What do you want to teach your son as he grows up into this world?
Raising a child is hard work. Many of us parents are trying out hardest to make sure they are happy and healthy but do we really know what we need to give them to prepare them to be an adult? The author went through his experience of raising his son in an intentional way and share the wisdom and anecdotes with the readers. By being intentional, we can ensure that this difficult journey is handled in a manner that will be most helpful and receptive to the child.
5 shifts as a child grows into an adult:
- From ease to difficulty: Life is hard. Children are shielded from a lot of the responsibilities and work as they learn to grow. This changes as
- From self to others: You are not important. Children is inherently self-centered as they but as they grow up, they need to understand that living for others is an important lesson as an adult
- From the whole story to part of the story: Know that the world is full of people living in diffirent situation and circumstance allow them to expand their view beyond the boundaries of their own lives
- From control to surrender: You are not in control. Children will need to learn that they cannot will everything their ways. Things will happen and they need to find ways to live with those uncertainties
- From Temporal to permanence: You are going to die. A child believes they will live forever. But sooner or later, they will need to learn about death and hopefully internalize what they can do before their time will also come
Reading the list above, I can certainly see why it’s important to ensure the child knows how to shift properly. I’m sure we all know a lot of people who grew up physically but never made some of these shifts…
The focus of this book is on a father raising a son and the author incorporated a lot of Christian faith into the practices. Despite this, the messages, sequence and technique involved is still universal and relevant to non-Christians and daughters. I will certainly think of ways to incorporate these when my son is older!