When my first child, my daughter was two, I found myself in quite a pickle. You see, me and two's have never meshed well. To such a point that in my years of childcare, I got to a point where for their sake and mine, I refused to work the two year old classes unless I HAD to and those were few and far between. This time though, I had no choice. I could not say no, could not find a substitute or any other option. I had to get tough. I had to find a way to survive.
My then-best-friend suggested a parenting book to me despite my strong disdain for those sorts of books; everyone has an opinion and they all stink sort of reasoning. I barely made it past the introduction! This woman had to be out of her mind!!! I was helpless and bordering on hopeless though so I grinned and bared it so to speak. In my desperation I got it, read it and was more than thankful for it! I will admit, there are things that I don't fully agree with but then again, does anyone ever fully agree with anyone? The book is Raising Godly Tomatoes by L. Elizabeth Krueger.
I'm not going to go into to much of the book but today was a great reminder of how far I have strayed from the basic and sound teaching; keep your children close, watch them and prune out the bad things while they are still tiny. The basic principle follows that of gardening tomatoes. If you don't train up the plant while it is still young and tender, the branches will sprawl all over the ground and the fruits that are bore will be weak and will rot. However, train up the plant from the beginning, prune it and care for it, picking the weeds and bugs, and you will have a plant that produces a healthy and bountiful crop. It is easy as parents and even onlookers to make excuses for little ones. I mean, they're just babies right? How much can they REALLY understand??? And, from a tiny young age, they discover our naivety and use it to their full advantage. Before you know it, you have a terrible two, terrifying three and horrific child from then on out. Trying to train a child who has already "hardened" and become set in their behavior is not impossible but is far harder than if the work had been done in the beginning and maintained throughout the child's growing.
Today, we (my husband and myself) kept our nephew. His upbringing is vastly different than how we have been raising our four children. Things in our home have gotten quite out of hand and my husband and myself have been feeling quite at a loss. I wanted to help but was really dreading the additional load. He is very trying at times and then add to that, my three and I feared it would be like an atomic bomb blowing up. All in all though, the day went really well. It was ultimately very eye opening at how lazy we both have gotten in our parenting. Knowing what I know about my nephew, I knew I could not handle him in the same way that I normally do my own children (not that I treat mine bad but he comes from a totally different background and with that, his own life story). Not wanting to confuse the little hearts by treating one "better" than the other, I went back to my RGT training and in just one evening have seen a huge difference. My kids KNOW better and they know that Mommy and Daddy are tired and just not putting forth the effort and they take full advantage of this ESPECIALLY with Daddy. My third child is the very typical strong willed child and my second is ALL BOY! We needed the reminder at how much better our home runs when we discipline and DISCIPLE our children properly.
When we shake off the shackles of laziness and work diligently to help our children be their best possible and instill in their hearts a desire to submit to those God places over their lives. We've got a lot of back work to catch back up on and it will be hard but I am very reassured and refreshed. Better now than having gone years longer.
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