[[Woah This got long... but it has been on my heart. And it just comes from my experience being an Early childhood student, a parent, a teacher, and working with toddlers and young children on all different scales of development. Obviously I am just one person and I don't know everything, but I hope you can see my heart here and that no one takes this as some kind of attack... that is definitely not what it is. Just encouragement for us to maybe dig a little deeper when we are parenting or working with children.]]
While having a child obey is important; I believe what is most important is their heart. You can have a child that struggles with being obedient because of different things in their life, personality, even developmental delays... but they are still trying to learn and their heart is right- they just mentally / emotionally / physically cannot meet the same expectations as the next child... and you could also have an obedient child that is obedient only because they have been harshly forced to do things and they are in survival mode.... but their hearts are empty and they are still not getting anything, even though on the outside it seems as all is wonderful. There almost ALWAYS more to a child, than what meets the eye.
Controversially to some, I prefer to lead my children to obedience gently so that they obey out of love and not fear or force. (Although I am not perfect and serious circumstances call for a little different plans, but this is my general goal) That does not mean there are not rules, boundaries, and consequences. But it does mean that when a child is clearly emotionally struggling- I am not going to use harsh words, physically force them to do something, yell at them, make fun of them, humiliate them in front of their friends or other adults, call them names, etc. I will let them know if the behavior is unacceptable. I will get firm. I might end up having to help them make the right choice or give them a consequence, but before I jump in with harshness and anger- I want to try and reach the heart. Why is this hard for them? Is my attitude towards the child loving and respectful? Am I expecting too much for this age? Is there something I am missing? Can I compromise and have a child work on one aspect until they are ready for the next level in this area of development? How does the Lord lead me? All good questions to consider. I have found that most of the time if you take 10 seconds to talk to a child before it goes too far, that the solution is simple and acceptable to both parties... but instead, a lot of times we fall into power struggles that do nothing more than break trust and exasperate our children. The last thing I want is my child to do everything "perfect" growing up, but have a broken spirit and then when I cannot control them any longer they go out scared, lost and confused.
Further, when you are working with a more 'challenging' child, and they are making progress- we should be praising them for that progress made, and then slowly transition them to go further with something that is already hard for them to do. If you can appreciate the progress and tell them that, chances are they will be more willing and excited to master the next thing!!!
This being said, I am still working on this myself, and sometimes I fail miserably and have to ask God and my children to forgive me for my own behavior... I am still learning and growing, And every single child is completely different and also learning and growing, too so you cannot ever fully figure it out! But it is WORTH TRYING!!!
Okay. Stepping of the soapbox now.
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