I’m going to come back to this in a few days when I have more time, but I heard a comment from a very conservative couple with children recently that has resonated with discord in my being since. They said something like, “We don’t want our children to make the same mistakes we did.” It’s parenting from the negative.

One of the things that struck me about this comment is that this couple was HAPPY and had been happily married, according to what they were projecting.

One of the things that bothers me about this comment is that when we prevent our children from making mistakes, we prevent their ability to learn from their mistakes. We also prevent them from developing the ability to make choices while thinking through to the consequences of those choices from experience.

Anyway … in a sense, I think this is one of the ways some people in the church do things. They don’t want singles having sex, so they tell them not to date. It’s from the negative. 

I have more to say about this stuff … but I’m interested in any feedback you might have off the top of your head. Would you rather be taught how to do something from the positive – drawing you to be and become what is best for you … or from the negative – trying to keep you from being or becoming something unwanted? Which philosophy do you think would be more effective for your personality?