How would your child be different if you called out what God has put in them everyday? Eph. 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” All of us are here to improve the world around us, to be a light, and to bring attention to the Father and bless others.
Trying to affirm our children 80% of the time seems daunting to most people. Our world conditions us to look for everything wrong. Our predisposition to fear leads us to concentrate on all that could go wrong. Why would we want to parent from this position?
Instead, let’s start by considering all the good that God has poured into our babies. Then, let’s train ourselves to center our thoughts there. Keep your thoughts on the impression of good, the impression of God, that is on all of us.
If you need to, start small. What does your child do well? What are their talents? Many times, there are attributes that we can easily identify. Sometimes there are not. That’s when you need to acknowledge your discouragment and make a choice to peer through the mist. For some parents, they’re finding the positives in the midst of negative behaviors.
One child I worked with hit a neighbor child that she was playing with and her parents could not understand why this behavior continued. After talking to her, it became apparent that she was, in her mind, protecting another child from verbal abuse. When you’ve been bullied extensively at 10 years old, that logic makes sense. Her parents started by praising her desire to make sure people are treated well, then they had a discussion about how to do that. The aggression stopped after that and they have a budding sense of justice in their child that they’ll be able to rely on later.
Most stories aren’t this intense but the spirit is the same. You’re already watching your children intently, passionately wait to see the snippets of good. Imagine what it must be like for God to see the good in us. He knows there’s evil but He’s still calling us to good works. He’s still looking for it even in the midst of our misgivings.
In the practical day-to-day, we have a choice to see the good or the bad. The sin nature or the impression that God has made on us through His Creation. They’re both real, and that can’t be lost on us. But our interactions with our children are first relational and therefore emotional. That is are starting place and then we work to move closer to God from there. I dream of a time when my natural response is first how Chris would act but for now it’s not.
We tend to start out with this method of parenting. No one is surprised that toddlers are selfish and we don’t expect them to change overnight. We help and direct them towards better behavior. We start to lose sight of the necessity for that patience as children start to act more like adults. But they’re not. All along the developmental process there are times to expect more and times to demonstrate understanding. Knowing the difference requires time, attention, and an orientation towards who your child was created to be.
It’s work to be sure. Parenting is the hardest thing you could ever do. Children have our hearts and don’t always make the same decisions we would. It is painful but there is a joy in being the individual who recognizes the greatness in someone that no one else sees. When the flower that you knew was there finally blooms, it is a sweetness like no other.