Do you like leftover pizza? I do! I like cold pizza in the morning even! Uh oh. Is that bad? NO! Whenever we go to a restaurant, chances are pretty good that we will bring leftovers home because the portions are so much bigger now. My husband and I could share a meal at the restaurant, but we don’t usually like the same foods, so that doesn’t work out.
At home, we have leftovers quite often since there are just two of us living here. That works out on a busy evening, so we can just “throw things together” for a meal and be perfectly satisfied.
On the other hand, I know people who actually refuse to eat leftovers, though I don’t know why. Preference, I guess.
All this talk about leftovers reminds me of what children in ministry have said to me. “I just feel like my parents’ leftovers.” OUCH! Why is that?
Well, parents get into their own emotional battle, that the kids are left outside of it many times and feel like they are raising themselves. There are parents who order kids around just to make it through the day and the kids are left to work through their own emotional issues and challenges alone. There are also parents who believe that if they keep the kids super busy with sports and other activities, then they will not be a bother or get bored. Kids are shuffled from activity to activity, dropped off and picked up in time for something else. Yes, kids do feel like “leftovers” many times.
How can we expect our kids to make intelligent decisions if they are just left to their own devices? Truly! Children need training, plus healthy and purposeful discipline (not just ordering them, yelling, demanding words). They need wise counsel and guidance from parents who love and value them. They need eye to eye contact where the parent listens intently. Kids need to be “the main course” and not just ‘leftovers.”
Parents are so busy with their own lives, jobs, interests and adult relationships that they don’t make the time to truly look at their children to see what emotional, social, physical and spiritual needs they have. Families spend WAAAAY to much time looking at their screens (of all sizes) and not looking at each other. STOP! You have some parenting to do and they need it from YOU.
This Tuesday, February 9, at 2pm ET, our guest on Chained No More Talk Radio will be Rick Johnson, the founder of Better Dads ministry. He will talk about “How To Raise Good Kids to Become Great Adults.” Don’t miss it! www.toginet.com He knows what he is talking about and has helped millions of parents become the parent their kids need them to be.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6
Parents, don’t make your kids feel like “leftovers” who get what’s left of your attention, time, love and devotion. God gave them to you! Make them your “main course” and let everything else get your “leftovers.”