Today I felt down about the affect of my teaching to my children. So often I feel I can not make a direct connection between my teaching and their choices. Chad was encouraging me and citing examples of this and that, but I thought, "Is it really my teaching or is it just their personality?" Well you can not really tell. Many things we do as a mom, the choices we make directly and indirectly by modeling, by leading to a book, by protecting the influences in their lives--affect our children's choices. However, I took comfort from Anne Bradstreet. I especially have felt hopeless because of the difficult work of instruction with certain children. She explains that some kids just need alot more training. And since she had twice as many kids as me, probably saw more examples of this.
This famous Puritan poet and devoted wife and mother, Anne Bradstreet raised 8 children. This is what she said about discipline:
"Corn is produced with much labour (as the husbandman well knows), and some land asks much more pains than some other doth to be brought into tilth; yet all must be ploughed and harrowed. Some children (like sour land) are of so tough and morose a disposition that the plough of correction must make long furrows on their back and the harrow of discipline go often over them before they be fit soil to sow the seed of morality much less of grace in them. But when by prudent nurture they are brought into a fit capacity, let the seed of good instruction and exhortation be sown in the spring of their youth, and a plentiful crop may be expected in the harvest of their years."
So I guess I just have to accept that some kids just need ALOT more correction than others. Lord give me more patience!
This famous Puritan poet and devoted wife and mother, Anne Bradstreet raised 8 children. This is what she said about discipline:
"Corn is produced with much labour (as the husbandman well knows), and some land asks much more pains than some other doth to be brought into tilth; yet all must be ploughed and harrowed. Some children (like sour land) are of so tough and morose a disposition that the plough of correction must make long furrows on their back and the harrow of discipline go often over them before they be fit soil to sow the seed of morality much less of grace in them. But when by prudent nurture they are brought into a fit capacity, let the seed of good instruction and exhortation be sown in the spring of their youth, and a plentiful crop may be expected in the harvest of their years."
So I guess I just have to accept that some kids just need ALOT more correction than others. Lord give me more patience!
3 comments:
And the ones who need more "shaping" usually also need alot more love because their little hearts are not unaware that they are receiving more "correction" than the others. They don't have tougher hearts because they are tougher soil. And we would do well to keep in mind that it is GOD who is responsible for the change in a child's actions/behavior....or an adult's. He woos us when we don't deserve it. He woos us with his unrelenting love....I'm not saying that correction/discipline is not part of the process. It's just that as I've grown older I realize how much more important LOVE is than I thought. .....Thoughts from your reflecting Mum.
yes yes yes thanks for sharing mom, he keeps reminding me over and over
good input mom
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