is one of the hardest aspects of parenting.
DS came home a couple of days ago brimming with stories of one particular child in his class. This child has a very difficult time getting along with others. DS is very frustrated and said he had decided to just stop talking to said child.
We try to teach him to treat others "as he would have them treat him." The Golden Rule is a hard concept to grasp when you're a child. Everything in his little human mind is telling him to treat this child the same way right back.
And now we're trying to add in the aspect of loving and praying for your enemies. My heart breaks for some of these children and the circumstances life (and sometimes their parents) have burdened them with.
We try to remind DS that many children don't have parents that teach them how to respect their friends and classmates. But it's very hard for him to imagine anything other than a home with loving parents who take him to church and try to teach him about God's love.
Because we live in a relatively small town you hear things and have experiences with people so I know that this classmate he is frustrated with doesn't have the ideal home life. Of course I would never say anything to him about the things I know, but I'm trying to teach him that we may never know what goes on in someone's life that might cause them to behave the way they do so we should pray for that person.
I know one day he will understand it and that now the main thing we should do is simply model the behavior for him so he sees us treating others they way we would like to be treated, whether they treat us well or not. It's hard, even as an adult, to love and pray for your enemies. Even harder for a child who only sees the world from the innocent perspective of a child.
