Save Your Kids

The last issue featured an article that focused on the need to strive for success in relationships.  Let us spend the time this month to start a series that normally falls under the category of “sensitive.”  Many of us have sustained and survived a variety of friendships.  Some have planted a foundation of hope and happiness and some have infested our minds with negative reinforcement and sin.  Why is it that our peers seem to have so much influence in our lives?  Why is it that we empower them with authority that sometimes surpasses that of our family?  At The Edwards Group, we believe that there is one driving force that bears most of the responsibility for this phenomenon.

It begins before the teen years when parents find themselves in an incredibly tough situation.  If they fail to enforce strict discipline in the home, then they can be assured that the child will seek structure and guidelines from peer groups.  Should the parent enforce strong disciplinary policies, then the child may see the home as failing to satisfy their need for acceptance and freedom.  This too may lead to a dependency on peer groups to fill certain gaps.  The major difference with these two scenarios is that one is more likely to be a temporary phase while the other tends to lead our kids on a path that will simply make them another negative statistic. 

You have probably heard the quote, “train a child in the way that he must go and… he will not stray.”  The child that is in a home of discipline has a set of values and beliefs already planted in their permanent blueprint.  Much like a rubber band, you can stretch it a little but it always will return to its true form.  Children in any of these scenarios will use the adults in their life as an example of what it means to be an adult.  Remember when you were thirteen or even sixteen?  If you were anything like me, then you yearned for the day when you would be a legal adult.  You wanted to be able to have as much fun as the other adults did and get away with the things you thought they were getting away with. 

On a simultaneous path, our kids have sought satisfaction and acceptance in peer groups.  They seek an environment that allows them to act out their adult-like behaviors.  For some, the worst activity might be smoking a few cigarettes.  For others, it becomes more tragic as illustrated by an annual increase in drug abuse, weapons possession, DWI convictions and unwanted teenage pregnancies.  Zig Zigler in his book about raising kids states, “according to a Josh McDowell publication, in the next twelve months 500,000 children will attempt suicide…418,000 girls under nineteen will have received an abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy.”  The book continues to illustrate that the number of teenage pregnancies has doubled since 1973 translating to one in every ten teenage girls becoming pregnant. We must be forced to recognize the significance of our failure as a national adult population.  Either we have failed to set the appropriate examples or we may have failed to be a proactive positive influence.  Some believe that it is a conviction of both.  No matter what the reason, we must address our reaction. 

American children are in need of massive positive influences.  They are confronted daily with negative input and each one of us has the power to use positive words of influence where each sentence can eradicate weeks of negative programming.  But be aware, our kids today are highly intelligent and street smart.  They will not allow you to say one thing while doing something opposite.  They have learned to imitate our activity.  Someone once wrote. “Be careful how you write the book of our life.  Someone may use it as a bible.”  Therefore, it falls upon us to quit smoking if we want our child to. It falls upon us to treat each other with respect if we want them to do likewise.  It falls upon us to avoid intoxication if we expect them to do likewise.  It falls upon us to increase our kind words and decrease our criticism if that is what we want to hear from them.  There may be some changes that you may have to make first in your own lifestyles.  I am sympathetic to the fact that this kind of a request is sometimes difficult to implement.

I recommend this undertaking…only if you think your kids are worth it. 

<< Back to List of Motivational Articles

You Have the Power >>