Children & Anger

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. ~Stacia Tauscher

 

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it. ~Harold Hulberte

Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. ~Franklin P. Jones

 

Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. ~Author Unknown

 

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to. ~Robert Brault

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ~Frederick Douglass

I had an experience this morning that broke my heart.  It bothered me all the way to work and I spent the time asking God why.  As I walked out of my house to get in my car, I could hear my neighbor talking in his garage or should I say speaking loudly.  I didn't realize that he was talking to his son.  My neighbor has a temper and he was using it on his son.  I don't know what he did and frankly I don't care about that aspect of the conversation.  Because you see this was a one way conversation and it wasn't a good one.  This adult was talking to a 9 year old boy.  In this conversation there were curse words and anger and frankly plain verbal abuse. 

Our country is in crisis and this is just one example of where we as adults are off course.  We get angry at children for the way they behave, yet we as adults act worse.  The problem is we don't see the behavior in ourselves.  We only see it in children.  Ironically we get angry at the child for often repeating something that we have said to them or acting in a way that stems from the way we act.  

I was never blessed with children of my own.  This was a choice on my part, at times I think a selfish one, and at others I think it was the fear that I would totally mess up this little person that is a gift from God.  I am thankful that I won't have to stand before God one day and have Him ask me why I was cruel to my child or why I hit him/her out of anger or why I didn't sit and listen to them when they needed me the most.  

Sometimes children turn out exactly how we make them.  Take the time to listen to your children.  We are a stressed society and an angry one.  Learn to destress before you have the tough conversations with your children.  It just might save you from raising a broken child.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, my heart broke this morning for this child of Yours.  You blessed this man with a son, yet this man doesn't realize it.  Sometimes we get angry at other adults and all the things that are going on in our lives and we treat children in horrifying ways.  I pray for all parents in today's world.  Children can be trying but please help parents to realize that they are a gift from You and should be treated as such.  You are an amazing Father who forgave me of my sins.  Why are we unable to forgive our children of theirs?  

Scripture:   My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.  Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.   Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.