Grandma's Wisdom

I was blessed today to have a talk with a friend's mother. She was watching her grandson who has been terribly indulged in his three years of life, and it was mealtime. Not wanting what he'd been given and fussing about it, she wisely made him sit at the table until he ate what she prepared. Crying and other manipulative gestures left her unmoved; her love for him dictated her actions to make him do what was right.

Children can and should be taught to appreciate what is given them as soon as the breast or bottle is not the primary source of food, which for most babies is around 6 months of age. It takes consistent, purposeful training to have this skill effectively learned...years of consistency. Parents today must understand that children are taught NOT to be grateful when they are permitted to refuse good food offered. Only in a nation as wealthy as the United States does this even require saying. It really is a disgrace on us as a culture that we actually raise children to shun fresh, healthy food. Truly, we are fools thinking we are somehow in the wrong to make them sit and eat what they are served when children all over the world are starving. Telling children to be grateful does not make it thus. Hunger before mealtime has always been understood as the means of then EATING what you are given. That satisfaction of hunger diminishing helps gratitude get cultivated. How blessed we are to be able to assuage that feeling whenever we want in our kids, but we must allow the hunger to come if they are to eat what they need for optimum body and brain development. Kids can not snack all day long. Snacks lack the nutritive content a growing child requires, and the child never feels really hungry so they eat as much as they need to in order to sleep all night and/or grow well.

Every action we do as parents is teaching our children something positive or something negative.  We live in a day where many parents act like the babysitter, and so the poor child is left untrained and thus becomes a very unpleasant individual to be around.

What a joy it was to my heart to hear of one who remembers that there are times in raising children that require us to love enough to do what is best for them! Do we not want our children and our parenting to serve as a means of bringing glory to the Lord?

~Ann