The home is the place where love can be seen, taught, and felt. No one in the home should ever be in doubt concerning the love of another member.
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Perhaps one of the most interesting social developments in the 20th century was the development of a unique social group between children and adults called "teenagers." This created a new interlude of social development and self-defining for young people. This new demographic of teenager lowered expectations for young people. We all rise to the expectations set for us and these new lower expectations keep teenagers from becoming what they potentially could be. Teenagers are young adults; they ought to act like young adults. However, they do face unique challenges that we would be naïve to ignore.
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A "strong-willed-child" is kind of a misnomer. Such a child actually demonstrates a lack of will to master self. Misbehavior is a product of self-indulgence. It is the responsibility of parents to train their children in self-restraint. It is the responsibility of parents to train their children to be strong-willed.
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The starting place in parenting is to look in a mirror and examine our own character and discipline before we impose something on our children. If we can't ask our children to emulate us, we have a problem. We ought to desire to be the chief influence in the lives of our children. The hope of the future is not our children but those who are training them. Failure to restrain and train ourselves and our own appetites is the root of most problems in parenting. Your children need you to be what they are not so that one day they can be what you are.
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Of utmost importance in raising children is the environment they are brought up in. The Bible gives us the deliberate analogy of archery. Through discipline and training you can point an arrow at a target and hit the mark. Wishing and hoping will not help you in hitting that goal. God’s grace notwithstanding, children will hit the target they are pointed at. If an arrow fails to hit the target, we rarely blame the arrow; we look elsewhere—as we must in parenting. It is exceedingly hard for a child to become what a parent is not and for a child to behave in a way in which they have not been trained. Parenting must be done on purpose.
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