Have you ever had something in your head, you aren’t sure where it came from but it makes a difference in your life?

“Most of you didn’t want kids, you wanted little adults.”  I know it was Matt Chandler but I can’t remember most of the context where he said it but I do realize that is much of my problem.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to have kids when I got married, but I eventually came to want kids.  If I look back at my thoughts of what it would be like to have kids I think I was expecting little adults and not children.  I didn’t have any little kids around me growing up; I am the youngest in my family.  I didn’t really know what to expect from children but apparently it wasn’t reality.

Children are kids not adults.  They don’t have fully functioning brains they are not fully developed and don’t work like an adults. (duh)

Another thing along these lines that has stuck with me came from a former Pastor, Dave Diyanni.  When you are learning hot to discipline your children the bible talks a lot about foolishness but not about childishness and there is a difference.  In Bible terms foolishness isn’t just about being silly but a disobedient no God fearing idiot.  His example was that if a kid spills milk at the table because they were reaching for it and missed that is childish.  Their coordination sometimes fail, they didn’t realize it would stick to the rubber mat when they tried to drag it instead of picking it up.  You don’t discipline children for that.

If they are specifically told not to do something but are defying you and spill the milk then they should be disciplined, not for the spill but for the foolishness of defiance.

Parents think about your children as kids, they are not little adults they will screw up.  Or job is to help them to grow in the admonition of the Lord, to train them up in the way they should go but we can’t expect them to start off where we are.