Wonder how many times are perceptions about people and situations are just flat out wrong? The masks people wear certainly aren't any help either. I think most people in most situations make assumptions based on their perceptions about others and even themselves that aren't even close to being accurate which in turn leads to problematic responses to those false perceptions.
Here's one I think most "grown ups" have wrong. We think we are here to teach and train the children when often I think God's hand is involved in trying to teach us through them. And since our perceptions of this are wrong we miss the lessons and in the process often alienate our children from us and often from God.
Through my daughters the Pharisee within gets exposed quite often. Through my daughters, the drama that had controlled my behavior/reactions all my life was also laid bare. Through my daughters I have learned that letting it all hang out (the mess) is closer to walking in the light than the "refined" behavior of most adults. No wonder most adults can't stand their adolescent children and most adolescent children don't want to be around their parents.
The chaos/emotion in children's lives is often defined by their crazy perception of what they think is actually going on. Self-centeredness has a way of causing our perception of things to be a bit whacked-out. I'll never forget the day when my emotional/dramatic daughter hit me with her counter attack to my attack on her irrational behavior by turning the tables on me. It was that day I began to look at adolescent behavior in a completely different way.
False perceptions are traveling companions to human blindness/independence.
I've come to appreciate teenage-out-in-the-open-moronic-honest-behavior and at the same time I'm left more deeply puzzled then ever by us adults thinking our way of responding to their mess, that is so apparent due to them living so openly, is helpful. It seems that approach only turns them into adults like most of us...living in hiding behind a mask.
I want the lot of what you got
And I want nothing that you're not
3 comments:
Yeh, I think my third child (now 6.5 and has down syndrome) gradually helped to blow this "child training" business out of the water for me. :) There's just no "mask" on this child. Maybe there never will be.
I'm looking forward to new u2 material in March. I'm sure you are too.
My daughters are the same. They can show me my pharisee tendencies often without even trying to do so.
yep....those dare kids :)
and Cheryl Marie I am so looking forward to some new U2 music.
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