Sissy Sensitive Son
It is not a tough exterior that God desires or that people admire; it is a tough spirit, an overcoming spirit, a spirit of service, caring not for the sparse thanks, nor flinching at misunderstanding.
"I have a ten-year-old son who is more sensitive than most other boys. He is easily offended and does not play well with boys his own age. He is afraid to try new things. I think he is afraid of failing. Just yesterday, a friend of mine told me that I protect my son too much. We talked about it, and she said more. She said he was weak and needed to be tougher. I asked her why she waited so long to tell me this, and she said she was afraid of offending me. I probably would have been offended if it had been anybody else saying what she did to me, but I guess I suspected it before she said it. Nevertheless, it hurt. She suggested I write to you. Is there anything I can do to fix this and make my son tougher?”
Michael Answers:
I love the question! You are not alone in your need. And I am not afraid of offending you; it’s my job. How else can I get your attention? Let’s call it by its “insensitive” name. Your son is a sissy, and you want to know how to make a man out of him. Right?
I will address the issue of how to make your son tough, but I must first give balance by cautioning us all (readers in similar situations) against over-reaction. You have undoubtedly observed that children come into the world as varied in personal traits (personality, temperament, gifts, intellect, emotional perspective) as they are in physical characteristics. You may like men who are warriors, and you may be happily married to one, and have been anticipating giving your husband a warrior son, but instead, it may be that you gave birth to a poet and musician. What can be even more confusing to a parent is that, when your first two sons were born lion cubs, you then gave birth to a third son who is a lamb. If you raise the lamb identical to your first two sons, he will never be a lion like Esau. He will be a lamb as was Jacob, the father of the Israelites. Like Jacob, your son may prefer cooking wild game to tromping around in the hills trying to shoot it with a homemade bow and arrow. Read the marvelous story of these two brothers—twins—so very different from birth to maturity. Surprisingly, God chose the “sissy.” He often does things backwards from the way we think He should. His son, Jesus, taught that “The first shall be last, the last shall be first…the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner,” that sort of thing.
It would be damaging to a child for us to promote our expectations in contradiction to the child’s natural propensities. You must work with what God sends you and not try to recast his soul. There is little that is more damaging to a child’s emotional and spiritual development than to be raised under a parental cloud of dissatisfaction with regard to his intrinsic qualities. When a kid senses that his parents are not satisfied with who he is, something over which he has no control, he will never be satisfied with himself or anyone else. He will be unhappy and angry, and in time, he will hate himself and those who rejected him. There are a thousand unpleasant directions that this so-called “self-loathing” can take a person. On a side note: no one really loathes himself, for if he did, he would be of all men most happy, seeing his greatest desires come true every day—the hurting of his “self”. “Self-disappointment” is a more accurate way of describing the poor self-image syndrome. Self-disappointment is not born, it is taught in early life, or it is a condition acquired later in life after a period of self-criticism.
