“No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined.” ~Henry Emerson Fosdick
The most important of all our mortal duties relates to family and helping them make correct choices. Our’s and our children’s choices will affect many, peers as they grow and posterity. With consistent choices favoring the Lord’s path, time will reveal that path as easier, greater in peace and purpose. There are many ways to instill sound character in children. Mostly it comes from an awareness of what is, is not in their lives…
Problem: We lived in a small farming community where one child, for many years, was under heavy oppression from peers; another also, at times, felt oppressed. All efforts on our part saw no hope of resolution. It was time to move and we did… 1500+ miles south, where those two blossomed in ways, to this day, we find astounding. It was definitely the right choice and we acknowledge God’s part in all of our lives. It was where He needed us for our own good.
Problem: In that same southern setting, a son fell in with a group who took delight in defying authority figures including church and school settings. Normally a good student, he brought home his first bad report card. My response, inspired from above, was to show him the sort of work that that scholastic direction would take him. We had a pile of bricks 3′ x 4′ x 4′ on our property with a 15% slope. I had him move the bricks, by wheelbarrow, 40′ uphill, then move them back. He lost all privileges until done. We never saw another bad report card, but he was still subject to peers leading him in the wrong direction. I took the opportunity, when offered, to transfer across the country. The new setting found us in a church community where the Bishop and seminary teacher (Bishop’s wife) had a strong influence upon him. Today his income is at least double what mine was at the peak of my trades’ earnings per year and he loves his work as an executive of a well known international company. I’m so happy to be so humbled.
The point: We need to be in tune with and open to ALL possibilities when we see our children are in trouble. They are only under our direct influence for about 20 years. With their children, they will forever become affected by our choices in their behalf. And… better to deal with our children’s difficult issues now than have them forever be less than they could have been had we only intervened appropriately when we should have. kdm
