen this happen in a lot of the "strong willed children" I knew while growing up.



So I truck along... doing what I'm doing and praying that it's what the Lord wants me to do. Still... at times... I think that the appearance of 'perfect' sounds wonderful.