In each one of us Christians, Born Again Christians, Gentiles, Jews whom ever or what ever you call yourself to be, there is always present a spirit of rebellion. While Christians that follow the teachings of Christ doers not talkers can see and identify that malevolent spirit that caused us so much harm in the past, we are still visited by that rebelling spirit.
It is not wrong to rebelled for a good and God given law. But the spirit I am referring to is that force that takes over us and gives us the wrong influence and command to follow. Example: When we are going home tired of working all day and we cut through a parking lot or a street that has a posted sign reading "no thru traffic", do I listen? Sometimes I do, but other times I am ashamed, to say I don't. Those nagging signs that make us think, "Who do they think they are"? I am not hurting anything or anyone by doing this or that. Better yet, when we are given order by our work boss and we tend to disagree we are prompt to cheat on their order one way or another because deep inside we resent their authority over us. It is not that we hate our boss but that we see them as an over bearing person, flunting their authority at our noses and we somehow feel diminished.
As a follower of Christ teachings and ways I am supposed to respect authority laws wether I like it or not. Yet, their is something in me that always wants to strike back, fight against, cheat against authoritive figures. Why is that since I am trying so hard to follow God's commands and Jesus teachings. Now, there is a distinction between following authority laws like police, fire marshalls, governments even if I disagree with such law I am to follow it unless it leads me to sin agains my God. Like I won't hurt, steal, lie etc. on command in order to get a price or hurt someone.
Our children are not exempt from such feelings or influences. Even as little you can see that rebelling spirit in you child. When child refuses to eat, pick up toys, stop hitting or annoying the rest of the kids. Some kids are more rebellious and defying than others. What do you do when you have a child who willfully ignores all your commands and openly defies you to punish him/her. These situation are so problamatic and they deplete us physically, mentally and emotionally. They drain our very souls. Children are more resilient that parents when it comes to the battle of the wills. Rich and poor alike parents have endure such wars. Except that the rich has help while the poor is left to fetch for themselves.
There are many particulars or reasons while a docile loving child reaches an age in which they rebelled. Some of them is divorce or the loosing of one parent in their lives. Some of these kids feel scared that the remaining parent is going to also abandoned them and they do not know how to talk about and the remaining parents to traumatized by the brake up of their family unit cannot handle their emotional chaos all at once. They have to deal with what is at hand like feeding, clothing, paying rent. Going to work when you want to sit and stare at the wall for hours. Then on top of it all you get an ex-spouse who is determined to end up with all assets and money in the divorce settlement and uses all kinds of tactics to manipulate you into giving in. Like making comments of how is the left behind parents fault and using the children to belittle and sabotage the remainding parent. Inflicting on the family foreign views, parading with their new lover all over town, taking the children without their law allowed visitation time to meet and spend time with them as a newly formed family, making the remainding spouse feel that their are the odd ball and they should not nor fit in the new family portrain. When those manipulated, used kids come home their heads are full of ideas and they act out on what they think at the moment in their family home against the remainding parent.
The ill effects of such visitations are brought home with the child. Their influence is felt by the remainding parent when the children come home and tell all even though you don't one to hear one word that has to do with the ex-spouse. You feel you stomach tighten up, your head hurts, tension and deep sitted rage burns within you. How can it be that the legal system cannot help you put a stop their braking the divorce custody agreement. The system is not rendering justice on you and your kids behalf. Seems that the other party is getting the best of both worlds.
At home you have to deal with hostile children who doesn't have the weapons or savvy to deal or recover from the emotional wounds. They act out. You the left behind parent have to deal with their rebelling spirit and find a way to punish their ill manner hostile behavior without braking their spirit, making them fill that you don't want nor love them or you are going to leave them also. You sit your precious children down and talk to them, explain things, tell them how much you love them and that you are not leaving them behind and you will be there for them to care for them. You hold true to your promises and convictions yet you still have a child that will not obey, keeps getting into trouble, upsets the entire household, is a problem kid at school and the list is immense.
You have little time to deal with such stressful situation. You hesitate to deliver punishment immediately because you are not sure if it's going to escalate into another eruption of bad deeds. You plead unceasingly for your wayward child with the school principal who is threatening to expell you kid. You wonder when your life is going to change for the better and these life sentence emotional imprisonment you have been sentence to is going to release you and issue you a full pardon, and you would have a better economic, peaceful and love filled life. You know you are a devoted, hard working, honest and there all the time parent. You don't even want to date another person for fear that it will make the situation at home worse.
You have tried all your weapons at your disposal to stop and change your wayward child's behavior and nothing works. All the advice, doctors, psychiatrist, school council, all your mountain moving equipment has failed and the kid just won't change. Your once sweet ever-loving child is now obnoxious, displays a mean disposition, hurl hurful personal disresptful remarks at you, hangs out with the wrong crowd of kids at school and cut school, his language usage is nothing but profanity that you keep reprimending and issueing punishment for that he does not comply nor obey. You are so closed to sending this child to an correctional institution. Your child is now completely perverted and sending the child to an institution might help but then again it might do worse and the child might kill him/she self, or come out a worse criminal. You decide to admit him/her in a psychiatrict hospital for a week to see if anything can be done or maybe medication can be prescribe if there is a mental problem discover. You have a meeting with the psychiatrist and he says he is behaving like a model patient and showing no signs of any mental illness nor problems. You have just been made out to be a crisis, over anxious parent. After the child's release he/she goes back to their irresponsible conduct and violate all the terms you and your child had agreed upon before his/her release.
You are no longer sure if you are doing your children an injury instead of a benefit by all the proper corrective actions that you have manage to implement. The other children are watching you deal with these horrid situation and making mental notes. Now and then they immitate the wayward childs behavior and when you act upon it and they accuse you of been easy with the wayward kid. You have tried tought love, sweet love, spending time with the kid and nothing works. Meanwhile the departed parents care little about your struggles and the childs behavior. You call the ex-spouse to discuss what to do next with your wayward child and to show him/her what you have found underneath his bed, Marijuana in a small plastic bag. He/she shows up at your door and with that hateful smirk says, " Ah!" It is just pot, nothing to worry about and turns around and gets back in his car and leaves you there standing with your mouth wide open in disbelief. He/she has made no attempt to talk to the kid or do anything productive that will help the stressful situation.
The years go by and the child never changed and you feel like a complete inept parent. All your efforts were short lived. He/she behavior is still disastrous. His/her family accuse you of not been firm, not given the children structure. They never blame the absent parent. They side with his tales of the evil-ex. They don't believe you have to fight tooth and nail to keep your family straight, keep the home so that the children don't have to move to another city and change schools and loose contact with their friends and their known daily life. No, you are cosider and bad parent. The fact that you hold and 8 hour job, paid child care, provide health and dental insurance, pay, pay and pay for all their stuff does not count. You are still a poor parent in their eyes. There is sufficient evidence to the contrary but nobody cares. They don't even see that you have put your love life on hold so that the children would not feel threatened by a new love object and act out. You have grown older, lost some of your hair due to stress, put on or lost pounds.
Finally the kids graduate high school. You have no comprehension how your wayward child was able to graduate with the rest of his class when he gave the school so much hassle and created such chaos. But he graduates. You feel that maybe the school district just wanted your child out of the school district for good. Now, that does not make you feel proud at all, but you understand it. Your child stated many times he would not quit school or be a drop out yet he acted so irresponsible that he wore out his welcome. So many hundredths of dollars had to be paid by him for truancy. You made sure he paid it and not you, All the names of the magistrates he is familiar with and many police officers he knows from his disruptive behavior.
I finally let out a deep sight of relief, he is 18 yrs. old, went to vo-tech for a year, worked on the train station cleaning and repairing parts of trains. He has changed some and you praise him for it. You are done! Yeah! It is over. You have survive this grueling episode in your life with many scars.
Then it starts all over again, now he is at home all the time, lounges around, don't want to work, hates his father. The lists goes on and on. You kicked him out of your house but a few weeks later he is back in promising the moon to you and you fell for it. He behaves for a while then starts up again. You want to die but death does not come for you.
