“I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 1:4
We live in a time where there are many ideas on how to raise children, but nobody teaches us to be Dads or Moms. In most of the cases, we learn by trial and error, but our actions and conduct as parents at times are effective, but other times not.
On the other hand, many times we follow learned models we repeat the way we were raised. For example, if we had parents who were indifferent, showed no affection or abandoned us, we would tend to repeat these conducts because they affect us in such a way that they are repeated unconsciously. Also, we add to these other conducts that many times aggravate our manner of parenting.
In general, we can speak to three types of parents. In this segment we will talk about the first ones which are “authoritarian type parents”.
In this group there are two extremes, on one hand you have parents who are aggressors, abusers and manipulators. On the other extreme are the parents who reject and show no natural affection toward their children. All of these aforementioned, for the most part are very demanding, they treat their children as if they were objects. These parents are hard and express no love.
When these parents at the extreme worst end, the ones who are aggressors, these who punish their children harshly, who denigrate them, they demand a perfection that they as parents don’t have. They are domineering and intolerant. On top of all of this is the added fact that they never demonstrate love or mercy toward their children. They always want control and that their children always follow their orders. They enforce their authority with threats, hitting, shouting and without compassion or natural affection. If the child makes a mistake, they mistreat them harshly.
Within this group you may also find the parents who are sexual abusers even exploiters. The children of these parents for the most part is insecure, full of fear, anxieties and complexes, they usually have severe self-esteem problems.
Along with this, we see they develop attitudes and thoughts of violence that they keep under control for a long time by developing a submissive posture. This is derived from sentiments of guilt that develop from not feeling wanted by their parents.
These children believe that it is their fault for the rejection they feel, and they carry this through life. Also, they usually that they must live pleasing their parents, strive to give their all to be wanted. They try so hard doing this that is affects their mental health to the point they need therapy and Christian counseling that allows them to forgive their parents and forgive themselves in order to be healthy. If they don’t do this, they will have a life full of mental health problems.
May our children walk in the truth. I look forward to you joining me for the next segment to lean more about this subject.
May God help you in all you do today.
Download the document here: The style of raising a child determines their quality of the life
Doctor, Miguel e Irene Garita
Family Care ministry
Mesoamerica Church of the Nazarene
