Ran across this article to which I replied, AMEN! It has cross application to both child-rearing as well as to parish life and leadership:
A while back, I had a student with a serious attitude problem. Let’s call her “Sue.” On the first day of an art course in which I first encountered Sue, my antennae shot up. At the end of my opening presentation, when I asked for questions, Sue responded by launching a missile. Due to her internship obligations, she would be late for several classes. I reiterated my policy on lateness (it’s strict) and suggested it might be best for her to drop my course. To this Sue responded that she needed to take my course to graduate (translation: “Your course is the course that suits my schedule”).
Related Articles
1 user responded in this post
Sue conformed to socially behaving in one class, to conform to the standards of her teacher…she learned how to behave to get what she wanted. The teacher taught what she knew, how to wield power to receive conformity to personal standards and comforts.
Interestingly enough what I read and felt keenly in this story as well was that at the first sign of what the teacher decided was trouble, “my antennae shot up,” and in the rest of the story the student was never invited to stay, the same negative attitude pervaded. She was continually invited to leave.
The student who was already an “A” student with exceptional skills and mind, stayed despite being asked to leave over and over again.
Who really won?
Is conform the same as transform?
God help them both and be with them as they continue in life, allow them both to experience your transformation of spirit! Begin that transformation with transforming me, my negative attitude and the fight in me that causes me to separate myself and judge myself better or superior, help me to invite people in instead of inviting them out with my attitude. I’m just another sinner, a broken human who is lost without you and your spirit. God be with the “teachers” and the “students” allow us both to learn what is truly needed.