Your house is full of kids, 80% of which do not belong to you. Craziness has insued. They have bad ideas in their heads and nothing will stand in their way. What do you do?
Torah parenting means that we follow our Heavenly Father's example. We don't need to look any farther than the Tower of Babel.
(Gen 11:1) Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
(Gen 11:2) And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
(Gen 11:3) And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
(Gen 11:4) Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."
(Gen 11:5) And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
(Gen 11:6) And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
(Gen 11:7) Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech."
(Gen 11:8) So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
(Gen 11:9) Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
YHVH was dealing with many people that did not belong to Him. They were not believers and they were not obeying Him. Yet the situation had to be dealt with. As He said, nothing would stop them, and the ideas were simply going to get worse. So He used two classic tactics. Funny I should call them classic when He invented them. lol He used divide and conquer, and distraction. The mob soon found themselves distracted by the fact that they couldn't understand each other. They were divided when YHVH spread them over the face of the earth. And they were conquered when the tower was abandoned. Mission Accomplished!
When you find yourself dealing with children that are not your own, distract them with new activities to keep their minds and bodies happily engaged. Split them up into groups to keep them manageable. Hopefully, you will conquer their attempts to spread mayhem! Most of all, love them with true Torah love, which puts the other person's needs first.
2 comments:
So True! Excellant Parallel Heidi!
I can give an example of this fom a few months ago. We had sme friends over - with 8 kids (8+6 = 14 kids from 17 down to infants playing together). The two biggest kids where 17,15 year old boys (who do not excersize the greatest self control or decision making) thenMy 13 yr old daughter, their 13 year old daughter, my 11 yr old son and then small children under them.
It was a beautifu day and we were outside visiting. The kids started playing a tag like game all together. It quickly became mayhem. The large children had no regard for the smallest and they were being trampled underfoot. The 17 year old boy favorite person to chase became my 13 years old daughter, up on the playset around cornering her around a tree, and grabbing at her in all manor of ways, etc.. The momma - not even noticing. I realized 2 things very quickly:
1. The littles were going to get hurt- they were int he midst of the gamne - like a game within a game, but these older boys showed no resposibily their well being or seeing that they were protected fromt he wild "ramming around" They were only out to have their fun. They lead the whole group in this manor of play. It was CHAOS.
2. Our family has entered into a new stage of childhood/parenting. With my daughter now being 13 and budding into womenhood - the game is changing! What once was "normal play" (contact-chasing games) for us...is no longer oppropriate with the opposite sex outside the family.
So this momma devided and concurred. :-) I directed the boys to a different activity in one direction and the girls in a another and the littles in another - yet all within in observation.
Then I 'concured' the next day. Papa and I had a good talk that night about this new stage of parenting we had entered into. I had a nice long talk with my daughter, about what is appropriate in play as they are getting older, edifying her growth (which always makes a 13 year old happy!) and have some good gril time talking. Ben discussed protection with my 11 yr old son, slowly training him to watch out for his sister and started the process of teaching HIM how to devert the attentions and activites and his guy-friends if there be inappropriate situations for his sister. (This was tricky because he is till a bit young and hasn't "gotten there" himself yet...so he didn't fully understand, the "why". We (DH and I)realized that this understanding should have been build into them at even younger ages, not only reallying on their innosence to buy us time (so we discussed that and decided we would do that better with the younger children). All in all it was a wonderfully eye opening experiance to us as parents on the path to teach our children in YHVH's ways!
Absolutely! I think we often wait too long to teach certain things that seem uncomfortable. I'm glad for the many years of babysitting that taught me how to deal with other kids.
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