January 15, 2025: WORK WHAT WORKS!
"Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.
- Robert A. Heinlein.
Listen to this meditation on audio:
When we find something that works, simple logic dictates that we should keep doing it. For some folks, simple logic is neither simple nor logical. We all probably know some parents who have decided that the discipline and structure their parents put them through, even though they turned out to be successful individuals; that discipline was not something they were going to apply to their children. In many cases, those same parents found out too late that their children did not do well either in school or later on in life. This observation is almost like the experience I had as a fledgling life insurance salesman. I worked hard to find a system that would work for me, and then for a time I worked it vigorously as I continued to get better at selling. The thing that amazed me as I looked back on those early years of a successful 23 year career, was that once I had mastered a system that worked, I decided to look for another way to get the same result. My system was simple and logical and yet for no apparent reason, other than curiosity, I decided to find another way to do successful selling. This change naturally caused a decline in my sales and thus my income, until I mastered the new system. The real issue as I look back on that experience is, why did I feel the need to change something that was already successful? It's almost as if there is some human inclination to try to achieve, perhaps a better result, with a different system, even though the current system is working just fine. So as I look at the above referenced, parents who seek to raise their children with a different method than that which they experienced, I wonder if their reasoning is the same as mine was, or was it caused by their disdain for the discipline and perhaps corporal punishment applied as they grew up. There seems to be a lesson here that's worthy of our taking note. It's one thing to depart from a successful method of selling. It is quite another to depart from a method of raising a child whose future literally lies in our hands. The old folks used to have a saying that is surely applicable here and that is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But if you do decide to "fix it", please don't take forever to figure out whether or not the new method is working. Please understand that I am not suggesting that the old methods of raising children with reasonable boundaries and parents who demanded respect, are the best for every situation today. But I am suggesting that whatever method today's parents choose to follow, if reasonable boundaries and respect for parents is not included in it, that child's future and the parents present are both going to suffer. Not everything should necessarily be done the old-fashioned way, but whatever we decide to do in our parenting, the results from the new methods should be the same; reasonable boundaries and respect for the parents. Any so called parenting method that does not include those two items is not worthy of consideration. PERIOD
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