Parents

I have decided to start blogging not necessarily about the day to day happenings in my life (updates), but more in ways of opinions, local news, media, football, politics, church and whatever else may inspire me to jump upon a soapbox.

I recently had a discussion about a co-worker about students (children) who act inappropriately and how they should be handled. I am around kids pretty frequently from my job and my volunteer work through my church where my husband is the youth pastor. And sadly parents the problem is not the children, the problem is you. There its been said, go ahead and get mad, nonetheless it is still the truth.

You as parents have decided that it is more important to be your child's friend, to gain some buddy buddy rapport with them instead of being the adult in charge of them. From a scriptural basis you are charged with the duty to make sure that your child is making good decisions. Yes, I realize you cannot know where your child is every second of every day, and that to never give them any room to make mistakes is to ultimately set them up to go out of control with the first ounce of freedom they receive.

But it is your right to set consequences and to hold to them. Even if that means your child misses out on a big party or event, their choices, their consequences. I believe that the reason many parents do not like to punish their children for doing something wrong has much more to do with the parent than with the child. If you are to be sure that your child is where they said they were going to be then that takes time from your schedule you have to take time out of your schedule to check on them. And to be quite frank that is just too much work for many of the parents I encounter today. I know you're saying, that's not me and yet those of you who have children that drive and you take away their keys for a week as punishment, it is quickly evident that you too must suffer through your child's punishment.

It is not some teacher's job in a school system to make sure that your child is keeping their grades up, its yours. It is not some pastor or community volunteer's job to ensure that your child is staying away from drugs and is not sexually active. It's yours!

Parents it is time that you begin to take responsibility for the things you have done and hold yourself accountable. And you know what, if your parents sucked, that doesn't give you an excuse to be a sucky parent too. In fact, you should know the value and the need of strong parenting.