Pubermania
Mother number One: “I simply can’t understand what has happen to my son John. He has always been the one child I could trust to always do right. He has always been so thoughtful, polite and sensitive to the...
...younger children; and even though his attitude is still good, he does the most unexpectedly mean things. Like the other day, I heard his younger brothers crying and hollering. I raced in the room and found him sitting on them, holding one in a headlock and laughing, having a great time. He was ashamed as soon as I began to reprimand him, and he immediately asked his little brothers to forgive him. How could he enjoy doing something so mean and then have such a repentant heart five minutes later. What has happened to my son?”
Mother number One-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-two:
“Our thirteen-year-old son has always been such a joy to us. He has a heart for God that has caused him to seek to do all he can for others. But just lately, totally out of character, he seems to be asserting his will over mine. It’s like he wants to gain authority over his younger brothers and sisters, and occasionally even me. This new person really runs into trouble with his father, who takes his son’s questions as a personal insult, and really comes down hard. For the first time as parents we disagree on how to handle our children. We both know we cannot let it go, but how do we deal with this new kid? Our son’s attitude still seems so right, but still it almost looks like a seed of rebellion. It is hard to explain. What has happen to my sweet little boy?”
Debi Pearl responds:
Have you ever raised chickens? We have eight hens and one rooster. Many times I have gone out to work in the garden and noticed our rooster making a pest of himself. The hens will be busy scratching the ground, then he runs over and shoves them away. The little hens just turn and start scratching some other place. The rooster waits a few seconds and again shoves another one around. Of course, every time I open the hen house door I run for dear life, or he will be trying to shove me around. That crazy old rooster doesn’t know how many times I have pondered putting him in the cooking pot. When Mike is outside, the rooster steers a wide path. On occasions Mike has had me let the hens out while he hides around the corner just so he can give the rooster a heart-attack. I figure, it takes a bigger rooster to intimidate a smaller rooster—and of course, enjoy the intimidation. It is a mystery to me why the rooster feels compelled to be such a jerk, but Mike thinks its real funny.
I said all this to tell you, I suspect your little roosters are feeling their natural hormonal competitive instinct, and as of yet haven’t learned to harness their urges to dominate. Since it takes a rooster to understand a rooster, I’m going to let the big rooster in this family tell you how we handled this new and exciting challenge when our boys came of age.
