Tonight Heather and I went to hear David Walsh from the National Institute on Media and the Family speak. The two premises from which he spent two hours planting seeds of wisdom and understanding in his audience were these:
1. The culture for raising children today is much more difficult now than it was 20 years and more ago. This is because the culture now is centered around more, fast, fun, and easy. Parents today have to work harder to do number 2...
2. The key to raising successful children is teaching them to say no to themselves. A child can begin to learn to say no themselves around the age of 2. They will grow in that ability until their adolescent years when brain development causes many great excuses for that ability to shrink before it grows again into the early 20's.
I would argue that ability to tell themself no has still not developed in many 30 year-olds I know.
More to come from Mr. Walsh...