Brad,
Your parenting  style sounds like a parallel of ours.  It is so hard to
keep your hands off and your mouth shut!
Kathy

At 11:12 AM 3/12/2005, you wrote:
>Kathy,
>
>I think we can catch but a small glimpse of how God works things out in us
>by our own parenting. First let me state each child , as we, have our own
>bent on life, that is some are learners from others, and some are learners
>the hard way, some are seeing is believing and others are trusting in the
>word of others, each with their own place in life and sometimes both are
>good and sometimes both aren't so good. I'll use my son for an example. A
>very respectful kid, sometimes can cop an attitude, but hey, he's a late
>teen trying to work out his way in life and sometimes his attitude comes
>from his alarm clock going off on about volume #1, and he's late for
>school thereby earning one detention. And then the next week he has earned
>yet another detention from his clock going off at volume #3. The next week
>the clock is on #10 blasting away and he just sleeps on. meanwhile his dad
>who has need to get ready for work near his room, just lets him quote,
>"dream on son, dream on".  So son earns yet another detention leaving the
>son well frustrated and not knowing what to do. After all quote, "Someone
>is turning my alarm clock down on me"... yeah right hahahahaah. Or "I must
>be turning it down in the middle of the night"... hmmm maybe, maybe. Or
>"I'm just not hearing it"... no I don't think that is it. Or... stop. No
>more excuses. So he goes on haphazardly getting up in time for school with
>the occasional detention when he snuggles too close to the line, and
>meanwhile as I get ready in the morning,  only feet from his room, let him
>"quote, sleep on my boy sleep on". But, isn't that kind of mean? No. See
>I've done the bit of waking him up on time, telling him all the wisdom in
>getting up in time, and all that stuff, he knows it. And. The real issue
>is he doesn't want to get up. He has no problem getting up at 6:00 to go
>to breakfast with one of his buddies, or 5:00 to go fishing, or any of
>that. So   I give him opportunity to work it out for himself, learning
>what he can along the way. It seems mean, it seems unfair because I'm in a
>position of doing something about it but I don't, and yet even though he
>may not see it, it is best this way. Much is the same I think with us
>being child and god being father. So instead of us looking to see why God
>didn't do something about a situation, perhaps we ought look to what we
>are to learn, or what we can take from a particular situation and grow
>from it.
>
>Brad