"Strong-Willed" Children

I so rarely, and by rarely I mean "never" post quotes, but this was too good (and I wanted to put it in a place where I could find it easily again). This was sent to me from a fellow mommy of young ones.

"Because all of us are born in sin, all of us are rebellious, some more than others. Some children seem to be born sweet and compliant, others are called "strong-willed" when what they really are is merely willful--governed by will without yielding to reason, obstinate, perverse, stubborn, as my brother Phil was in his high chair when he refused to drink his milk. Mother's steadfast insistence on obedience was not for her personal victory over a "strong" will, but rather to strengthen her small son's will to enable him to will against the thing he wanted to do. How many adults have remained willful, selfish, and immature becaue they were denied this essential lesson in childhood."

-Elisabeth Elliot's book The Shaping of a Christian Family