When our daughter was little, someone asked her if she wanted a sibling. She looked at them seriously, “No, I’m good. Siblings just get you in trouble a lot!” She was actually pretty wise. I’m sure there is some expensive study somewhere, but I would imagine a huge percentage of parental correction involves sibling issues.
It’s easy to understand how sibling issues begin. A child who has been the center of his parents’ universe for two or three years suddenly has a baby sibling who gets the attention of everyone, all of the time! Or an older sibling thinks their seniority means they can force younger siblings to do their bidding. Or a younger sibling thinks they should get extra everything because they were last on the scene. If you have siblings, I’m sure you could add to the list.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed in parenting. The demands on our time and energy seem never ending. Christian parenting can begin to feel like an unnecessary added burden. As a Christian parent, you don’t just feel responsible for keeping your kids alive and making sure they are somewhat decent people, capable of eventually facing the adult world. You now feel this additional responsibility to do everything anyone suggests, so you can be relatively confident your kids go to Heaven for eternity!
If you parent a toddler, your day is filled with questions. It’s one of the many ways young children explore the world around them and begin to understand it better. Millions of words have probably been written about the questions of children. We don’t often talk, though, about the questions parents should ask. I guess we view parenting as more of an ongoing lecture or a string of requests and commands.
Want your kids to be more obedient? Want them to make more godly choices? Want them to have healthier relationships? Want them to do well in school, work or almost anything they undertake? Self-control is the key.
If you think about it, Christianity is about choices. When God gave us freedom to make choices, He also gave us the freedom to make good choices and bad choices. Sadly, most of us make more bad choices than good ones. It’s the reason Jesus had to die on the cross – for those bad choices that are sins.