Walking Therein

A Parent's Joyful Attitude

The Flavor of Joy  By: Michael Pearl

Category: Attitudes, Parent/Child Relations   August 1998

Parenting, like courtship, must be properly seasoned with joy. Parenting without joy is not only tasteless, it is tiresome. Joy is the expression of present life—yet more, it is the energy and vision of life that shall be.

Parenting without joy is like music without rhythm or flowers without color. A joyless parent can no more raise happy kids than a skunk can raise skunklets that smell good.

You say, "But the kids destroy my joy!" I am sure it’s mutual. Without aggressive, deliberate, child training techniques your kids will be unruly and your home will be disorderly, sometimes explosive. You will be unhappy, short, rude, a gripe. If someone asked your kids if you were joyful, what would they say?

In many homes the problems are not deep—bad, but not deep. There is no deep-seated hostility or resentment in the family, just chaos, like an intersection with no traffic light. The installation of a traffic light stops all the collisions. The problem at the intersection appears to be one of attitude, that is if you judge by all the horn blowing, fist waving, and drop-dead looks; but once everyone knows the rules and order is established the tension leaves and everything runs smoothly. Likewise, in the home where there is no adequate authority and no consistency of rules, children are generally too unruly and the home is too disorganized to permit positive interchanges between family members. Collisions are frequent. There is no joy.

With only a little enlightenment, many parents have applied simple training procedures and gained complete control of their families in just a few days. By taking authority, these parents have eliminated the provocation to anger, in their children as well as themselves. Their anger resulted from frustration. It was just a runaway condition that upon being brought to a halt made everyone happy. Joy came to the family.

Order restored will eliminate the anger and hostility provoked by circumstances, but parenting doesn’t stop with conditioning children to outward obedience. It is a blessing to have the circumstantial anger removed, to have peace in the home; but the absence of conflict does not necessarily imply joy. Joy is a positive virtue, not just the absence of conflict.

Some parents are joyless regardless of the circumstances. They may not be angry or unhappy, just joyless. Look at it as a scale. Anger or bitterness is on the far left. A stable, sedate personality is in the middle, and joyfulness is on the far right. Granted, children do far better with deadpan parents who have no joy than they do with angry or bitter parents, but they do best when both parents are known for their joy. Bitterness is a plant with a disease. Joyless mediocrity is a plant without disease growing in average to poor soil. Joyfulness is a plant rooted in well-balanced soil with the right combination of rain and sunshine.

The Bible tells us to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The body, mind, and will of a child is trained from without, but the soul of a child is nurtured within through example and fellowship. There is no nurturing without joy. As I said another place, "If the joy of the Lord is the Christian’s strength, is not the joy of the parent the child’s strength?"

If you would like to read the rest of the article, follow this link: The Flavor of Joy

Blessings - and Joy!!

-Jacque

 ~reprinted with permission~

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Hey!

2:03 PM, Friday, April 6, 2007 .. Posted by mh530

Sorry I haven't commented you for ever.I was play a very cool racecar game.But I am geting on here again.So I will be commenting you alot.Okey!So how have you been?I am fine.How is your family?Mine is fine.What have you been doing?I have been playing outside.But I'm not anymore because it is very cold outside.It is snowing too.Did I tell you my mom had a baby girl on Dec. 21 2006?She is so cute.I can't balieve she is 3 months.Well I have to comment alot more poeple.So bye for now.
Megan

P.S.Write back soon!!