Daly Focus Blog
As a father of two young men, the topic of how young people and faith coalesce is close to my heart because Jean and I are living it right now. We have diligently tried to raise our sons to be men after God’s heart. Some days we feel like we’ve hit a home run. Other days, we fear we’re striking out.
Maybe you feel the same way. Christian parents are competing with a lot in the culture when it comes to believing in God and living for him.
Most
Americans have been on virtual lockdown since March. Everything from sports to
restaurants have been shut down for weeks. The one thing we haven’t lost is our
screens. Which means a lot of us have filled our days with video games and
online shopping while we binge on Netflix.
I get it.
This is a stressful time, and a little distraction is good for us. But spending
nearly every waking moment in front of a screen isn’t.
Imagine this scenario: It’s your child’s job to clean up their room, but hours have gone by and they still haven’t gotten the job done, despite repeated reminders from you.
How should you respond?
Lecture them? Ground them? Clean up the room yourself?
The answer is to let good boundaries be your guide. One of the most important functions of parenting is to teach your children how to respect appropriate limits.
Setting healthy boundaries has a lot of benefits, and primary among them is helping children to develop self-control.
A lot of moms say they feel overwhelmed and stressed. Is it any wonder? They’re struggling under the burden of unrealistic expectations – some self-imposed, and some imposed by the culture.
In both cases, the “ideal” mom is often portrayed as a woman who is not only a full-time mom at home, but a fulltime employee outside the home. In her free time, she’s a Girl Scout troop leader, bakes treats from scratch for her kids, and still has time to accompany her children on every school field trip.
A lot of women feel pressure to be an outstanding wife, a fantastic mother, and to keep a beautiful home all while having a vibrant and meaningful career. They’re chasing an impossible standard. They feel they can never do enough, no matter how hard they try.
Many women are not only struggling to do it all, but to do it all perfectly.Without all of those plates spinning, they feel they’re not achieving anything extraordinary – for God or for themselves.
It’s been said it’s “easier to build a boy than to mend a man.”
I agree.
A startling number of boys today are alone, left to figure out for themselves what it means to be a man. They don’t have a father in the home who will engage them.
Oh, dad may be there. But he isn’t present.
There are a lot of great dads out there, but too many men are disengaged. They don’t see manhood as a quality for them to intentionally bestow upon their son.
Do you have a daughter who’s a “crushaholic”? That term describes a young lady who is constantly seeking affirmation from boys.
I don’t have daughters myself, but I do have two boys Trent and Troy, so Jean and I are seeing the upheaval of the teen years up close. The physical, mental, and emotional changes can be intense.
Did I mention the emotional changes?
They can be especially pronounced in girls who tend to be emotional creatures by nature, more so than boys.
Trevor Hendershot is quite a young man. I think you’d like meeting him.
Cheerleaders in his high school once made banners to cheer him on, and he was so popular he was voted homecoming king. He was a little quirky, too. He had a habit of loudly singing Christian songs in the hallway before, during, and after school. He gave everyone he talked to a high-five, a hug, or a fist bump.
He’s now in his mid-20’s and works for the Los Angeles Angels, a Major League Baseball franchise.
Author Tricia Goyer says she never thought she had an anger problem … until she had to deal with children who had anger problems. She and her husband had three kids of their own and adopted seven others.
Their adopted children had emotions that Tricia didn’t know how to handle. They struggled with pain from their past. They were angry from being away from their biological families. Some of them had faced difficulties in foster care.
Has one of your children ever thrown a world-class fit in a store?
My son Trent did that once when he was little. He wanted a candy bar while he was with his mom in the checkout aisle. I was out of town, so Jean was alone with him. Trent had a meltdown because he couldn’t have the chocolate he was after.
Jean was a new mom and was embarrassed that she couldn’t get Trent under control.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
