The walls of our home have to be spacious enough to house all of our child’s personality and gifts, while solid enough to mold her behavior.
The distinction is not obvious.
When we parent the behavior, we’re teaching our child how to be a regenerative human being, someone who comes of age ready to serve life.
When we parent the personality, we’re making our lives easier and more comfortable by curtailing our child’s passions, gifts and ways of being.
One is a service, the other a hurt; one is honing the other harming; one is making a human, the other is confusing a child.
It falls on each one of us as parents, all in our own ways, to know the difference.