I just spent a week mostly off the grid. I did some work but mostly watched and played with my grandkids–who are 4 and 2. I love kids. You can often find me at family gatherings with the kids–especially reunions at parks. I’ll take the kids to the play areas.
They are usually inquisitive and show unbounded joy. If they like something, you know it. If they don’t, you know it.
On the other hand, they are quite demanding. Especially at this young age, they are still in the worldview that they are the world. They only gradually realize that other people and things are not an extension of them. And, they want your undivided attention.
Jesus taught that you can be a slave to your emotions. Kids show that. They are controlled by their emotions. They can be happy; they can be angry. They also learn early to be “drama queens.” You should have seen the look the 2-yr-old gave me when she suffered a slight touching by her brother and started screaming and I told her that she could just stop the drama, that it wasn’t that bad. I think she knew what I meant.
A big part of parenting–and the community of faith with kids–is to help them grow past the view that everything revolves around them and that they need to put their emotions under the control first of their intellect then their soul.
We also need reminding. Kids bring out a variety of emotional responses in adults. We need to remember our focus on Jesus and not react to the kid’s emotional outbursts with those of our own. And, oh, what hard work that is. But it’s part of our own growth.
How can we be true disciples of Jesus, and disciple-makers in our own right, if we are continually buffeted by our emotions? And if we are entirely self-centered?
Faith Venture 
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