Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A teen before he's a teen

My 9-year-old this morning did the unthinkable in my eyes.

He has always been the one who would do the minimum when he did his chores, he would try to skate by, when asked to do more work, he would complain of a headache or being tired. He avoids prayer with the family and he fights with his brothers.

This morning, however, my wife asked him to get a new paper towel roll from the garage because he was the only one with shoes on. He responded with "Why do I have to do everything!" and she told him to just do it. So, he huffed, put his coat on (which was unnecessary) got the roll, and when he came back he threw it at her and said "Here is your stupid paper towels!"

If I had not had 4 hours of sleep and been in bed at the time, I would have probably held him to the wall three feet off the ground and read him the riot act. Instead, Holly disciplined him, but she admitted she didn't go far enough, she wanted to leave it up to me.

He was in his room all day after school, I got home and laid into him. I think I put enough fear of God and me into him that it will be a while before he tries this again. I felt horrible for having yelled at him but I felt I was defending my wife's honor.

But interestingly enough, later that night as I helped him with his homework we were reading the Baltimore Catechism he is learning from. The second was on life everlasting and it said that in order to have life everlasting we must "die to self" and the explanation was to do something you don't want to do to please God and others. i.e. A sacrifice.

I found that the Lord really put this teaching here for a reason I was so amazed. I shared with him ways I sacrifice and ways I fail to die to self. We tried to come up with examples in his own life as well.

At bed time he hugged me and told me good night. It was great.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ya know...we had a friend who had a bigger boy who pulled that kind of thing with his mom. Our friend invited his son to step "outside" because that was HIS wife the boy was insulting. Sometimes boys need to be reminded of their spot and who their mother is.
Don't feel too bad about yelling at him. Sleep deprivation and all, you probably did what needed to be be done. God gives all kids the parents they need and all parents the kids that they deserve. (Oooh...that's a scary thought!) But only in God can we make it all work, without Him the sea remains choppy and we will surely drown.