Treating Kiddos Like People

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Yesterday I wrote about children living tranquil, quiet, godly, dignified lives. Dignified? Really?

I like this Merriam Webster definition of dignity: the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. Helping children be and feel dignified is all about respecting them as human beings. It is about honoring them, esteeming them, and treating them as worthy. One of my first mama memories is being in our first kitchen in Oxford, Mississippi, with our beloved firstborn and realizing that I was to treat my child like I treated anyone else.

I am saddened when I see anyone treat a child with disrespect. When Jesus’ said, . . .

“The second is like it,
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:39

I don’t believe He meant it only for adults. In an adult male dominated world, Jesus demonstrated what it looked like to treat all men, women, and children—and Jews and Gentiles, too—with dignity.

Dignity involves how we treat the whole person. For children it includes how we speak to them, how we respect their opinions, and even the clothes we put in their closets.

I don’t mean that to be dignified little boys have to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Title: Mother and Son, 1840
by American artist Thomas Sully
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Bequest of Francis T. S. Darley, 1914

He  can be dignified in a screen-print T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes or bare feet—if that T-shirt was clean when he put it on this morning and the saying isn’t disrespectful. Of course, it’s not going to be clean all day.

As a side note, I wasn’t sure I liked the painting above at first. The mother seemed distant and disconnected, but then I saw their hands. At some moments, that is all the touch we need.

This was one of my art class drawings
back when I had the joy of taking art lessons
along with our children.
Today, 28 years later, I have the same teacher.
Now she is teaching a third generation.

To lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity, a child needs examples. He needs a mother who fits this description:

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
Proverbs 31:25

(A smiling mother helps, too!)

And he needs a father:

. . . who manages his own household well,
keeping his children under control with all dignity . . .
1 Timothy 3:4

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