I started reading this book yesterday ~ "Different Children Different Needs" by Charles F. Boyd, published in 1994 and I'd love to share a few snippets that I've enjoyed.

Parent Pollution ~ raising your children the way you think they ought to go...or want them to go. Let's look at the very familiar verse of Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Sounds simple, right? Let's see what Mr. Boyd has to say. "In the way he should go" does not refer to some prescribed path that everyone should follow. The Herbrew language for the phrase is better rendered, "according to his way."  And the Hebrew word for "way" is derek, which literally means bent and refers to a unique inner design or direction. He gives the following as a more accurate rending of this verse:

Adapt the training of your child

so that it is in keeping with his natural design;

when he comes to maturity,

he will not depart from that pattern of life.

"If you want to have a meaningful relationship with your children, you must understand who they are as God designed them. You must lay aside what you want your children to become and spend time getting to know who they already are."  

Chapter two started out almost depressing. A teacher had brought in letters or poems that her students had written so that Mr. Boyd could read them. Here are some of them -- WOW is all I can really say.

Pleasing My Parents

I would love to make mom and dad happy.

I try and try,

I always fail.

I work too slow

and I don't  do enough.

I ask for help to understand.

What do I do?

Sometimes, I just feel like giving up.

I know I must communicate,

Even though it sounds simple.

It is a boundary that consists of a steel wall.

I will conquer it.

 
"When God made you, He placed within you natural strengths and abilities. He wove those into the fabric of your inner being. And those capabilities and potentialities are part of your unique design. They were given to you to be used to accomplish things for Him. When God made you, He put in your heart strengths, capabilities, potential skills, passions, drives, and motivations. He designed you with a certain way of being. As as result, you feel fulfilled when you are acting according to your design--and frustrated when you aren't."