Responsible Parenting, Part 1

"Train a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not turn away from it."  Proverbs 22:6

I have been thinking a lot today about what it means to be a responsible parent.  Training our children to be responsible adults that love God is probably the greatest responsibility most people will ever have.  I have two small children and I can definitely see how they are like sponges and imitate even the smallest habits.  I was washing my face when I noticed my son reaching out to the faucet to turn on the water.  I said "no touch!" as I did not want him to waste water, and he proceeded to dip his little hand in the "discard" water and then patted his face.  What I had initially perceived as the desire to waste water just because he wanted to play, was actually his attempts to imitate me.  Every day I can see that he is trying to figure out the world - the difference of right from wrong, how things work, what pleases or annoys people, and he surprises me daily!  One thing I have been challenged on in the past month or so is my son's fascination with light - turning light switches on and off continuously.  I told him (as I always do) that it wastes energy and that in broad daylight we shouldn't need to turn on any lights.  This morning he had his Twilight Turtle (a battery operated turtle that shines stars on the ceiling) that he was playing with, experimenting with the light.  I decided to just observe his play, and was fascinated by how he went about experimenting.  First, he brought it into the bathroom and turned on the light and then he noticed that he couldn't see the light in a fully lit room.  He then tried to figure out a way to see the stars in the room, and discovered that if he pulled out a drawer and tucked it inside, he could see the light from the darkness of the drawer.  After a few minutes I walked over and told him to shut it off and gave him some crayons to play with.  Later in the evening that same day, my son noticed that the hall light had been left on and he shut it off saying "turn light off."  My point for mentioning this is that sometimes we get overzealous in our efforts to conserve energy and we inhibit growth and learning in our children.  It is okay to allow them to experiment and explore, as long as they are ultimately learning that it's important to try and conserve our resources.