You know, many, many parents really battle and struggle with how to discipline teenage sons and daughters while still using family blessings. So many power struggles ensue in family blessings, especially between parents and a son or a daughter, in those teenage years. How do you discipline your son or your daughter without robbing their identity, without devaluing them and making them feel worthless if they disobey you or don’t do what you want?
You know, one father at this kind of situation with a seventeen year old son, who went in his room, locked the door and turned up some music from a CD that had some mega-death suicide type of music that a father had forbidden from even being in the house. And there was smoke billowing out from under the door, and father didn’t know for sure, but it didn’t seem like tobacco smoke and he rather suspected it was marijuana smoke, didn’t know what to do. So the father went to knock on the door and asked his son, “Please open the door, Son. I’d like to talk with you.” You know the son was totally unresponsive. The father knocked a little louder on the door: “Son, you open this door!” All that happened was the music got louder and the father lost it. He was standing outside that door, beating on the door, you know, face red, veins standing out on his neck. And the son didn’t open the door.
Well, the father couldn’t do anything that night, so he waited ‘til the morning. When morning came and the son came down for breakfast that father just railed on him, called him names, told him what he thought about him. And you know the son just closed his heart, waited ‘til the dad was finished and basically just said “Are you done, old man?” and went off to school.
Now the son was not disciplined, the father just increased his blood pressure and moved closer to a heart attack probably, The family blessings weren’t enforced and nobody was benefited. You know the father finally went to one of the Family Foundations seminars and began to understand that there’s a totally different way that he could begin to relate to his son and pursue family blessings.
So, a few days later, when the son came home, he said, “Son, I’ve learned that in my relationship with you, I haven’t been a father. I’ve been a tyrant or an ogre. And daddy’s wrong. Son, please forgive me. I want to learn to honor your choice. I realized that you have a choice and I want to learn to honor that and our family blessings. And I also have a choice, so I’m going to offer you choices with consequences rather than just try to force you and yell and scream at you if you don’t to do what I say.” So the father said, “For example, regarding your room. You can go in your room and lock the door and if I come or your mother comes and we want to discuss something with you, you have a choice. When I knock on the door, choice 1: you could open the door and we can sit down and discuss together whatever needs to be talked about and the consequence of that is you will retain privilege you now have regarding your room. Or choice number 2: you can just keep the door locked, try to not respond to your mother or me, and the consequence of that choice is that you will lose privilege that you now have regarding your room. Do you understand, son?” And the son said, “Yeah. Whatever.”
Well, two days later, of course, the son bought the same CD, went in his room, locked the door, turned it on loud, smoked the smoked. The father went, knocked on the door, and the son was unresponsive, but the dad said, “Oh, you know what, I think he’s chosen choice 2. Let me just try again.” Knocked on the door one more time, music got louder, and the dad said, “Yeah. He’s chosen choice 2.” So he didn’t think anymore about it, went to bed.
And in the morning, when the son got up, went downstairs for breakfast, of course he was expecting to be yelled at and screamed at by his dad. But the dad was pleasant: “Good morning, son. How did you sleep?” The son was shocked: “What happened to Dad?” “What have you going on at school today, Son?” “Oh, there’s this class – that class,” he said, “Afterwards, I’ve got football practice.” The dad said, “Son, you’re an incredible football player. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day you would end up on a professional football team. Son, I just wanna let you know I sure love you. You’re my son. You’re a blessing to me. God bless you, Son!” And the Son went out the door, shocked with an almost permanent lockjaw, you know: “What happened to, Dad?”
Well, when the son came home from school, dad was sitting in the living room, reading a paper. “Hi Dad!” “Hi Son! How was school?” “Great, Dad!” Son went up to his room. You know, by twenty seconds later, he came running back down, “Dad! There’s no door on my room. It’s just a blanket hanging there.” Dad said, “Yeah, I know. Remember, a couple of days ago, we were talking about choices and consequences. Choice 1: open the door and retain privilege regarding your room. Choice 2: leave the door locked and lose the privilege regarding your room. You know, apparently up until now, you thought having a door on your room was a right, but actually it was a privilege. And so for the next couple of weeks, you’ve lost that privilege and so if your mom or I have something we need to discuss with you, I will be free to just be able to sit down with you and talk about whatever we need. But Son, I just wanna let you know, I sure do love you. You’re my son. You’re a blessing to me and I just love you, Son. God bless you. Have a nice evening.”
Now can you see in this second scenario the son was disciplined, but his identity was not attacked. His value was not taken from him. His father disciplined him by applying a consequence that he had thought about in advance, but he was able to do it with a smile. Whereas before, he had wounded his Son, taken his Son’s identity and made his Son feel worthless because he disobeyed him or did wrong. You know, this is such a key concept in family blessings and learning how to bless and honor children, especially in teenage years, so that we can retain their value and their identity and build their self-esteem. You know, if you’d like to learn more about how to do that in your own family, you might check out some of the resources that we’ve made available at www.familyfoundations.com.
Likes: 0
Viewed: 371
source