All of reality is governed by laws of cause and effect.
Insensible people choose causes that they have the ability to predict will not yield the effects they seek.
Stubborn people continue in causes that have proved unable to yield what they seek.
Here are a few relationships of causes that fail to deliver what is sought often enough that far fewer should continue attempting them.
Things that should not surprise anyone:
- When you never say no to your kids, and they end up entitled.
- When you don't require your child to work, and they end up unemployed or lousy employees.
- When you feed your child anything they want, and they end up obese.
- When you send your kid to public school, and they end up with mental and/or emotional dysfunction.
- When you remain aloof from teaching you child the timing and details of wise spouse selection, and they marry an idiot.
- When your child marries an idiot, and then gets divorced, or is too poor to have children or have mom stay home, or all of the above.
- When your child fails to develop into or allows themselves to degrade into someone without anything to offer a spouse, and then ends up alone or with someone not worth marrying.
- When you send your kid off to a school financed by a church you don't agree with, and they end up adherents of that church (and hating you).
- When you keep attending a church you don't agree with, and your kids end up believing it (and hating you).
- When you give your kids all the fruits of your success in life instead of the lessons that will enable them to earn them for themselves, and they end up miserable and weak.
- When you spend your time interacting with fake friends on your phone instead of with your kids, and they end up sociopaths.
- When you never read the scriptures and your kids don't, either.
- When you never teach your kids the gospel, and they end up not believing in God.
- When you let yourself get fat, and then your kids get fat, too.
- When you treat your spouse like garbage or allow your spouse to treat you like garbage, and your kid grows up and hates you, or treats their spouse like garbage, or chooses someone who will treat them like garbage.
- When you habitually choose for your own short-term benefit instead of your family's long-term benefit, and your family members cease to respect you.
This list could go on. I hope you get the point.
Jesus is mighty to save. If you fit this list, or something similar but not on it, the Lord is knocking, inviting you from wherever you stand to a much better place. No matter your past, he freely offers to you a present of much greater value, and a future of value that exceeds you ability to accurately appraise.
If you want your children to be exceptional, the first step is to become exceptional yourself. God knows how you can get there.
It's never too late to start but, like most quality things in life, the rewards of doing so drastically diminish and the cost exponentially rises the longer you wait.
Start today. Ask him what you can do better, and he will. Ask God for help, and he will give you all the power necessary to find the overflowing joy available for parents willing to do all things in their power for the benefit of their children. After all, he is your parent, and he is willing to do all things in his power for your benefit. Try him.