Parenting

Today Charlie was playing with a little boy at school throwing rocks at each other. Sometimes when boys play rough somebody gets hurt. Charlie got angry when a rock hit him in the head. In anger he retaliated by hurling a rock at the offender, which hit the boy in the mouth and damaged a tooth. Thank God that is all that it did. This is the difficult part of parenting. We confronted our son with the word of God. Trying to get at his heart:

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21

¹¹ A fool gives full vent to his anger,
but a wise man keeps himself under control. Proverbs 29: 11

"for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." James 1:20

He then was grounded to his bedroom and not allowed out except for dinner and bathroom break. My husband and I tried to impress upon him the seriousness of his offense. At his desk in his room he wrote a letter of apology to the boy and his parents. We will be making full restitution on Charlie's behalf to the parents for any medical cost to repair the tooth, because "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1
However, Charlie will be doing extra chores to pay for it himself, so that he understands the cost of what he has done. This is regrettably painful for us as well, as we cannot afford to pay another bill right now. It pains me to even think about that part of this.

So my friends what is the point of sharing all this? Parenting is the best job I've ever had. I wouldn't trade it for all the world. Most moms wouldn't. There was a time, when my older boys were little, if they had done something like this, I would have been a wreck. I would have seen it as a reflection of my poor parenting. Now, I realize that even when we parent to the best of our abilities our children make mistakes. It's easy to parent well when our children behave well. However, it is when they do something regretable that parenting is most significant. It is in these times we, the child and the parents, learn the most. I have learned to be calm, gracious, and forgiving of my children when they do wrong. They learn what they should have done, and of God's mercy and forgiveness, and how to accept consequences for their offenses.

Our heavenly Father sometimes must chasten us when we do wrong, and although he forgives us when we ask, we still usually have some consequence for our actions. Our sin hurts ourselves, but many times it hurts those we love around us too. A good lesson for our son to learn. There will be a little less for groceries for the next few months while we pay this off. *sigh* Sometimes doing the right thing by, and for, our children hurts.

After this I am making up "Charlie's restitution chart" and hanging it on the fridge. It will have a list of chores he must do every day to earn points, in lieu of the money we will be paying. If you are reading this around the 6th of November, please pray that it won't be very much for us to pay. Charlie isn't perfect either, obviously (smile) but we love him dearly, and hope to encourage him to be like the one who is.

UPDATE: Looks like it's gonna cost us $800.00. *sigh* I trust you Lord.
UPDATE: Our homeowners insurance is covering the whole cost! So glad we trusted! LOL!