Today my colleague and I met with a couple of professors who lead a project that trains teachers and childcare providers to train parents to do a better job with their children. But there is a problem. The parents don’t take kindly to the teachers teaching them. They bristle.
As out conversation continued, another problem was evident. The teachers didn’t like being trained by the professors. They bristle.
As our colleagues talked, the problem was evident. No one–whether teacher, parent, or student–likes to be seen as a problem. No one wants to be treated like a nuisance, a fool, an ignoramus, or an irritation.
I had a college English teacher who said something surprisingly direct for an English teacher: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Or, as the Lord often reminds me, I don’t have the right to correct anyone I don’t love.
We must love sincerely before we can help effectively. The trainers must genuinely care about the teachers before they can inspire them to help the parents. The teachers must genuinely care about the parents before they can inspire them to help their children. The parents must genuinely love their children before they can help them grow into healthy adulthood.
11 Comments
Amen. All my life I thought that loving, serving, and helping others was a means to an end. I am starting to realize that there is no other end. People are the prize you get for loving God and loving your neighbor and keeping the commandments. I suspect that eternal life (joy) begins the moment you start wanting to love and serve others more than yourself or anything else. It sounds a bit simplistic and it’s certainly no overnight process but I can’t come up with any other goal more worthwhile.
Wow. I like the way you said that, Jacob. The interesting thing about coming to that glorious end is that we become like Father: a source of goodness and truth with no agenda except to bless. Thanks for your insight! And thanks for your very engaging artwork.
-Wally
My favorite scripture is Moroni 7:48…after identifying the characteristics of charity he says:…PRAY UNTO THE FATHER WITH ALL THE ENERGY OF HEART, THAT YE MAY BE FILLED WITH THIS LOVE…I call this the secret to loving…praying with all our energy of heart that we will be loving. Is this a prayer God would answer? What if we all did this every morning before we went out into our life and then often during the day as we meet our challenges? Then he finishes with:…which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen. To me this is the gospel in a verse.
Charmaine, we may often think that we can conjure up love. I agree with you that love is a gift from God, a heavenly endowment. I love the scene you have invited us to see: a world in which we all pray for this love. What a place that would/will be! Thank you!
-Wally
Wally, I enjoyed your post and the subsequent comments. Regarding parenting, in my own case, I think too often that my love is conditional: in essence, I say “I love you when you are obedient, when you do what I think you should do,” etc. I need to develop the type of love, Christlike love (charity) that has no expectations. This is the type of energizing, freeing love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ give us. Thank you for an important lesson and reminder….
Jim,
Thanks for your comment, Jim. I think you have described the universal challenge: loving unconditionally. The natural man does not do this. Our job is to become men and women of Christ. May He change us.
-Wally
I work with Wally and he asked me to post this. It really has nothing to do with the topic…
This weekend I was watching VH1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the 80’s. Twisted Sister’s 1984 hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was #47 on the list. (I think it should have been #1, but that’s just my opinion. If you’ve ever seen the movie Iron Eagle you would understand.) As they talked about the song, they cut in with blurbs about Dee Snider’s (lead singer/songwriter) life now. He’s a husband (married over 25 years) and a father. They live in a house in the suburbs. He says in the clip that Twisted Sister plays about 25 shows a year, but he doesn’t do the angry stuff anymore. He says “I’m just too darn happy. I can’t even fake it.” Snider attributes his happiness to distancing himself from the “rock and roll lifestyle”, being in a happy marriage, and being a dad. He apparently loves to be a family man. I think maybe we can learn from Mr. Snyder. Do what you love. Love your wife (or husband). Love your kids. Be happy. Good lessons for life, I think. Rock on Dee!
So many times I’ve been seated in gospel oriented Parenting Classes and “bristled.” So often the meeting started with this quote.
“Mosiah 4:14 – And ye will not suffer your achildren that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye bsuffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and cquarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.
Having failed at that on various levels and various times, and supposing that the instructor was perfect and had never failed at it – I “bristled.”
Then one day I read an Ensign article (I wish I had time to locate it for you) which pointed out that the above quote from King Benjamin was a blessing, not a commandment. The commmandment which includes humbling ourselves and calling upon God and relying on the Atonement, the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ, takes place prior to verse twelve. Verse twelve then states “…that IF YE DO THIS YE SHALL always rejoice, and be filled with the alove of God, and always bretain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the cknowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.
13 And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due.
14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.
15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.”
What great blessings for becoming humble,faith-full, prayerful and repentant! We bristle because we are like the people at the Tower of Babel, who were trying and failing the deliver themselves to heaven when God’s desire as he clearly showed the Jaredites was to let HIM deliver
them. Or in other words, “Can’t you see I’m busy (trying to save myself)! I don’t have time (to let YOU save me)!”
Candleman,
Maybe you would like to react to the chart I created to compare God’s way with the world’s way of self- management. I will see if I can find it and get it posted in case you are interested.
Blessings to you.
-Wally
Please Do!
[…] *Note: This post is in response to the discussion of “Plugs in the Nurture Pipeline“. […]