Parents: Raise adults, not children
Updated 12:08 am, Saturday, May 12, 2012
If I could offer one bit of advice that would change our world for the better, give our country hope for the future, and stop much of our societal and cultural decay, it would be “Stop raising children!”
Before you think I am calling on people to stop reproducing, permit me to explain. Years ago, while teaching on a Native American reservation, I often told students, “Act like an adult and I will treat you like an adult.”
Often a student would ask, “What does it mean to act like an adult?” I explained, “A child does what is right to prevent punishment; an adult does what is right because it is right.”
A parent's role is not to raise a child but to raise an adult. The child is the raw material. The adult is the finished product. This is what scripture had in mind for parents when it says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6 KJV).
Training is done while they are children, so they can draw upon it in old age. As children grow, choices must be made. Some are appropriate for them to make, others are not.
Children should be encouraged to make appropriate decisions and be allowed to face the results of those decisions. Shielding them from the results stifles their growth.
Imagine a child learning to walk. They fall down and occasionally get hurt in the fall. Protecting children from hurt by forbidding them to walk would be wrong.
The injuries from falling are best prevented by learning to walk properly. The best prevention for a child's bad decisions is teaching them to make good decisions. Just as I don't teach my child to walk by walking for her, I do not teach a child to make proper choices by making all choices for her.
Life could be defined as a series of choices and results. I make a choice; there are results. These results lead me to another choice, which itself has results — choice after choice, result upon result.
Some choices produce joy; some produce pain. The job of parents is not sparing our children from choices; but teaching them that through good decision-making, they can spare themselves from bad results.
Children must be taught to make decisions and allowed to gain experience. Yes, many decisions faced by older offspring can be life altering, but if allowed to face the pains of bad decisions early (those with less severe results that are easier to fix) they should be ready by time they face harder adult choices.
A child first experiencing the freedom to make choices at 18 has been set up for failure.
Stop raising children. Our job is to raise adults.