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Loving Limits
By Administrator | March 12, 2006
The following is the beginning of my book Loving Limits.
Have you ever tried to plant grass on the side of a hill? On my drive to school I would pass a small Baptist church, which has gone to battle trying to grow grass on a slope leading to a small water retention basin. Early in the summer heavy rains washed out the young growth forcing them to re-rake and re-plant the seed. Unfortunately, three more storms came and three additional efforts were put forth. With the hot summer came a dry spell. They seeded and watered faithfully trying to get grass to grow enough to be established. Regrettably, by the time fall came, the grass died and gullies formed forcing them to start all over again. I felt bad that an entire summer’s hard work proved to be futile. Because there was no grass on the hill to start with, nothing held the seed on the slippery slope.
If there had been established grass, the roots of the older vegetation would have prevented the soil from eroding giving the new seeds a stable soil base as well as protecting it from the sun, wind and rain. This protection would have given the new seeds a chance to grow. The parallels with parenting today are striking. To under parent and not take an active role in the lives of our children is to leave them vulnerable on the side of the hill. We would be expecting them to take root without the benefit of our established, deep roots. Trials, temptations, societal pressures and the like all come like rainstorms. If we are not engaged and taking an active role through establishing and enforcing loving limits, we are leaving our children exposed on the side of the hill one step away from a disastrous rainstorm.
God has established a system for grass to reseed itself on the side of a hill. While the older, established grass with its deep roots keep conditions stable and weather the storms, the young, susceptible grass gets a chance to establish roots of its own. So we as parents need to sink our roots deep into the Word of God. Loving limits help protect our children so that they can establish roots of their own. My desire for you as parents is to understand the importance of and be encouraged to establish and maintain loving limits.
By loving limits, I am talking about basic rules to live by as well as the expectations we place on our child’s behavior and performance. These loving limits can include our expectations from how our children are to treat one another to how much they are to devote themselves to schoolwork or extra-curricular activities. This body of rules and expectations are present in our parenting even if we are not aware of them. For some parents, they are well thought out; for others, they are formed by default. For example, every child has a bedtime. Does the parent decide a proper bedtime that will benefit the child and then enforce it? In some families, no clear limit has been decided. The child’s bedtime varies from day to day depending on the mood of the child or parent. Either way, every child has a bedtime.
When we structure our rules and expectations and carefully decide which ones will benefit our children and glorify God, then we can truly call them loving limits! These loving limits will help our children flourish and grow. They will provide a stability that will allow our children to face and learn needed social, educational and moral behaviors. Basing these limits on the Word of God ensures us that they will be stable when storms come. Are you providing this stable, firm place for your children to grow and take root?
You can download the entire book (free) here: Loving Limits
May God’s grace and peace be with you,
Mark Strohm, Jr.
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