Hugh,
Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them. Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children; Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand [is] a right hand of falsehood. – Psalm 144:5-8
Taking in troubled teens, in the best of times, is a full-blown battle. In times of unrest, it seems like the equivalent of taking prisoners, and you need a prison.
How important it is for parents to heed the counsels of God’s word and train up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Teens will have their troubles, but a proper training in childhood will make these challenges a thousand times easier to conquer.
Unlike the teaching of modern psychology, children must be compelled to obey. Otherwise, they will never truly submit to proper authority, even in prison and death. Secondly, they must be taught to think and act for themselves, within the framework of the laws of nature and nature’s God. They must be taught to make a clear distinction between the word of man, which is but a transient sound, and the word of God, which creates worlds and by which all things consist.
It is far kinder to correct the small child, curbing rebellion and evil temper, than to allow these things to go on and end at the hand of the executioner after creating untold misery, wasting a life that could be a glory to God and highly productive in society. – C.F.