By Yulia Sagaidachnaya (Stop the Cycle program)
Whenever I heard the saying “As you sow, so shall you reap” before, I thought it spoke about people’s work in a field. You do something; and then you will have something. But Oksana Pankyeyeva explained that these words are about the relationships between people – and about children’s hearts.
At our last Stop the Cycle meeting, we had a chance to remember and evaluate the impact the actions and attitude of adults had on us, and as a result, what fruit we bore in our hearts. Although their purposes seemed to be right (they tried to teach us obedience), the methods of achieving this obedience made us behave more badly, and sowed hatred, the desire for revenge, and rebellion in our hearts.
Only a few parents think about the true motives for their behavior at the moment their kids’ actions annoy them – or of the efforts they need to take to parent the whole child.
I used to ask myself: “How is Ksusha’s bad behavior related to me?” I can give a dozen examples of how my child obeyed me after a good whooping. But today I realized that at the moment of anger, we aren’t motivated with a sober mind, and at such moments hatred and anger settle in kids’ hearts.
So what causes us to lose our temper with our beloved ones?
Ksusha
The first reason is the lack of information. Many of us act on the principle, “I’ll raise my child the way I was raised.” Some do this unconsciously, and some just believe it.
Second, our irritation causes us to act.
The third reason is that we love to manipulate, knowing what buttons to push in our child. We misuse them when we lose control.
The fourth reason is a desire to reign. This also influences our children. Maybe it started in our childhood because we didn’t get enough care and love, and we constantly felt depressed because of the adults who oppressed us.
Oksana asked us to think about the reasons and motives for our behavior, and to analyze them; and then come to some conclusions.
We don’t know in which corners of kids’ hearts our words “dwell,” but we know for sure that they make their impact. And negative words make a negative impact.
If we allow ourselves to humiliate our child, to call him or her bad names, and threaten him or her, then we can only expect negative fruit. This is true even if we don’t physically abuse or spank our children, but always spread a negative attitude around them. So we can abuse our children not only physically but morally.
Oksana compared a child’s heart with a blank page, where parents and teachers draw the picture of a child’s life. We can only give our child the things we ourselves have. So we should work at our character constantly, and be careful in our attitude to our neighbors, since that’s a model or example for our children. Anything we sow now will bring fruit in the future. Evil will never bring good.
For me personally this was a very valuable lesson. My child’s life depends on how I learn it!
