How To Love a Child Wisely

April 30th, 2009 by admin

Parents love their children. The natural instinct of all parents is to keep a child safe; to provide a safe environment and protect the child from the world. It’s what I call “animal instinct.” You see the same kind of protection of the young in all kinds of birds and animals.

Animal instinct is a wonderful thing, really. It’s not wise to get between a mama bear and her cub; you might not live to tell your story. Protection of the young is the reason that all species continue to exist. Without protection of the young, all life would eventually die out.

But animals are usually a lot smarter than humans when it comes to knowing when protection turns into spoiling and enabling. That mama bear will protect her cub as long as the cub needs protecting. She will teach the cub to protect himself, and when he gets big enough, he will be required to take care of himself without any help from his mama.

I see parents lavish “things” upon their children and call it “love.” It’s not love. Giving a child so much that there is no need for him to ever learn to work for what he wants and provide for himself is a sure way to raise an incompetent adult who thinks that the world somehow owes him a living. The prisons are full of grown-up children who weren’t loved wisely.

The idea of being a good parent is to work yourself right out of a job. The idea is to raise a totally competent human being who can take care of and provide for himself without expecting (or requiring) any help from mommy and daddy. That’s the way parents love their children wisely!