Every parent would like to know the perfect way to handle his or her children. How can one say no and at the same time communicate love? How can one feel accomplishment in instilling values and setting standards for children while the children feel that adults are out of touch with the times or indifferent to their needs? Bookstores and libraries have shelves of books devoted to answering such questions, to satisfying the demand for solutions. Is there an effective, consistent answer to the problems of parenting in the nineties, or at any time?
Christian Science lifts us above the material maze of contradictory, conflicting philosophies into the realm of unchanging spiritual truth. It provides God-derived insights into parenting that give purpose, direction, and hope. It points to the need to love God supremely—more than we love satisfying our own desire to please our children materially, and more than we love the preconceived standards that have been outlined in our dreams of being a perfect parent. Christian Science shows how we can rely on God to provide for all our needs and the needs of our children as well.
As we take the challenge of child rearing to God, the real Father and Mother of us all, we will see this experience as a steppingstone to a fuller understanding of our relation to God, of the meaning of life, and of our capabilities and heaven-bestowed fortitude. I had all this to discover when I became a parent and schoolteacher. I felt lost, overwhelmed, and totally unprepared for the demands that were being made upon me. I just could not understand how it was possible for children to misbehave when I had tried so hard to make them happy.
