Grown-Ups

It’s hard to help people who don’t listen and it’s hard to listen if you don’t believe what you hear.

Experience is often the best teacher, but so many children are not allowed to experience the whole thing, that years go by without them ever learning the consequences. That’s a shame, because it is so much easier to live without your allowance at age ten than without a job at age thirty. Denying a person the opportunity to grow really does spoil the child. In fact, it can ruin their life.

We need more grown-ups in this world. People who can step back and look at the entire situation with honest eyes and in the best interests of the “child” in front of them. People who can offer a helping hand without enabling and crippling this person they really do love. People who see through the shams that become part of the game.

The kid says I promise to do better. The parent figure says okay, if you expect me to continue helping you, you must do that, or I will not do this anymore. And they replay this scenario so many times that the loop means nothing to either of them. Neither one really believes that growth is honestly possible. Eventually both are lost in despair.

The trick is to notice when someone perseveres and it does start to work, because then the game changes and the help really does help and is appreciated and growth begins right then and there. Things start to make sense and the world becomes a little more understandable.

Experience begins to bear out the truth and everyone comes out ahead. In fact, this is about the time a whole new set of grown-ups can emerge, ones who are ready, willing and able, to listen and learn how to love their own kids.

God Bless the grown-ups in this world.