Q
My children feel like I don’t love them unless
I give them everything they want.
How do I change this?

A. This is not just a problem that affects a few.
In our society, this problem has reached epidemic
proportions. We have raised a generation or two
(or three) of young people who feel that the world
revolves around them. For so many today, young
and old alike, love is performance based — If you
don’t, I won’t. This applies to nations, cities,
neighborhoods, and sadly to say, to our homes.
We equate love with what you do for me. If you
didn’t do anything for me today, your love for me
is questionable. It’s as if my purpose in life is to
bring you happiness and I can only do that
if I give you what you ask for — every time.
I believe that the real problem is that we don’t
understand the difference between happiness and joy.
Happiness comes from external things, situations, or
people in our lives. It is completely controlled by what
is going on around me. Joy, on the other hand, comes
from inside and is not affected by what is going on in
my environment. For example: The Apostle Paul said
he learned to be content. This was regardless of his
circumstances— it must have been — he was in jail
when he said it. So, the problem may be that we are
spoiled rottenand we have spoiled our kids rotten.
If we don’t understandwhere true contentment comes
from, as parents, we need to fi nd out what the Apostle
Paul knew that wedon’t and then practice it in front of
our kids.Then, we need to practice with our children the
lost art of saying “NO!” They won’t like it anymore than
we do when we are told no, but they won’t die and over
time they will learn that love is not always measured by
the number of yeses they get each week. It has to start
somewhere.

Q
Why is my twelve-year-old son
so angry all the time?

A. The truth is, it’s impossible to tell
without knowing him, but this is the most frequently
asked question that I get from parents and school
counselors. The majority of the young men I see in
my office are just mad — they don’t know why, they
just are. I think the answer, most of the time, is that
we, as a society, have produced a very angry generation.
It’s taken us generations to do it, but it’s worked. For so
many years now, we have stereotyped young men as
mamma’s boys or big boys, that it’s come back to haunt
us. We’ve said “big boys don’t cry” and “quit acting like a
sissy” because we thought we were teaching them to be
“real men.” Now, the only emotion our young men feel,
is acceptable is anger. The young ladies can be afraid
or lonely. They can have hurt feelings or feel sad about
something. They can experience a myriad of emotions,
but boys don’t have the same options. If they are afraid,
they can’t say it, but it’s normal for them to get mad.
If they lose a relationship, it’s not okay to feel
Embarrassed or a bit depressed, but it’s okay to get
angry.