One of the greatest myths of our times has been the confusion between parent and children’s roles. Children have been encouraged to make too many big decisions … adult decisions.
Sometimes children simply don’t have the knowledge, emotional maturity or life experience to make sound decisions. Instead they make their decisions based often on what feels best at that moment. But when families let the adults make the adult decisions, then everyone in the family benefits from parents modeling how a sound decision is made.
This message ‘Let the adults make the adult decisions’ attempts to counteract the powerful influences of the ‘overloving’ trap which lets our children believe that the world is all about them and so allows them to make decisions based solely on what they want.
Instead this message encourages parents to hold their authority, to stand their ground and to be willing to make sound decisions – even if their children are not happy with it.
What’s the message in this for us as parents?
Adults in today’s world too easily feel the pressure to pass decisions over into the hands of their children, in order to empower them, to enhance their self-esteem or simply to make them happy. It may be a short-term gain, usually at a long-term cost.
This has been described in the words of an owner of a car dealership in USA:
The kids decide what’s cool, and parents don’t want to seem out of touch, so they listen. Sometimes, the child literally is our customer. I have watched the child pick out the car. And I have seen people go from a Taurus to an Explorer in the blink of an eye because the kid didn’t want to be seen in a station wagon.
It takes an adult to run a family, someone with life experience, mature reasoning, and access to resources such as money or expertise from others. So adults should make the big decisions in the family. That’s why it is wise to ‘let the adults make the adult decisions’.
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What to do next?
Return to The 10 Strong Love Messages overview
Read: Message 9: It's better to be prepared than to be surprised
