Raise your children to grow up, not stay home

Child psychologists were told recently of a change in the age group of children they would be counseling.  The age range that they could evaluate changed from 0-18 to 0-25.

25?!  Are you kidding me?  I find this absolutely absurd, and I hope the majority of people who read this do too.  

Our job as parents is to raise our children to be independent, hard-working, well-balanced individuals who can make wise choices fairly young in life.  By young, I mean that by 18 they can definitely choose wisely if they are raised to be wise, and by 25 they should have been supporting themselves for quite awhile. 

Sometimes this support can be in the form of working and paying us for the expense of living in our homes until they get married or until they follow God's call on their lives.    In that scenario, they would still be working hard to help run the household. They would be saving a good portion of that money for their futures, and not blowing it indiscriminately on things they don't need. 


The concept of teenager-ism has not been around that long.  In Biblical times, boys were boys, and then they were men.  There was no expectation of  "self-discovery" or rebellion against authority.  That is actually, I believe, a scheme of the enemy (Satan) to cause chaos in the family, to emasculate men, and to keep them from growing into strong, Godly leaders of families like God intends.

I am raising my son (14) to be strong, to have the expectation to work hard, to save for his future, and to expect to work for funds at the earliest opportunity.  He knows he will be the provider for his future family.  He also knows that if he is still at home until he finds a wife that he will be helping support our household with some of his funds. 

He does not get to veg out in front of media for hours a day, nor does he get to tell us (his parents) when and what he is going to do.  He has things that he has to accomplish each school day, including helping to keep the house clean and organized.  He gets some free time at the end of his school day, and sometimes in between accomplishments.  His weekends are his to order, but he does have various jobs he is asked to do to help out his dad.  He has loads of fun, but in the context and lifestyle of hard, productive work.

In other words, we are raising him daily to be a man, not a boy.  We don't cater to childish, faddish whims, which are normally expensive, foolish, and unproductive.   We don't want a sissy boy-man who at 20 sits in his parent's basement drinking beer and staring at his video screen.  No way.    Seriously, we love him too much to let him waste his youth like so many are doing.  We encourage him to make goals, to hone his skills, to learn new things daily. 

We do this with all of our children, but since girls normally mature more easily and quickly than boys, I am focusing on them.  Because the majority of time-wasting, still-at-home, living off parents without contributing a single dime or even a single ounce of house-cleaning effort are boys. 

Boys that should be old enough to act like and be called men.  I am not even sure why parents would want their children to be perpetual children, never able to support themselves and make reasonable contributions to society. 

Even if the only job my child could find was at a fast-food restaurant cleaning toilets, we would encourage him to take it and excel at it until or if he found something else.  Because regardless of what prevailing thought may be, a job is a job, and that is a blessing these days. 

God says to work hard at whatever work our hands find, and sometimes that work isn't what we might prefer.  But that's okay.  If you are a frugal person, avoid stupid "have to have" purchases that waste your money, stay out of debt, and save as much as possible,  just about any job can support you.

When we spend our parenting years catering to our children's every whim, every technological advance, and every spoiled name brand clothing desire, they grow up with a too-elevated standard of living expectation.  They are going to need to start their jobs at $50,000+ to maintain what they are used to. 

Ridiculous! 

Kids don't need nearly as much as they think they do, and despite popular opinion, they  DO survive not having everything they want.  It also makes them  MUCH nicer to have around while they are growing up, and after they are grown as well.

The moral of this story is to resist being a "keeping up with the Jones" type of parent.  Make your children work hard and play hard.  Instill wisdom in them regarding media, set limits and standards and stick to them no matter what. 

It takes time and effort to raise kids properly, and be willing to invest that time.  Resist the prevailing "I deserve lots of ME time" baloney that has infected families.  Our kids are worth the extra time it takes to raise them to be strong, disciplined and ready to leave and make their own families when the time comes.

If you see that your kids are addicted to some kind of media while they are still home, do something about it.  If you see that they are disrespectful or won't obey when asked to help out around the house, do something about it.

We are the parents.  We are the ones in charge.  Not them. 

They get to be in charge when they have their own households that they are paying for.  The standard of living that we can provide for them is a privilege, not a right.  They have a right to be clothed, fed, housed, and educated.  Anything above that is a blessing, and they should be taught to see it as such.

It's okay to take away ipads, ipods, smart phones, and video game systems as consequences for poor behavior.  It is also okay to never purchase these things in the first place.  Or to let them work hard and save up for them.  This actually makes possessions more valuable to them, and they end up taking better care of them. 

Let's have a revival of good old-fashioned parenting. 

Parenting that is not afraid of tough love for the ultimate benefit of our child.  Parenting that is willing to turn off the television (that we are watching) to enforce something that we have told our child, but he isn't listening to us.  Parenting that knows that doing without certain things is actually beneficial to our children, and parenting that isn't afraid to make them work hard for something they want. 

Chances are if they have to save for it themselves, they will often decide that they didn't need it so badly after all. 

Parenting that is willing to deliberately think out reasonable consequences for actions that are undesirable in our children.  Parenting that expects obedience throughout childhood and adolescence without the expectation of rebellion.  

Teach them to be adults, not teenagers.  Train them to work hard.  Give them consequences for disobedience.  Love them wholeheartedly by not giving in to their every whim.  Have high expectations, and lead and guide them when they fail. 

Let's raise a generation of well-adjusted, hard-working, non-media-addicted adults who can go out into society and not need CHILD counseling at 25 years old. 

There are enough non-productive child-adults living at home at 40.  Let's not add our children to those statistics.  "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Click HERE for some books by Bob Schultz on how to raise young boys to be self-disciplined men who work hard.  (affiliate link)

Blessings,
Debbie,  Home at Serenity Springs  (Find me on Facebook here)