For years I have resisted this concept of "training" volunteer parents to teach others how to be more effective parents. I believe somethings you can train, but others you shouldn't want to train. There are things in life that you just have to go through with a humble spirit and be transformed in the process. Being a parent is one of these things. I refuse to bring people false hope that by going to these workshops/training sessions/whatnot, and by learning some "skills", that they will know how to be with their children. I think the motivation behind a lot of the teachers, is they want to feel good that they hold the magic formula and they feel important when desperate parents come to them for help. I was once like that without knowing. And when the Lord revealed my own motivation behind the seemingly sacrificial offering of my time and knowledge, I was disgusted with myself. But that revelation didn't come overnight. I found that out about myself gradually, throughout the years when I was teaching nothing but parenting as a job.
I think it's unethical now, (and I know this is kind of extreme to think this way) to advertise yourself as "trainer of parents" and the content of your program promising instant changes. It feels like a crash diet commercial. You do this and that for a month, and you will see results that you can boast of. How can anyone learn anything in 2 days, or 6 sessions, about how to teach their kids right, (if there even is such a thing) and not even require a booster session or a refreshing course somewhere down the line?
Parenting is about the relationship, in which who the parent is is more important than how many effective disciplinary methords he knows or uses. The relationship is a function of who the people are and how they change. I don't know this can be done in 6 sessions.
I hate all fake stuff. Equal for real sugar, "creamer" for real cream, machine pieced quilt for hand sewn, baby formula for mother's milk, baby carrier for mother's bosom and father's arms and chest, etc.. Maybe I should go back to live in the 18th century.
The Real Stuff of parenting is what most modern time parents won't do, because it requires them to give up themselves. Give up their old ways of talking. Give up their old ways of listening. Give up their old ways of how they spend their time. Give up their old way of looking at life. Let alone give up their sleep, freedom to have uninterrupted meals, shopping trips and just plans in general. It is almost political incorrect (oh, how I also hate this expression, as political correctness is more important than Truth.) to encourage mothers to stay home, to breastfeed and to submit to their husbands. And then a few years later, they come to parenting classes, wondering what has gone wrong in their parent-child relationship!!
Good things take time to cultivate. Good habits take time to form. In a world of haste and speed and phoniness, true Beauty and goodness will be hard to find if we don't challenge these false beliefs that all goals can somehow be achieved instantly without sleepless nights of soul searching and without having to go through heartaches and headaches and disillusion and disappointments and hurt and despair and even hopelessness.
I ask my Father to constantly remind me to not lose hope in my stubborn resistance to the World and its values.
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