There are many great Christian ministries out there. One that I get a daily email from is Parenting Today’s Teens. Below is their radio spot / podcast from yesterday. It describes the classic parent enabler — one that, understandibly, wants to “rescue” their teen or child and prevent them from pain. However, in doing so repeatedly, sets up a cycle of enabled bad behavior and delayed or reduced consequences.
It’s hard for some parents to allow their child to feel any form of pain from consequences, so they rescue them. But for teenagers, inappropriate behavior changes only when the pleasure received from wrong choices is overridden by the pain of consequences. I’m not talking about physical pain, but the loss of certain freedoms for a time.
So, parents need to learn to allow consequences happen, and not lessen them, or they’ll start a cycle of having to rescue their child again and again, from ever increasing wrongdoing, for their entire life.
They say it much better than I do. Go check out their website for some great resources and insight.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
