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PARENTING: STEWARDSHIP, NOT OWNERSHIP
Do you see your parenting role as a stewardship responsibility or as an act of ownership? Let me come at this a different way.
Parenting as Stewards
The idea of stewardship signifies that parents are to care for and guide their children, rather than have ownership over them. As a parent, your responsibility is to nurture and guide your children, to help them develop into responsible, compassionate, and independent individuals.
Your children are not extensions of you, they are independent beings with their own identities, passions, and aspirations.
Parenting with an ownership mindset is a recipe for disaster. In the belief that we can control the outcomes in our children’s lives, we’ve allowed our pride and even our self-identity to become wrapped up in the actions, attitudes, successes, and failures of our kids. As parents, we must be reminded daily that we don’t own our children but rather they are God’s gifts to us to care for and groom.
Parenthood is one of the most crucial and difficult roles that one can have in life. It is a continuous learning process and responsibility that requires a lot of patience, love, effort, utmost care, and attention. It is not about controlling or manipulating them to fit into a certain pattern or fulfill your desires but to help them become the best version of themselves.
The treatment you give your children is linked to your self-image. If you have a positive self-image, you are more likely to communicate in a positive and supportive way. You will be able to provide positive feedback and praise your children when they do well as well as use situations as an opportunity to teach. But if you have a negative self-image, you may be harsher in your communication, which can hurt your children’s self-esteem.
Parenting is not about the children, it’s about you the parent. Therefore, when you develop a good self-image, you have dealt with your hurts and you are more loving and wholesome, then you can give love and wholesomeness to your kids.
So, let me ask you, how do you define success as a parent? Is that definition filled with achievements and results you seek to control in the lives of your kids?
Are you an owner-parent or a steward parent?
It’s only when and to the extent that you embrace parenting as a steward responsibility that you understand and feel the freedom and joy that comes with being guardians of the lives of your children.
If you need someone to speak with on how to be wholesome and to be a better person and parent, reach out to us. We would love to hear from you.
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