For the next few weeks, I will be writing on okay ways for children to express their feelings. Hint:  It might be good lessons for the adult in the child’s life to learn also.  Less you think I am pointing a finger at you, believe me, I have had some hard lessons to learn about how to express my own feelings and maintain a Christ-like attitude.  Needlessly to say, I am still learning.  So, I hope the next few weeks will be informative for all of us.

During the months of January and February, I wrote a series of posts on the importance of an adult understanding the feelings of a child in order to help him, not only during a time of loss, but with life on a daily basis. The first post in that series entitled, Validate All Feelings, will be used as a spring-board for this series.

Bear with me while I review a portion of that post:

Validating a feeling is not the same as condoning wrong behavior.

This is where “the rubber meets the road,” as the saying goes.  As caring adults, we must validate a child’s emotions, while at the same time correct wrong behavior.  There is a big difference between “Okay Feelings” and validating those feelings verses allowing “Wrong Behavior” that could be harmful to him as well as others to continue.

So, that is what I am going to concentrate on for the next few weeks – -how to teach a child to express his/her feelings and still have good behavior.  To get started, let’s look at what David had to say about expressing his response to events that happened in his life in Psalms 142:2:

“I poured out my complaint before Him;
I showed before Him my trouble.”

The key word in this scripture is the word POUR.  Pour means to flow freely.  Obviously, there is a right way to pour out feelings, and a wrong way to pour.  One only needs to take a look at the very first family on earth, brothers Cain and Abel, to see the wrong way.

The story goes in Genesis 4:1-8 that when the two brothers grew up, Cain became a farmer, and Abel became a shepherd and took care of his father’s sheep.  One day Cain and Abel brought gifts to God to thank Him for the good things He had done for them.  Cain brought some of the things he had grown on his farm, and Abel brought the best lamb born from one of his sheep.

As you know, God did not accept Cain’s gift because it was not his best.  That made Cain so angry with his brother.  God saw the look on Cain’s face and said to him:  “Why are you so angry, Cain?  You will be accepted if you respond in the right way.  But, if you refuse to respond correctly; then watch out.  Sin is waiting to attack and destroy you, and you must control it.”  (Genesis 4:6-7 NLT)

But, of course, Cain didn’t listen to God and eventually his anger got the best of him and he killed his own brother.

What could Cain have done with his anger?  Let’s go back to the life of David.  If you have ever studied David’s life, I am sure you know about some of his sinful ways, as in his affair with Bathsheba, and the murder of her husband.  Yet, the Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart.

We see a picture of his heart throughout the book of Psalms.  Everything David was feeling inside, he poured out freely, rather than keeping it stuffed inside of him.  You might say that David used his heart just like a water pitcher.  He poured everything in it out to God, whether it was joy, sadness, bitterness, or fear.

Throughout the book of Psalms, we see several ways David used to pour out his complaint unto the Lord.  And that is what we are going to start next week taking a closer look at – -ways to teach a child how to express his feelings, not matter what they are, and have good behavior at the same time.

I hope I have left you with a little suspense and you will join Hannah and me right here next week.  Oh yes, Hannah will be back from Spring Break with an illustration that I know will capture your attention on this subject.

Meanwhile, leave me a comment of times you or your child have poured out your feelings in the wrong way, and you saw the consequences of it.