Teach Your Children

Why are we so embarrassed to teach our children anything formally? Neither of us are teachers, yet our children do look to us as teachers although they may not see it that way.

This morning, we made an effort to sit down as a family and share a book written by a well known family psychologist - Dr James Dobson - called Preparing for Adolescence. I pulled it out of a drawer where it had lain unread for many years this week while I had been in bed with flu. I did a speed read and discovered it's actually written TO pre-teens and teens, not to parents.

That said, the information I read was like discovering gold to me. I so wish I knew back then what I know now. Dr Dobson asks why do parents keep their own stories and examples from their own children? My reason is that I didn't realise how common the problems teenagers face growing up actually are, or how the manifestations of different behaviours are linked. We're not all psychologists are we?

It's amazing, I thought till very recently, that I was the unusual one. I was shy, bullied, felt insecure, uncoordinated and probably experienced many other problems I thankfully have forgotten for now. It is apparently normal for most if not all adolescents to go through all of these and more! This has spurred us to action!

We have three children at a different point in the teen years, one entering, one in the middle, and one towards the end. I think this book will help us approach and maybe even begin to solve some of the problems we have been experiencing in our family for some time.

It seems to be an answer to prayer really.