To Be Served

So many children and teenagers think that life revolves around themselves. Everything in life should satisfy their needs and make them happy. They live for the "here and now". They manipulate their parents and demand material things from them. Children challenge their parent's right to exert authority over them and parents relinquish their authority too easily.

Children need to be taught the difference between wants and needs. The greatest motivation for a child is the fact that everyone else has what they want or everyone else is doing what they want to do. They need to realise that thoughtless conformity will not make them better people.

Children need to learn to wait for something they want. Sometimes it is good to teach them that they have to earn it. Once they are grown up, they will realise that responsible adulthood is all about waiting and earning.

Giving is more rewarding than receiving. Production is better than consumption. Children must learn to be responsible by doing what is expected of them, like schoolwork and daily chores. They become mature adults only when they can truly learn to take care of themselves and others not because they have to, but because they want to.

Unfortunately, children grow up with the desire to be served. They want others to take care of them. Their mission in life is to do as little work as possible, have all the material things they desire and socialize at leisure. There is no responsibility in that.

When we raise our children with self-confident loving parental authority, we will succeed in helping them to become capable, respectful, and honest adults who treat others with consideration and kindness.