Parenting - Only upon the Principles of Righteousness and Preparing for General Conference

I feel so thankful that Seth and I have been blessed to be the parents of this special son of ours. He is so precious, and we want so much to do what is best for him.  So far he is doing so great! He slept from 11pm-5am again last night! Woohoo! We are so excited about that, and we are loving that he is becoming more and more alert during the day. We are improving at assessing his needs and acting to meet them. Right now, we do everything for him, and we make all the decision concerning his care and for his life. But we realize that as he continues to develop, that will change.  We need to teach him how to become independent so that he can someday go out into the world on his own and succeed in life. 

For family scripture study last night, Seth and I read the talk, "Only upon the Principles of Righteousness", by Larry Y. Wilson of the Quorum of the Seventy. I felt leary about reading this talk because when I heard it originally, I was very distracted by his introduction, and I didn't like his story very much. I had also talked with others who felt confused by the examples given in this talk. But Seth helped me learn a great lesson. By giving this talk another chance, by praying about, reading and discussing this talk with my husband, I felt very uplifted and I learned much that will help us as parents in our endeavor to teach our children to become not only physically, but spiritually independent. I saw the talk in a completely different light.

Elder Wilson says, "In raising our family, we decided that our most important goal would be to help our children establish their own connection to heaven. We knew that ultimately they would need to depend on the Lord, not on us. " I feel that same way, and I often ponder how we are to help our children establish their own connection with heaven, and how we are to let them use their moral agency correctly and not make all their decisions for them. 

"Our children are in our homes for a limited time. If we wait until they walk out the door to turn over to them the reins of their moral agency, we have waited too long. They will not suddenly develop the ability to make wise decisions if they have never been free to make any important decisions while in our homes."

There are so many influences pulling for our attention in the world today, and I want our children to make good choices because they want to.  Elder Wilson says, "Wise parents prepare their children to get along without them. They provide opportunities for growth as children acquire the spiritual maturity to exercise their agency properly. And yes, this means children will sometimes make mistakes and learn from them." He gives an example of when he and his wife gave their daughter an opportunity to make a decision about keeping the Sabbath day holy (to play or not play in a soccer game on Sunday), and she made the wrong decision but learned from it and made a great change in her life for good, and she decided that she would always keep the Sabbath day holy from now on. 

I can understand why some parents, when listening to this talk, would feel frustrated by this example because they feel that if they gave that same decision to their child, their child would not feel bad for making the wrong choice, nor learn from their poor decision. My mom taught a lesson in Relief Society using this talk, and there was a sister there who asked what she should do in her situation. Her husband was less active and left church after sacrament meeting, or did not come at all. Her daughter did not want to go to primary (Sunday school for children). Should she let her daughter make the decision? She might never come to primary again. Compromise and let her only go half the time? She might eventually stop coming. Or make the decision for her? She might resent being forced to go to primary and have a bad experience.

This is quite a dilemma. But upon re-reading this talk, I feel that the answer to this question is here. 

"When setting firm limits for another person is in order, those limits should always be administered with loving patience and in a way that teaches eternal principles. We simply cannot force others to do the right thing. The scriptures make it clear that this is not God’s way. Compulsion builds resentment. It conveys mistrust, and it makes people feel incompetent."

This woman's daughter is still a child, and needs her mother to set a firm limit for her, but not give her the reason, "Because I said so." This mother can sit down with her daughter and explain why it is important for her to go to primary. She can ask her daughter if she has concerns about primary. Maybe she is afraid she won't make friends, and she feels lonely or nervous in primary. This is a great opportunity to teach her about prayer, and how Heavenly Father will help her and comfort her. It can be a great learning experience for both of them. 

In the specific case of Elder Wilson's daughter, Mary, she was older, and "had received answers to her prayers in other, earlier situations, and so we trusted that our daughter was developing this path of communication with heaven in her life. Thus she learned something positive from her experience and was equipped to make better choices in the future. Without a link to the Spirit, children and parents alike would be able to rationalize all sorts of poor decisions in the name of exercising their agency. The promise of scripture is that “they that are wise … and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide [are not] deceived." (Doctrine and Covenants 45:50)

Elder Wilson and his wife didn't just say, "Whatever you want to do honey." They used the guidance of the Holy Ghost to help them know what to do. They first prayed about letting her make the decision or telling her what to do. Elder Wilson continues, "We decided after prayerful consideration that in this case our daughter was ready to take spiritual responsibility for her own decision. We read some scriptures with her and encouraged Mary to pray and think about it."

They were alarmed when she declared that she would play on Sunday. "Now what were we to do? After further discussion and receiving reassurance from the Spirit, we did as we had promised and permitted her to carry out her choice to play. After the game ended, Mary slowly walked over to her waiting mother. “Oh, Mom,” she said, “that felt awful. I never want to feel like that again. I’m never playing another game on the Sabbath day.” And she never did." 

This example shows how important it is to use the Holy Ghost as a parent. "Helping children exercise their agency properly requires teaching them how to pray and receive answers to their prayers. There must also be teaching about the value and purpose of obedience as well as about all other essential principles of the gospel."

I am thankful that I gave this talk another chance. I learned so much about how the Lord will help us to parent using the principles of righteousness. Seth and I had an excellent discussion after we read this talk, and I am so thankful and excited to be a parent with Seth. He is such a wonderful husband and father. I feel so blessed. I look forward to facing all the challenges of parenting with him on my team.

There are many more talks that have been given recently in General Conference about parenting.

"Courageous Parenting"

"Teaching Our Children to Understand"

"And a Little Child Shall Lead Them"

April 2012 General Conference

And I am really looking forward to the next General Conference. I will be listening carefully for guidance about how to be a good mother and wife, and how to help my family to be happy.

Prepare for General Conference