This needed to be said again. Nothing in the above is unnecessarily painful unless you have already allowed them to be conformed to the world. In that case being transformed by the renewing of the mind may meet some resistance. That's OK! That's why we are parents. Our job is to influence and guide our children. YES, even sometimes with the rod of correction, for foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it far from them.
I have 3 girls, 24, 16,11, and a 6 year old boy. I have spanked all of them all their life when necessary. They love me and I love them. None of them have ever been on drugs or in trouble with the law. Mostly it's because I'm strict on them. I do however show equal love and affection. I'm not a heavy handed dictator.
I don't allow my 16 year olds to date alone. I have encouraged them to date from a young age but always chaperoned. My job as a parent is to not allow children to make adult decisions. I don't put them in situations where they are forced to make adult decisions. They aren't equipped at 16 and 17 to make life changing decisions with boys in cars. I will protect and guide them until their brains are mature enough to make proper decisions.
There's obviously a difference of approach here. I believe that sheltering kids and dictating to kids leads to both an inability to deal with the world when it finally arrives, and an inability to make adult decisions with a good knowledge of who they actually are as people, aside from what their parents forced them to be. That's probably because my mother made so many of my choices for me, and sort of wrapped me up in cotton wool when I was a kid, then when I was sort of 15, 16, I was forced to do it all on my own.
I had to learn to make choices practically overnight, without ever having been given the freedom to make them for myself. I also had to learn to get to know myself very quickly.
When I was 16, I bought my own clothes, gave my parents a proportion of my income, bought my own car, and had to fund my own education in the local college, then I moved away to university and paid for that myself. I had a long term girlfiend at 17, and was with her until I was 22.
My parents, for many years, dictated to me what I should do, rather than give me choices. Then within the space of 6 months I was having to do it all myself. I never got eased into making adult decisions, nor was I encouraged as a child to really know myself and
be myself.
I prefer to take a different approach than that. I would much rather expose my kid to the real world in little steps, and present him with options so that he can make choices for himself, and make mistakes, and get to know himself with my full and unwavering support. If he screws up, he knows I'll be there to help him. I won't throw him in the deep end like my parents did, and I won't take away his room for self-experimentation, nor stifle his personal growth, either.
At the end of the day, he's his own little person, not just some shadow of someone else's expectations.
