There is a simple picture that will help you understand how to deal with babies:
Babies are like jelly, children are like jelly! This is an especially important concept to understand when you are guiding their development, learning, and discipline.
What shape does the jelly take? The jar it is in. So it is with babies: they will take the shape you mold them to.
Jelly is soft and moldable and gradually hardens over time. Rather than being watery, there is some form and resistance to it. But it will accept molding. So it is with children: they mold to the constraints placed upon them. There is some form, that is, some resistance that they will put up, and some parents then allow themselves to think that means they are unmoldable.
But it just takes some pressure, and some solid form on your part (that is, stand your ground and don’t give up!) and you will find in time that like jelly, you can mold them. Otherwise, it will be the other way around – you are allowing them to mold you! No, the jar molds the jelly. Don’t let yourself get fooled into thinking your child is set in his ways. You may be, but he is not! Though jelly may appear solid, it really isn’t. So it is with babies. They will change. They will take the shape of the structure, the “jar,” they are given.
They are quite different in this respect than adults! We have to stop generalizing our experience to babies. We are tempted to think of them as we are – set in our ways with preferences and opinions and habits. They are not! They are brand new! We are to form them! You must guard against thinking about babies as adults, persons whom you simply accept as they are. No, you will be guilty of neglecting the major part of parenting with this mindset!
Gal 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Be wary of becoming weary. They will try to wear you down and make you give up. Stand your ground. Be the jar, not the jelly. Set the standard to set them by.
Without training or discipline, they are not given form for living. We are positively to form them, by training, and negatively to enforce that training through discipline. Discipline is the other hand of training. This is how God deals with us: He gives us His ways, His commands, and the example of Christ to positively show us how to live. He gives us His Holy Spirit presence, and the Body of Christ to help us. Then He negatively enforces this training by disciplining us when we stray or disobey.
Babies are like jelly, children are like jelly! This is an especially important concept to understand when you are guiding their development, learning, and discipline.
Give them form, teach them, show them, guide them. We “have” a baby not to just have them but to raise them for God’s glory. In this sense, the labor really just begins where the childbirth labor ends! Then we undergo the “labor” of raising them. Be encouraged, and do the work!
Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
© Marie-Celine Farver RN BSN IBCLC RLC 2013