WHO OR WHAT FORMS THE CHARACTER OF YOUR CHILD?

God’s greatest gift to us, besides him dying on the cross for us, and all the wonderful benefits we can gain from that sacrifice, are our beloved children. God has entrusted their souls and bodies to you as the best steward in the world for them. But who or what has formed them to be they are today?

I strongly believe that God forms the temperament of each individual in the mother’s womb. In the process of being conceived, God sees to it that certain genes fuse from both the mother’s and the father’s side and other genes miss each other. It is the womb that the person’s looks, laugh, appearance, how he/she walks and talks and temperature are formed.

The individual’s characters of formed in the easily years by the type of parenting he receives, the environment and the ethics traditions in which he grows up, and special circumstances, which may be either positive or negative. The personality is the reflection of the combination the character and temperament. Many psychologists believe the character to be a combination of the personality and the temperament, but I believe that the personality is produced by the combination of the temperament and the character.

This means that the temperament, being formed by God, cannot easily be changed and so encourage husbands and wives not to try and change each other’s temperament! In particular, do not try to change your child’s temperament. Remember that God, in the womb, formed this for the specific purpose for which the individual was born. Ephesians 2:10: ”For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordinate that we should walk in them. “ then again in palms 139:14 “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderful  made: marvelous are thy works ;and that my soul knoweth right well.” 

So, dear parent, your child has been born for a divine purpose and is very special and unique, God has blessed you with this child and he/she becomes your responsibility to be brought up correctly and so form the character that God can use to his glory. This is a frightening through! I can only encourage you by saying that there has never ever been a perfect parent. It is your duty as a parent to form the character of your children; this is a very series matter. I wish that I knew all that I am about to share with you when my children were young. However the grace of God was great enough to have made up for my mistakes since they all serve the Lord effectively. When I speak about the calling of God, I am not saying that the person called must become a full-time minister. No, people who know the Lord as their savior have divine calling in whatever circumstance or job they find themselves.

The environment, traditions and especially the kind of parenting that the child is subjected to form the individual’s character:

·         The parent who neglects the child causes them to develop the social style of “indifference”. They need distance from the people and do easily mix socially. So they have a lack of emotional bonding. This kind of character causes big problems in their marriages and work environment.

·         The parent who rejects the child causes his /her social style to avoid people, because he is scared of being rejected. Such as a child grows up rejecting people before they reject him/her, which is an auto-protection mechanism. The spirit of rejection follow them  for the rest of their lives unless they experience a real salvation by Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and are able to forgive those who reject them, with the assistance of a Christian counselor .Such a  person is very unsure of himself and lacks confidence.

·         The parent, who overprotects the child, especially in the first three year of his /her life, causes the child to grow up feeling inadequate and without the ability to solve problems. They become totally dependent on one person. This is the reason why many women who marry husbands who abuse them physically by hitting and battling them, refuse to leave. It causes more pain to be left alone than the beating that she has to endure.

·         The parents who cause the child to over-submit, even in the first 18 months, causes the child to grow up needing approval all the time. Plus their “no” is never “no” and so the child will do anything and everything. The parent threatens to give a hiding, but never follows through and only gives an empty threat. This child will become the star and the light of a party, but can only form superficial relationships because they never know how to clearly set boundaries. The result is a life full of fornication and later adultery. Their marriage will really suffer.

·         The parent who spoils a child, giving everything that the child desires, give him/her an admiring self-image and the idea that no one is as good as he or she is. They always feel good about themselves and cannot take “no “for an answer. They become impulsive and want everything. This want continues into their adult years’ someone says “no” and means it, big fight and stress follow. It is all about self and “me ,me and me”. They are self-absorbed and love themselves more than anyone else. Obviously this will affect their career, unless the father is in a position to employ the spoilt child. Their marriages will be very negative with a lot of problems.

·         The domineering parent causes the child to become assertive, aggressive and having a longing for power. They believe that there are only winners and losers in this world. They reason that they will dominate or be dominated. They will tend to climb on people to make their life a success. They will have a difficulty in bonding and so have a negative relationship with their business partner. Their marriage will be weak from their side. Nobody will be able to get along with them easily. They are usually high drivers.

·         The perfectionist as a parent abuses many problems. When the child causes many problems. When a child comes second first?” When the child gets 90% for the test he asks, “Why did you not get 100%?”Instead of encouraging the child! The result is that the child is very conscientious, conforming and waiting to please everybody and later to control others. They have a need to be perfect and are very upset if they or their family are not .They experience contradictive and opposing emotions: love and hate at the same time; acceptance and rejection; they have difficulty in understanding their own feelings. Yet they remain optimistic as they continually strive for perfection. This attitude of perfectionism makes it very difficult for the spouse for not being perfect. This is probably the worst type of person to live with!

·         The parent who forces constraint or restrain by nagging and resisting, causes their child to have the ability to bond but not in a personal relationship. They are independent on the outside, but inside are very dependent on others and so find difficulty in relationships with others. They eventually become hostile person with negative marriages.

We must remember that all these negative characteristics are the faults of the time. If your child is still under ten years of age, change your parenting style immediately. If they are teenagers or older apologies to them, as I had to apologies to my children.

Happy parenting and do not blame yourself everything ,but take note of the above, especially if you are a young parent, with God all things are possible. 

Dr. Wallis R., June 2010. Who or What Forms the Character of Your Child? Edunews, 52-53.