Who is in control, really?

I read a line once that said, "If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans." It is true! I notice as a get ready for the day either at work or at home I have a running "Do List" in my head. If I get as far as work with being able to maintain that list I'm doing remarkably well. Most times, my list is a "sidebar" from what God has planned for me. Children and the adults in their lives often struggle with "control" issues especially in new situations. At times, new teachers, care givers and even parents can get so entangled as to who is going to have control over a situation that they lose the main focus of the event completely.
It's been my experience to offer as much control as is appropriate, but in manageable chunks. For instance, asking a child, "What do you want for lunch today?" can be overwhelming. Asking a child to pick a lunch item from two choices is much more appropriate. This gives the child the opportunity to have some control and so does the chef! Sometimes the choices may not seem like real choices. For instance, a child can either eat his/her dinner or wait to eat at breakfast. My son once told me that I wasn't giving him two good choices with that plan. I let him know that those were still his choices and there would be no consequences for not choosing to eat. He assured me that the consequence would be that he would be hungry. I told him that he had that choice. He ate his dinner.
God offers us choices every minute of every day. We have free will to either follow God's plan for us or to live outside of His plan, if only for a moment. Since we are all sinners, we often don't make the best choice, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we also can make the right choice at the moment. When we make the wrong choices we live and deal with the natural consequences that come our way. Teaching your child about how to make decisions, living with the choices they make, and understanding the choices they have all help your child to grow in Christian living when it is taught centered on his/her relationship with God. May God be with you as you nurture and guide your family.