Your parenting skills haven’t been tested until that one child pushes your button. It’s easy to raise an obedient child with a good attitude. Some kids don’t require much discipline. You can pat yourself on the back and say, “job well done”, until you get that child who can really “test your gangster”, as some would say. In the urban dictionary, this translates to “test your patience”.
The Lesson is Your Weapon
The biggest gift you can give a child is unconditional love, but that should not create lifetime expenses. A good parent instills morals and values in early childhood to prepare his or her child for the life ahead. We become teachers, counselors, and mentors by default, hoping they would remember the valuable life lessons taught. We invest in their education, talent, and dreams so they can become independent and responsible adults. So if your children ever seem ungrateful, revert them back to those lessons you taught them. If you don’t make them accountable, the world certainly will.
Entitlement
After you have given your children life, love, and lessons, you don’t owe them anything else. When you gave them birth, you accepted your assignment. You show love by supporting them in every aspect of life. However, you do not owe them your life. The lessons you taught them were meant to be applied so they wouldn’t make excuses in their path to achieving greatness. You’ve given your children the tools. It’s up to them to use those tools.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with giving your kids a head start, but it’s up to them to finish. I’ve seen kids from good, well-structured homes make bad decisions and kids from bad or poorly-structured homes make good decisions. The only kids who should feel entitled are those who did not have a good childhood or were robbed of some of the most precious years of their lives. No kid deserves the trauma created from bad parenting, abuse, violence, hostile situations, unforeseen tragedies, or the like.
If you can attest to giving your children the best childhood experience under the circumstances you were afforded, then you owe them nothing but unconditional love. I’m not talking about children with mental health issues. I’m not talking about children with disabilities. And of course, I’m not talking about kids who have been traumatized. I’m talking about those able-body, mentally capable, ungrateful, lazy, and spoiled kids who think the world should be handed to them on a silver platter.
I’m not saying their childhood should match yours. What good parent wouldn’t want better for his or her kids? But you don’t have to spend the rest of your life trying to make up for what you couldn’t do for them as kids in their adulthood. You’ve done the best you could to give them a better life, and that should be enough for them to love and respect you for life.
There is no perfect parent or perfect style of parenting. What works for one child may not work for the other, and sometimes you must sacrifice spending time with your kids for earning money. But you must also communicate your need to make such sacrifices with your kids and make time for them. You can’t expect a “kid” to understand “adult” sacrifices. So if you’ve been absent for most of their childhood, then you should be trying to bond with them now. However, don’t become a bail bond and feel compelled to pay all their bills and raise their children.
The Pity Party
If you won’t entertain anyone else’s pity party, then don’t entertain your kids’. Oftentimes, it’s a ploy to get what they want. “Daddy wasn’t there”, “Nobody loves me”, “Nobody cares about me”, “Such and such mom or dad bought him a car”, “I’m not like you”, blah, blah, blah.
Kids will come up with 101 reasons why you should honor their requests, and as long as you fulfill them, you’re the best parent in the world. If you don’t, you might be considered the worst. Quit letting them make you feel like less than a good parent, and show them some tough love.
Kids are smarter than you think, and if you let them outsmart you, you’ll be taking care of them for life. Stop being a crutch and teach them responsibility and accountability. There’s nothing wrong with welcoming them back to the nest, but make them get a job and help pay bills, even if you don’t need their help. Only full-time students should get a pass.
The cost of living is way too expensive for one to make excuses. Disabled and some mentally challenged people go to work with the best attitudes every day. So there’s no excuse for your able-body, mentally capable children to be absorbing your hard-earned dollars and resources in adulthood. They’ll be the ones fighting over your estate when you’re gone.
Teach your kids to L.E.A.P. (Learn, Earn, Adapt, & Pray).
But don’t give up on them either.
And remember…
“Make sense of what you do, and make every cent count.”
Photo: Flickr. Angry gal by Wil Batista
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