2 responses

  1. When my children do what seems uncaring, or it rubs me the wrong way, I still love them. But how can I love that side of them?

  2. Maybe by trying to understand why they are acting the way they are acting you can understand them better and appreciate their good intentions in the mistakes they make. Relationships require understanding and when a child acts out it is a cry that they are not being given whatever the specific need of the child is. It’s a last effort to communicate to you that the child needs something.

    It is the same way with our bodies. They give us a fever and make us feel week when we are sick, or, give us a stomach ache when we eat the wrong food. So what do we do? We take advil, pepto, or something else that will quiet the body’s cry for help down. That only makes the problems worse. Taking advil reduces fever and makes whatever infection we have last longer, taking a pill that makes our stomach feel better only gives us more freedom to eat what damages our body. If we realized that our body was communicating to us, telling us to relax when we are sick and eat healthy, then we would appreciate the amazing design of our body to fight sickness and recognize bad food and we would be healthier.

    It’s the same with children. They are not yet developed enough to be completely independent of their parent’s help (which I don’t know if we ever really are) but they don’t always know how to tell you what is bothering them. When your child is acting out and especially when they choose do it in front of you, this is a compliment they are inviting you to try and find out what is bothering you. If your child didn’t care about you he would hide all these behaviors so not to let you in to what is going on. Because he cares about you and needs your help he acts out in front of you, he knows what rubs you the wrong way and he does it anyways. It is that side of them that you should love and appreciate the most, it is the side of them that really needs you to be there for them.

    You need to appreciate that we also do things that rub G-d the wrong way. But he still loves us because we are his children and he directs us in our lives to find the meaning in life that we are looking for. G-d even does this with non-Jews, read the story for Yonah that we read on Yom Kippur. You need to be there in that way for your children. It’s a full time job and nobody said it’s easy, even Yonah didn’t want to do it but he got thrown into a fish for three days, so take your pick.

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