Reddit Parenting Advice #5

In previous posts I began looking at questions parents had on Reddit. Thus far we’ve looked at putting a 15 month baby in a cot, an overweight child, the issue of oppositional defiance disorder, commonly known as childhood and the cost of daycare. In our fifth Reddit parenting post, we are looking at the issue of cell phones.

I was 16 when I got my first phone back in 2008 … but in today’s everchanging world, that seems “too old,” and I have no idea what is an acceptable age for kids to get their first cell phone. Like, ACTUAL cell phone with cellular, not just a tablet to play on or whatever.

Firstly, today might be an everchanging world, but wisdom is unchanging. Wisdom knows what children are like. Wisdom is able to apply principles to different situations and periods of history. That’s what we need as parents. So what are some timeless biblical principles we can use in this case.

Principle 1: Do not base your parenting rules on what everybody else is doing. What is acceptable in your family does not have to be the same as the vast majority of families. It might be, especially when the vast majority of families seem to be doing a good job of parenting. But with epidemic levels of anxiety and depression in young people today, it might likely be that you need to do things differently.

Principle 2: One of your primary jobs as a parent is to help protect your child from harm. Children are ignorant of danger and are easily exploited. You are responsible for the inputs in their life, and you are responsible that these inputs are not damaging to their development and moral character.

Principle 3: Parents are responsible for putting their children on the path toward self-discipline. Good parenting leads children to develop disciplined character. Children who have been raised well will not need someone standing over them watching them to ensure they are doing the right thing.

So let’s apply these principles to cell phone issue. Consider first of all why your child needs a cell phone. Is it because they are travelling a long distance regularly without you and you want them to be able to contact you in case of emergencies? Is it because all their friends have one and they feel left out? In other words, do they actually need one? If you are just getting them one because all the other children have one, you are not being guided by principles, unless your principle is simply “Do what everyone else does”, which surely is not a very wise principle.

Let’s assume that we have a real reason for a cell phone. We aren’t just giving our children one because all their friends have one. Now we can ask what kind of cell phone do they need. Because giving a cell phone is not some insignificant action. If we are giving them a smartphone and internet access, we are at the same time giving them access to a host of opportunities to waste time or degrade themselves including social media and pornography. For this reason alone, it may be wiser to hold off giving a smartphone, and give them an old phone with no internet access. Even then, it may be wiser to have a family ‘dumbphone’ that they can take when they go out.

Be aware that any phone you give your child gives them the opportunity to develop relationships without you knowing about it. Given that your job is protecting your child, you want to be sure they are at an age they can handle this. My advice as a man who has worked with youth for most of my career is that you want to put this off in almost all cases until your child is in their late teens. I cannot tell you how many good kids have ended up doing stupid things that have had significant long-term effects all because they had cell phones and naive parents.

I think it’s really easy for parents to see their 12-year-old as very mature and think, “They can handle this!” Invariably they cannot. A good kid at 12 still has to go through her teens. Teens have to manage issues like body image and sexual desire. They need to figure these out with wise adult counsel. What they often get when they have unfettered access to the internet is foolishness. Why do we have girls cutting themselves, struggling with anxiety and depression and becoming anorexic? Often because they are encouraged into this by the relationships they form online. Remember, the teenage mind is often not particularly rational, but emotionally driven. You need to protect them at this vulnerable time.

What about our third principle? How are we preparing them for adulthood? How are we ensuring they develop self-discipline? I think you really want to see this happen in small things first. Just as you wouldn’t let your 10-year-old drive the car, own a rifle or have whiskey, there are some things that require a certain amount of maturity for children to handle. It is my experience that unfettered internet access and cell phones are one of those things. So look for signs of self-discipline and responsibility in schoolwork and home chores as well as a growing discernment and wisdom from your children. When you see this is woven into their character not just on show for when adults are around, then you might consider that your child is cell phone ready. Personally, I think the cell phone is like the key we got on our 21st. It’s not a toy, it’s a tool for adults. My current thinking on this is it’s probably 18th birthday material for our children.

The Puritans Took Parenting Seriously

Recently I read a quote of Cotton Mather’s where he imagined children on Judgment Day speaking to their parents who had neglected their duties. It makes for sobering reading and is a reminder of how serious our role is.

You should have taught us the things of God, and did not; you should have restrained us from sin and corrected us, and you did not; you were the means of our original corruption and guiltiness, and yet you never showed any competent care that we might be delivered from it… Woe unto us that we had such …careless parents.

Cotton Mather quoted in Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes

Reddit Parenting Advice #4

Today we continue our series on Reddit parenting advice. Dear readers, you may think I look long and hard to find particularly egregious postings, but I assure you I generally take the first one that appears when I view the parenting subreddit. It seems there are plenty of people out there who need advice, but most prefer to rant about their situations rather than take responsibility. Today we have a rant about the cost of childcare. 

So we pay $297 (USD) for my five month old to go to daycare 5 days a week. If we want him dropped down to 3 days (because we’re having a hard time affording full time) its $245. So it goes from $59 a day to $81. We only save $50 a week and still have to figure out where he goes the other two days. And we don’t qualify for government assistance. We both work full time with my husband working overtime every weekend and I work overtime every week day. America is great..

Let’s begin with what seems glaringly obvious. Why did this woman have this child? What is a five month old doing going to daycare 5 days a week? This is tragic. Again and again, I have seen this repeated. A couple struggles to have a child. Desperate, they try everything. Finally, they get the news they are pregnant. A beautiful child is born, and then a couple of months later, the mother is back at work. What is wrong with you? Why are you so desperate to bring a child into the world, and then equally desperate to farm him out to someone else to raise? It’s unnatural. Children are not accessories to your life. Why do women look jealously at others who can have children, only to become pregnant and then give their children to other (low-paid) women to raise? This is madness.

Next let me consider complaints about costs and children. This should not be something that needs to be said, but children cost. We used to believe the purpose of a husband was to provide for his wife and children so that the wife could attend to the sphere which God calls her – the home. This provided stability and loving homes where children were cared for by people who actually loved them rather than strangers. Now we have women complaining about the cost of childcare and that children get in the way of a career. This is completely backwards! A career should serve children, not the other way around. Children are supposed to cost you. We give ourselves to our children. A woman gives part of her body to a child for 9 months. Then that child is designed to need nourishment from her body regularly for at least a year. Psychologically she is necessary to him for a lot longer. Our bodies tell a story. A mother’s body gives life and nourishment to children. That is what she is designed to do. She is not designed to farm her offspring out to others while she shuffles papers for some pointless government bureaucracy.

A mother is designed to be used up loving children, not making money. Children do not take her away from what she really ought to be doing. They are what she really ought to be doing. Children are supposed to be her priority, not her career. And if a career is her priority, perhaps she should not selfishly bring children into the world. Contrary to the world’s ignorant maxim, a woman cannot have it all. Having children is about sacrifice. You are used up as they are filled. You can’t fill them when you are used up by something else.

Now let’s consider the husband in all of this. Husbands are meant to lead and provide for their families. Our bodies and nature tell us this, and if we weren’t so obtuse and blinded by societal and cultural egalitarian prejudice we would recognise this. Men need to ensure that they can care for the woman they marry and the children they father. This means they need to enter marriage with as little debt as possible, earn a good income, and preferably have a significant amount of savings or a house. Young women should not look at young men who don’t meet these basic requirements. Fathers, if you have any input into who your daughter marries (and you should!), encourage her to look for a man who can enable her to fulfil her calling as a wife and mother.

Reddit Parenting Advice #3

In previous reddit parenting advice posts, we have investigated a Mummy who tried getting into a cot, and a question about weight. Today we are looking at a child with oppositional defiance disorder or potentially a Dad with Passive Parenting Syndrome.

Our son is 9 and is oppositional defiant. We’ll have an official diagnosis soon but I mean what else could it be? Straight up defiant from morning until night. Honestly we want to give him to the state and let them deal with him. We have 2 other boys 7 and 3 and it’s not fair to them. We don’t want to spend the next how ever many years dealing with this every day. I can’t get work done, we neglect the other 2 kids because all our time is spent on him. It’s absolutely insane why someone would want to push you and defy you on all fronts. He questioned me today on if getting out of the car is listening to me when I asked him to get out of the car. He repeats himself even if you answer the question, which I didn’t because it’s a stupid question and I won’t fall into his trap. Then he refused to go inside, then he refused to go up the stairs, then he refused to take a shower. Every step was just questioning. We flipped our lid. This was after a day of him going after his brother and getting rise out of him at 7 am, kicking him in the throat (although the middle child was going after him so I’m not sure what went down exactly), and basically defying anything I asked him to do, literally anything all day long. And guess what? Tomorrow it starts all over again. He talks all day long, watching movies with him is impossible because he’s always talking through them. He has anxiety and maybe something else, who knows.

Let’s begin with the incoming official diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. There’s a word for ODD: sin. As far as I’ve been able to find out, to be diagnosed with ODD a child must have at least four of the following symptoms: often loses temper, touchy and easily annoyed, angry and resentful, often argues with adults, often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or rules, often deliberately annoys others, often blames others for mistakes and misbehaviour and has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice in the last six months. To be diagnosed with ODD, there must be a ongoing pattern of these behaviours.

So ODD is essentially a description of a collection of behaviours – behaviours that you expect to find in children. All of my children regularly exhibit a number of these behaviours. In fact, from my experience in dealing with children, I think ODD is a description of childhood. What toddler does not struggle with his temper? What child does not argue with adults? What child does not deliberately annoy his siblings? What child does not blame others for their misbehaviour? What child is not periodically vindictive? What we have here is a list of sins typical to childhood and unfortunately some adults who have never learned to curb them.

We are already talking about getting another therapist for me and my wife so we can get help dealing with it.It sucks.

This surprised me. I assumed I was reading the words of a mother. But no, here we have a father whining about his son. Herein lies part of the problem. Men are responsible for their family’s health. Fathers should be men who actively lead. Yet here we have a father who seems passive and resigned to being acted upon. What father cannot handle a 9-year-old boy? Why do you tolerate his behaviour and backchat? You are a man. You have strength and presence. Use it. Be a man.

Parenting philosophy matters. The way you think about parenting and children determines your destination. This is seen even from the earliest days of parenting. Parents who approach feeding and sleeping from a child-led perspective often end up fighting behavioural issues. Children who have learned from infancy that their desires determine their parents’ action tend to become disagreeable children. Philosophy drives practice. This is another case of the easy choices leading to a harder road.

We are already trying to arrange vacations without him because he ruins every vacation we go on. We can’t bring him on a plane out of fear that he’ll have one of his psychotic melt downs. I cringe when he wakes up and I hear him come down the stairs. I hate spending time with him. I hate spending money on him or signing him up for activities. He deserves nothing. I’m so pissed just typing this out. How do parents deal with this? I can’t even explain it to people because when I do there like “boys are boys”, “we all have kids”, “it gets better with time”. Hell no it doesn’t. It’s gotten much worse and honestly the next few years are freaking us out. The kids super smart, and I hate when parents say that about their kids because they all think there kid is smart but I wouldn’t be shocked if his IQ is 130+ when he gets tested next week.

And this is where a child-led parenting model tends. You begin secretly hating your children. They are not pleasant to be around. Life becomes miserable. Scripture puts it this way: “A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him.” Unfortunately, it’s worse for the child. A child whose parents do not like him will find he has few adult admirers either, and that is a very bad thing for his development.

He doesn’t struggle with school, loves God, and is social and has friends in the neighborhood. I’m not really asking for anything, we just feel so lost and alone. I know there are other parents out there and maybe I should reach out for support, but that’s easier said than done. I just wanted to vent and if anyone knows any good places to send him for the summer let me know so we can actually enjoy ourselves as a family.

Again we see a very unmanly approach to the situation. Dad wants to vent. He wants to remove his son from his family rather than deal with the situation and fix it. This approach to fatherhood and manhood is perhaps an unfortunate consequence of a world that hates masculine strength and decries it as toxic masculinity. Men who reject their place as strong loving leaders in their families inevitably become passive. Like a lion caged it’s pitiable.

How would a Dad like this turn things around? He would need to begin by admitting his responsibility for the situation he finds himself in. Yes, this son may be a difficult boy, but he is only a boy. What this boy needs is a strong father. Dad needs to repent of his weakness and ask God for wisdom and strength to help his son and to show love for him. By showing love, I do not mean liking his son, I mean doing what is in the best interests of his son.

Next Dad needs to sit down with his truculent son and confess his sin as a father to his son. It would go something like this. “Son, I have let you get away with things that are slowly destroying you and hurting the relationships in this family. I am committing to no longer allowing that. I am now going to lead you and I will discipline you when you go off the path. This discipline will hurt, but it is because I am charged by God to love you.”

Then Dad needs to think long and hard about severe consequences for his son’s defiance and sin. Does he have a cellphone? Does he use technology and play games? Is his room full of toys? If so these items are going to be part of the disciplinary process. As your son shows defiance and rudeness, these good things that you have given him can and should be taken away. My suggestion is that they are sold or given away. Your son needs these goodies far less than he needs to develop character. Providing him with food and a bed and loving discipline is your job. Having an empty bedroom might just teach him that blessing comes with obedience and disobedience leads to curse.

You may wonder if he is too old to smack (spank) or physically force to do something. Generally, my advice would be that parents want to be almost done with this by the age of 9. However, it seems entirely likely that this loving duty has been neglected in earlier years, and it may be important for Dad to show his son that Dad is a physical force to be reckoned with and he must come under Dad’s authority. This must never be done in unrighteous and uncontrolled anger, so if you can’t manage that you should not try it. Furthermore, Dad should consider the laws of his country and whether he should risk breaking them for the good of his son or if it is not worth the risk.

On the positive side of things, Dad must do the opposite of his natural desire to flee from his child. His undesirability is going to make this hard, but Dad must actually spend more time with him. Take him away for a father-son trip in the mountains. Take him fishing. Give him plenty of time with you. Try to repair that relationship that is quite obviously tenuous. This must be done in the context of firm unwavering authority. Love and spending time with him does not mean putting up with rudeness and disobedience.

It’s not going to be easy, but men weren’t designed for easy. God wanted us to wrestle with challenges. So go get to it.

The Best Thing You Can Do to Help Your Child Succeed at School

Every good parent wonders how they can best help their child achieve at school. Obviously, we can ensure our child is attending a first-rate school that provides excellent teachers. That’s not always possible, and even if we do manage it, the school and the teacher are only one part of the story. How can we as parents do our bit at home? What is the best thing you can do to help your child succeed at school?

The number one thing you can do at home is provide a knowledge-rich environment. Talk to your children. Have dinner together and let them hear you use ‘big words’ as you talk with your wife. Read aloud to them. Seems simple right? Yet so many children are short-changed in this area. It is more common for ‘families’ to eat dinner separately staring at screens, and few children are read to past their toddler years, but this has educational ramifications.

Really? Yes, really. The number one reason children from lower socio-economic homes fare worse in school is because they lack the vocabulary and knowledge that children from more wealthy homes have. These children go to school with a vocabulary that is hundreds and sometimes thousands of words fewer than children from more wealthy families. This gap tends to widen over time in the wrong sorts of schools. Since vocabulary size is the most important indicator of reading ability and comprehension, these children will find it more difficult to pick up knowledge at school. But let’s not just assume this is a problem for children from poorer homes. More and more busy two-parent working families are spending less time with each other.

I believe that providing knowledge is so important to success, that if you read to your children for an hour a day, taught and encouraged them to read every day for a few hours (ensuring the quality of books being read), provided them with basic numeracy skills while avoiding unnecessary screen time throughout the first six years of school, your child could miss school entirely, and enter the intermediate years in no way lacking. If you are not well educated yourself, become acquainted with your local library, and assign your child reading tasks every week. This is essentially what neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson’s mother did, despite being unable to read herself. He links his future success as a neuro-surgeon to his mother’s strict reading regime of two books per week.

Family and Ministry

In an era that sees work outside the home as the way a woman should find fulfilment, it’s not surprising that many zealous Christian young women can pit family against ministry. They may want to serve God, but think that family and children may get in the way. This is a mistake. As we have discussed previously (both here and here), your most important ministry is likely to be your family. God has designed women to be directed toward their husbands and children. This is the ‘helping’ role of Genesis. This is a good thing. To turn away from this godly gift looking for something better is a mistake. Kent and Barbara Hughes address this in their book Disciplines of a Godly Family, arguing that ministering to family actually enables other ministry.

We believe this is an unfortunate delusion. Aside from the obvious objections (namely, that such thinking reveals a shriveled view of parenting, and the fact that good parenti9ng requires every ounce of intelligence and creativity one can give), it also fails to recognize that family is at the very heart of authentic ministry and evangelism. As ministry professionals, we hold the firm conviction that family is ministry and that the most effective spread of the gospel occurs through family. We are also convinced that we were never more effective in evangelism than when we had children at home.

Kent and Barabara Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Family

Reddit Parenting Advice #2

Recently I decided to get in on the parenting advice act. Today we are looking at the issue of weight. This is an issue that is becoming more common among children. As a teacher who occasionally takes some outdoor education trips, I notice that what should be within the realms of capability for every student is now considered by some parents as too arduous.

Hi! Ive been very unsure on posting about this but I’m confident I’m not the only parent who worries about this, so I’m hoping to have a healthy discussion and maybe get some sound advice. We recently moved from our home state to a new one, and that’s really when I started to notice the weight gain in my daughter. She’s 7 and about 4’2” so she’s pretty tall for her age. I can attribute most of the gain to being in virtual school due to Covid and definitely not being as active due to not having a recess or much time to play outside, but also just the stress being in a new place with no friends or family has put on her. And because we are in doors a lot, she’s constantly wanting to snack on things. We live up North so the weather is just now getting to where I can start taking her outside and to the park regularly, so I’m sure that will help a lot also.

I guess I’m just wanting some tips, mostly to keep me from obsessing over it. She is considered overweight at her age and height, but she’s also very tall for her age.

While I’m no expert nutritionist, my basic understanding of weight gain is energy in exceeds energy out. So there are two aspects to look at. Consider energy in. Today in the Western we have more than enough food – even the very poorest among us. Compounding that, a lot of our food is high in sugar and low in nutritional value. So what could the problem be? One clue is that free snacking could be an issue. We have here a 7-year-old who is constantly wanting to snack on things. This is an issue I’ve seen in many households. I remember distinctly going to a friend’s house some years back, and their young boy was snacking away on unhealthy snacks not long before dinner time. Come dinner time he had no desire to eat the roast lamb dinner and vegetables. However, not long after dinner, he continued to snack on more unhealthy food.

So my first piece of advice would be to make sure that you the parent control your child’s intake of food. My wife is a stickler for this. She has trained our children so that they do not pick something up out of the fridge or pantry and eat it. These are her domain, not theirs. She issues the rations for the troops, and they eat said rations. There are times for food (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner), and there are times when you do not eat. Your child eats at the times food is offered to them, and they do not eat in between those times. In our days of loose parenting, I see young children assume the responsibility for their own nutrition and feeding. A child’s appetites are not to be trusted. No doubt many of us remember as children gorging ourselves at birthday parties and then suffering the consequences and ruing our lack of self-control standing over the toilet some hours later. As usual, parenting philosophy drives practice.

Secondly consider energy out. While we do not know a lot about the individual circumstance here, we do know that children today are more sedentary than children of previous generations. A large amount of blame can be directed to their discretionary screen time. Another aspect is precious parenting. We can be overly afraid of our children being outside because “it’s dangerous”. Additionally, we see our role as taking our children to activities or the park where parents of previous generations did not seem to think their job was to entertain children. When I was a child, I was allowed to walk to the park from a relatively young age with a friend. In fact, I remember a common refrain from my parents, “Go outside and play.” In some areas, this may not be wise, but our children can surely run around in the back yard, or build a snowman on the sidewalk. So my advice here? Reduce discretionary screen time significantly. Tell your child to get outdoors and play and be OK with the muddy clothes that may be a result.

Scandalous Waste?

In a recent post, we considered the importance of long term thinking in Christian life. I hinted at the importance of long term thinking with regards to family, as I have done previously in a post entitled Your Most Valuable Ministry.

Recently my wife and I have been reading a book called The Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes. There is a lot of gold in this book, but we were particularly struck by a couple of quotes in the introduction, which I will reproduce here.

We must not succumb to the deceptive mathematics of worldly thinking that considers the pouring out of one’s life on a hidden few as a scandalous waste of one’s potential.

And a little earlier in the introduction.

Society applauds the person who designs a building more than it does the one who attends to the architecture of a child’s soul. Our culture values a face that is known to the public far more than it does a countenance reflected in a child’s eyes. The world sets a higher priority on attaining a degree than on educating a life. It values the ability to give things more than it does giving oneself. This approach to self-worth has been relentlessly sown by modern culture and has taken root in many Christian hearts, so that there is no room for another self – even if it is one’s own child.

Parenting Advice – Sleep

Recently I viewed some great clips of Matt Walsh giving parenting advice, and I thought I’d get in on the act. It looks like it could be quite fun, and given I have a number of children, and have an interest in parenting children and education, I may even try to make this a semi-regular feature. Today we will look at a post on Reddit.

I’ve seen a lot of posts about baby not sleeping without being held but these all seem to just apply to naps because these people still manage to get baby into the cot at night. We can’t. At all.

We’re 5 1/2 months in and we’ve tried a few times to get him in his cot with no joy. I get into the cot myself and nurse him the try seeking out but it’s like he knows he’s in the wrong bed. We can practically throw him in our bed and he doesn’t flinch but we place him carefully and feed him in the cot and it’s like he just knows! He used to go in for 20 mins here and there but now he won’t even co sleep without me holding his hand or nursing him.

It’s my fault. I do love cosleeping and know breaking this habit is going to mean possibly weeks of no sleep for me, my husband or my toddler so I’ve opted for the easy life but he needs to leave at some point…

FYI We have a toddler so any advice needs to take her into consideration. We don’t really want to consider any form of sleep training until he is past his 9 month sleep regression at least.

Ok, so let me start with the first paragraph. We have a mother who cannot get her 5-month-old into a cot at night. I actually don’t believe that for a minute. There is no way it is physically impossible for a mother to get her 5-month-old baby into a cot. What you are actually saying is you won’t put your baby into the cot. One of the biggest failings in modern parenting is that adults refuse to be adults. You are the parent. You run the show. If you can be beaten by a 5-month-old, perhaps you should consider what has gone wrong.

Then in our next paragraph we find out that she has managed to get him in his cot, but with no joy. In other words, he cries when you put him into the cot. This mother has even tried to get him to sleep in the cot by getting into the cot herself. Seriously?! Dear reader, do you have that mental picture emblazoned in your mind? This is where poor parenting philosophy will lead you…back into a cot. Clearly lack of sleep does terrible things to our cognitive functioning.

In paragraph three we get the truth. Our mother admits it is all her fault. Correct. She has created this habit because of her own love for cosleeping with her child. In putting her own desires ahead of her child’s actual needs, she has created a sleep problem for her child. She rightly points out that she has opted for the easy life. She has trained her child to need her to sleep, and it is no surprise that he now needs her to sleep.

Situations like this in parenting are all too frequent, and there are almost always a few common elements. The first is the life principle that those people who opt for the easy choice often end up walking the hard road. When it comes to making decisions, there is often a difficult choice and an easy choice. An example would be putting your child down to sleep. It’s difficult to do this at first, and new mothers find it hard to be parted from their little ones. It is easier to hold and rock the child, and it’s beautiful to see a baby fall asleep in your arms. It’s a lot harder to make the choice to put them down and hear a bit of crying. But the truth is, the difficult choice leads to an easier life, whereas the easy choice leads to a difficult life. This is a common theme in many parenting dilemmas.

The second common element is that so often parents know what they need to do, but they do not have the ability or will to carry it out. This mother knows she needs to let the child cry and learn to sleep, but she is putting artificial barriers in the way because she does not have the will or strength to do it. As you can see, this is related to the first point. If you go through life making all easy choices, you do not develop the strength of character to make difficult choices. Unfortunately, as a result of this, you will forever be suffering the harsh consequences of not being up to doing what you need to do.

The final element in all of this is that your inability to do the right thing does not just impact you, but it impacts your husband, your toddler, and also, your baby himself. Learning to sleep is extremely important in your baby’s cognitive development. More sleep is correlated with higher IQ and performance in school years. A good parent, should strive to ensure that their own emotional weakness does not get in the way of their child’s development. So grow a bit of character, make the hard decision and give your child sleep. It won’t take weeks. It will take a few nights of you developing the strength of character to allow your child to cry it out. Don’t make out like you love your child and people who love their children would never do this. Loving your child means doing what is best for them. What you actually love is your feelings. So get over that, and act for the good of your child and the rest of your family.