are you setting your daughters up for failure?

Disclaimer:
I am not a Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or a professional counselor. I am a person who has lived long enough to observe life outside the Christian community as well as within. I have my own personal experiences and my own story that has taught me many things. The things of which I am blogging about are via observation and personal experience. Please listen with an open ear.

I have seen some disturbing things in my time and continue to see patterns of behavior among believers that continue to repeat the cycle in negative ways. Some of this may be due to ignorance and some may be due to the blatant refusal to acknowledge mistakes made in the rearing of their children and households. Nevertheless, the fall out is painful to watch.

Many have been blessed to be parents and to have daughters in particular. Daughters are special in their own right because they too, one day, will be the carriers of seed for the next generation. What a precious opportunity God has given to the woman to bear and raise children for Him.

Raising children is not easy. It is a labor of love and comes with so many things attached that most moms aren't always prepared for. It is on the job training, yet God has given a blueprint to follow. Most believers resort to the section of God's blueprint that deals with the spiritual training of a child. The part that speaks about raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). There is a slew of verses like:

>Train up a child Prov. 22:6
>Children obey your parents Eph. 6:1-4
>Parents don't provoke your children Colossians. 3:21
>Spare the rod spoil the child Prov. 13:24
I could go on because God has given good scriptural instructions on raising children.

I would like to look at an area that seems to go neglected when raising daughters and sons, but my focus right now is on the daughters. Are we setting them up for failure? I have noticed that parents who rule with an iron fist at home by enforcing religious practices and behavior without balancing it with God's love is detrimental. There seems to be, in my opinion and observation, a lack of sensitivity of mothers and fathers in this area.

Train up a child in the way he or she should go also involves knowing the 'bent' of that child. All children in your home are not alike. They each have differing personalities and behavior patterns. Their emotional makeup is not the same and their need for attention varies. 

HANDLE YOUR OWN ISSUES FROM CHILDHOOD
As a parent, you may have been raised in a non-Christian home or even a Christian home environment, but it's important to be healthy and whole before you begin raising children. In some cases, there are parents who themselves are functioning with deficits that stem from their own dysfunctional background. They may have never looked into their own situation to heal from the wounds they received as children. It really takes work to investigate your own hurts and pains in order to heal from them. Just ask me, I'll tell you how much work I've had to do in this area. A parent's own brokenness that has gone unattended, emotionally and spiritually speaking, can be detrimental to their children. It's been said that "a child's first enemy is an unhealed parent." 

LISTEN TO YOUR CHILDREN
It is important to connect with your children on an emotional level. It isn't necessary to swoop down on them negatively at the first thing they say that is wrong. This requires listening to them even when they are coming from a wrong position. Give them an opportunity to be heard. When we don't allow them room to be heard, we cause them pain. They now learn that their feelings don't matter and that it's best not to express themselves. This results in them choosing to talk more to their peers who know less than they do, and it opens them up to bad advice as well as ungodly instruction.

FATHERS LOVE YOUR DAUGHTERS
I cannot stress how important it is for dads to build a love relationship with their daughters from the time that they are little girls. Afterall, you are the first male in their lives. You set the stage for who they will choose to date and marry. You are the blueprint as far as males go. Often, more than not, they will choose a guy based on what they have seen and felt by you, their father. It goes really deep, deeper than you know. Fathers teach their daughters how they can expect to be treated by men in general. Fathers also are to provide teaching about the male specie for their daughters. Men know how men think and feel. Men know what men are looking for in women. Only a father can impart this instruction to their daughter. Mothers cannot teach their daughters these things. If a girl lacks this instruction, she will be left to choose ignorantly and end up looking for love in all the wrong places.

MOTHERS LOVE YOUR DAUGHTERS
Now, it may seem to go without saying that moms automatically love their children and never need to be told to love them. There are some exceptions to this rule. I have seen insensitive, unloving mothers who neglected the emotions of their daughters. They viewed it as a weakness. They were almost saying that "In this family, we are strong, we don't cry or complain about stuff, we put up a stiff upper lip and suck it up!" I have seen this in action and noticed the devastating look on the child's face that spelled something destructive. This is how we set them up for failure. Mothers know what it is to be a female. God has created us as emotional creatures who nurture, feed, and guide our offspring. Moms are incubators who carried these babies around internally for nine months. There is a sweet connection between a mother and her offspring. Mothers are expected to listen to the tears as well as dry them. Mothers are to build those tender sensitive emotions by helping to balance them as the child grows and matures. Mothers are to teach them when it's safe to cry and when crying may need to be halted. They are never to stop their emotions from being expressed.

There is so much on this subject I could go into, but it would be way too much for this blog. I'm just simply saying, DON'T SET YOUR DAUGHTERS UP FOR FAILURE! 

PS: If you have any questions, please feel free to message me via this website.