Another principle which we must accept is that it is possible to modify behaviour patterns that have already been built up if we are willing to manifest great patience and will power. Both par ents and children can improve their methods of facing difficulty if they choose. Four general possibilities of conduct are open to everyone who meets a difficulty. One teacher has compared meeting difficulties to traveling in a car and coming upon a road block. We may detour around it; we may turn back; we may just park there; or we may decide that it is possible for us to go ahead as far as we wish to go, that this road, block is for something farther up ahead. When as a family and as individuals we use the method of direct attack, we may decide that the block is not really insurmountable. Perhaps we find that it was a mirage and not a real block. Demos thenes used this method when he refused to allow his speech defect to keep him from becoming a great orator. Before we adopt this method, how ever, we need to evaluate the situation before us. We would all see the fallacy of driving ahead every time we approach a road block. Sometimes we need to change our goals, and at other times, change the route over which we are trying to reach these goals. The little child who bangs on the screen and then pounds his head on the door until he cracks the glass panel has a worthy goal—he wants to get in to mother—but he is using the wrong tactics. It would be better for him to detour and go around to the kitchen door where mother will hear him. Sometimes we and our children are blocked by life’s problems and just seem to give up. Someone has called it a sit-down strike against maturing. The one who seems so blocked in his spiritual life that he is making no progress may give in to a sense o f frustration and remain a mere child in the Lord, needing to be fed milk instead o f strong meat. Very often such persons become critical and sharp-tongued. They do not realize that it is unde sirable to escape from our challenging experiences by giving up and using our energy to find fault. As Christian parents we must try to steer our children away from the luxury o f any kind o f self- pity or other inadequate method of handling our difficulties. Job was permitted to be greatly tried and tested as an object lesson by Satan to show what the grace o f God can accomplish in one of His servants. On a much smaller scale we may have opportunity to demonstrate to those near us the power of God which enables us to meet the prob lems and difficulties in the lives of the members of our family. The One who notes the sparrow’s fall is not unconcerned about any problem to even the least of His children. Used by permission, Moody Press, Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. From GROWING WITH OUR CHILDREN by Gertrude Nystrom.
I J udson T aylor was once visiting with a new ** missionary at a Chinese inn. Filling a glass with water, he struck the table with his fist. Then he said, “ You will be struck by the blows of many troubles and sorrows in China, but remember, they will only splash out of you what is in you. Out of some the blows of circumstance splash complaint and bitterness, but out of others joy and victory. It only brings out what is in you.” Edwin Markham expressed a similar thought in his well-known poem in which he shows that defeat is as powerful as victory to let glory out of the soul. He compares such experiences in human beings with great oak trees straining in the wind. But as they strain, the trunk sends down deeper roots on the windward side, and the boughs drink in new beauty. Adults, however, are not apt to react to diffi culty and disappointment in these mature Christian ways unless they have learned early the meaning of trials and troubles, and have been helped to develop in their ability to handle problem situa tions. Since emotional habits are so easily copied in a home, it is apparent that if our children are to have good emotional control, the parents will need to be well-adjusted themselves. Butler, in The Way of All Flesh, expressed the feeling that some chil dren would be better off if they came into the world with no chance o f parental training. The charge may be justifiable in some cases, but we know that God intended the long period o f infancy in the human race to be a time for wise training. In most cases, the children who seem so admirable are so because of wholesome training by their parents. It would hardly be possible to overemphasize the importance of your influence on your children. Most o f us have watched the surf breaking on the shore and have observed the way in which the waves start toward shore, gently and at some dis tance, gathering momentum as they hurry along. So it is with the confidences of little children. They come to us with their problems, slowly at first, then perhaps more dramatically in some crisis, and then as suddenly as the surf they withdraw, and are gone away from us. But the parent, like the sea shore, must always be there waiting for the coming o f the tide. One o f the first principles which parents need to accept is that the problems and difficulties o f chil dren of any given age are as great to them as any major crisis is to an adult. Unless we frequently remind ourselves of this fact we are" apt to dismiss a lot of their troubles with a shrug, and might even be tempted to say aloud, “ Oh, forget it. Wait till you have some real trouble to worry about.” It is very important that we realize, and show our chil dren that we realize, that every one o f their difficul ties is real; that some are more serious than others, but that all problems have a solution.
15
AUGUST, 1966
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