I hope that through this repetition I have been able to help you see that we are each accountable for our actions and our loved ones must be accountable for theirs.
Let's go through it . . .
One more time!
1. Our job is not to be our children's friends, we are their parents. The friendship part comes later as they grow and mature.
2. Boundaries, rules, responsibility, obedience and commandments are not bad words, and they need to be enforced and reinforced on a regular basis. And not only for problem kids. This is the way our children, from a very young age begin to learn to make decisions.
They need to learn to make good decisions. They need to learn to be responsible. And they need to continue to be taught about choices and the results of those choices --- agency and accountability. This is the best way to help keep them from becoming "problem kids."
3. We are doing our loved ones, young and old, a terrible disservice when we take from them their accountability --- the consequences of their actions.
What lesson are we teaching our children if we do not let them be accountable for the things they do, the choices they choose?
4. When we remove any part of agency, including accountability, we are endorsing Satan's plan of taking from us our agency.
5. Adversity is a necessity. We shouldn't try to take it away from our family. Life is about making mistakes and learning from them. We must learn from our mistakes and let our loved ones learn from theirs.
6. Sometimes, even when it is not their fault they need to fix it; work it out for themselves. To get through the adversity; to grow from the experience. We deprive them when we fix it for them.
7. We know that the most important responsibility we can have is to raise our children in the way of the Lord. And again, when they go astray our natural tendency is to blame ourselves. Where did we go wrong? we ask. What could we have done differently? None of us are perfect and we have all made mistakes, but if we have taught them the best we could we have done all we can.
It may seem contrary to our responsibility when I say we must not help them. But, again, if we have done our job in teaching them as we've raised them, then we have done our job. Now it is up to them to use that agency they have been given by our Heavenly Father, and then be accountable for their actions. Then, the decisions they make are their own, they are not ours.
8. Agency/accountability have not ceased to be a factor in the Lord's eternal plan.
Life is about choices and consequences. God's plan of happiness is about choices and consequences.
9. We are living in a society that makes no demands and expects no accountability. In the same family some children choose well and some choose evil. We came to this earth with our agency.
10. We have the power to teach correct principles but we do not have the power to redeem our children from their poor choices.
No matter how much we'd like to we cannot save people from themselves!
Tomorrow we will move Onward with Hope.
Please hang in there with us.
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