Do You Have It? Bars of Soap Can Be Slippery, You Know

Have you ever been in the shower with a bar of soap and dropped it repeatedly? You go to pick it up off the floor and you don’t have it quite tight enough so it slips out and falls again. Then you reach down once more, determined to grab it more firmly, only to grab it too tightly and it pops right out and shoots at the opposite wall! Bars of soap are very slippery. They are not an easy thing to hold onto. It requires just the right touch, not too tight, not too loose.

I like to use this metaphor when it comes to talking about managing, parenting, guiding, directing, disciplining, and instructing young adults under your care. It isn’t like it used to be when you could simply order them to do this or to do that and if they didn’t you simply punished them and made them! You tell a toddler not to touch a hot stove. He doesn’t believe you and reaches for it again. You smack his hand. That takes care of it for a moment. Maybe, eventually, he reaches for it when you are not looking and burns his hand. He learns quickly why you told him not to touch it. You wanted to avoid his hand getting burned, but it will heal and the lesson is finally learned. If only it could be so simple with the complicated issues that face our teens today.

I was reared by a father, God love him, who did his very best; but also simply didn’t know what to do and how to handle all the issues thrown at him by way of the teen culture with which his children were all involved. He did his very best. As I look back, I see times where maybe he was too lenient and times where he brought the hammer down so hard that I simply rebelled. My rebellion is my responsibility not his. Nonetheless, these are my memories, and I am trying hard not to make the same mistakes with my children.

If only I could let them touch the hot stove and get a brief, but easily healed pain, as a result and learn from it. The issues you deal with when they become small adults though are far more significant with further reaching consequences than a temporary burned hand. Some of the decisions they make now will affect them for the rest of their lives. Some of the decisions they fail to make now will do the same.