Don't get me wrong. We shouldn't just thrust our children into the world of responsibility and decision-making without guidance or instruction. And our kids shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time they're confronted with a decision. They can learn from mistakes we've made in our own past, and they can avoid those mistakes if they choose wisely and learn by our experience instead of having to learn from their own. Serving as guides and mentors is part of our role as parents. But at the same time, we have to be careful not to shield our children from the consequences of their decisions. If they've made a bad choice, they should typically bear their own consequences.

Consider this analogy from the baseball world. In former years, baseball pitchers would often pitch the entire nine innings. If they let some runs get by, they had to learn how to pull themselves out of the hole and pitch a winning game. Nowadays, if a starting pitcher is having a bad day or lets too many batters get on base, he is pulled and a new pitcher is sent in. This might happen three or four times in a game. The result? Not too many pitchers have the opportunity to deal with the consequences of their actions, so they never become the pitchers they could be. Someone else is always on hand to mop up after them and (hopefully) redeem the game.

Not too big of a deal in the world of sports, but huge in our children's lives. If parents step in to ensure that whatever mistakes are made don't become a mess, they are in danger of producing a young adult who lacks the ability to take whatever is at hand and use it to climb out of the hole. In short, they are in danger of turning out someone who looks to others to bail them out instead of shouldering the consequences of their own conduct, and worse, who feels entitled to a free ride through life.

Is that really what we want for these children of ours? Of course not! So how can we help them? Let them reap what they sow in the safe environment of home. In the phrase of yesteryear, "Let their chickens come home to roost." Don't step in and soften the consequences. Instead, cooperate and at times augment the natural process so that the message comes through loud and clear.

I'm saying this as much to myself as anyone else. I can't tell you how many times over the past 22 years I've caught myself in the act of mopping up after one of my children (sometimes literally), only to realize that once again, I have paved the way for them to skip blithely past an opportunity to learn that actions result in consequences.

The unfortunate truth is that helping our kids experience the consequences of their decisions is definitely more work and discomfort for us as parents. It's a whole lot easier, physically and emotionally, to fix mistakes and make decisions ourselves than to give the time and effort it takes to mentor our children in those realms.

DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY

Reaping the consequences of a poor choice is tough. It's the kind of discipline that's painful at the time but will reap a harvest of righteousness in those that are trained by it. However, we don't have to make it any worse than it is. I'm talking about the universal response when someone is reaping what they've sowed. The I-told-you-so.