Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence." This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (Matt 22:37-39)

In Mark 12:30 and 31, Jesus in responding to a question about which is the greatest commandment, said, “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” In this post, we will be looking at How to teach him to love his neighbor. Paul had warned that in the last days, men shall be lovers of themselves (2 Tim. 3:2). That is a perfect picture of our time. When Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, (Mark 12:31), the assumption is that we loved ourselves. That should be an understatement in our times. However, we live in a time when teachers, perhaps suggesting that we do not love ourselves enough, in trying to teach this principle, would urge us to love ourselves. Of course, that would make sense if it is assumed that what people are doing to themselves would not be called love.

Love and Our sons’ Generation

Generation Z and Alpha which covers as at today ages 1 to 24 are known for their very narcissistic disposition. At least that is the stereotype that the media has fed us over the past two decades. While studies are not conclusive, there are suggestions that the labels may have been exaggerated over the years. In a study published in 2019, researchers found that adults between the ages of 18 and 25 believe their generation is the most narcissistic and entitled living one. Josh Grubbs, a Psychology professor at Bowling Green State University and the lead author of the paper, published in the journal PLOS One said that “They genuinely believe that,” and “… they’re offended by it.” Social media, the internet, and the smartphone perhaps are the perpetrators of this perception. Their preoccupation with their digital devices would suggest that they prefer alone, and maybe they do. However, that may not be entirely true of their state of heart in terms of connecting with other humans. Tien Viet Nguyen writing for Groove, an HR platform, asserts that Generation Z-ers do prefer face-to-face interaction at the workplace. He writes in an article, 5 things you should know to effectively communicate with Gen Z in the workplace, “Don’t be surprised. It is a well-known fact that 98% of Generation Z own a smartphone and the typical Gen Z-er spends an average of 10 hours every day online. Instant messaging is glorified among this generation but when it comes to the work environment, statistics show that 72% of Gen Z prefer in-person communication with their boss and colleagues. “40% of Gen Z employees expect daily feedback from their boss on their performance. Lack of constant interaction with the higher-ups might make them feel something is wrong, which will negatively impact the quality of their work. “Another reason why Gen Z-ers prefer in-person communication in the workplace is that they want to be taken seriously by Baby Boomers and Millennials alike. Instant messaging has made Gen Z communication extremely informal with abbreviations like lol, brb, ttyl, and their frequent use of emojis to convey emotions. They fear that if they use such with Baby Boomers, it might be seen as childish.” As a generation they are considered the smartest, they are global, social, visual, and technological. They are extremely connected, educated, and sophisticated. While these are good for the workplace and as Tien notes, they are not in the bit to let their work suffer as they are often great achievers and high flyers, the same cannot be said of the life part of their work-life balance. Most are not married yet but there are growing concerns about how they will manage in such close interpersonal space other than work. They have grown to prefer to hug their smartphones. As digital natives, crawling into their personal spaces and browsing and texting seem preferred. This is not what you are thinking. It is not just Generation Z and Generation Alpha. God created children to be children. Children have the propensity to take risks, not so much because they understand that risk-taking might yield huge dividends when plotted well, but because their frontal lobes that process matters like risk and logic and that help adults be adults are not yet well developed. Besides this wired recklessness, Dr. Carla Naumburg, Ph.D., a clinical social worker, writer, and mother also says that “Children are by nature developmentally, completely self-centered.” But over time they will begin to take other people’s needs into account. So, my boy who is just 24 and under may still be “developing.”

How Can We Draw Out our Sons to Love Their Neighbors? Accepting that there are environmental condition taking place around our children that is unlike other ages, (we faced our unique ones), frees us from thinking of them as some kind of generational genetic freaks. Generation Z is the digital natives that were born with smartphones in their hands. They grew up and are working with their heads looking down their phones – whether in the car, driving, at home with family, or visiting with friends, - their heads are always looking down. While they are connecting with the whole world, they are not as much connecting with their real flesh and blood neighbors. They would rather say ‘hi’ with an emoji than step out of their house to pay a visit and hold a friend’s hand. They would rather send a digital cake image than go over to cut a real cake at a friend’s birthday. And this is just a piece of their very complex world. And Covid restrictions of late have worsened the situation of  loneliness generally. Having this in mind should help you to:

1. Accept that your son is capable of loving his neighbor.
   Sometimes their seeming narcissistic behaviors leave us wondering if they do. Blocking our minds is the devil’s first line of attack on the role we are to play in our sons’ lives. Like with Adam and Eve, he will seek to corrupt the information with a doubt question, “Did…?” As the study above suggests, Generation Z-ers may not be as a narcissist as we all may have been thinking. And one indicator may suggest that. They do not like it when they are so tagged. Though they may have come to accept it. After all, everyone is saying that. And that may just be the devil’s game plan; lose faith in their ability to love. Do not expect it from them and do not demand it from them. But we know that is not true. Because like us and all the generations before us, they too are made in the image of God and are capable of all that man is enabled to do including to love at every height imaginable.

   2. Offer him more empathy, unconditional love, and attention.
   And this is in an atmosphere that should not make him feel more special or entitled than other children. It is said that we give what we have. When people operate from a place of love deficit, they tend to hold back from reaching out to be a blessing to others. Let your son know that he is loved. Not just by God, but by you and others that God has put around him. Let there be enough endowment deposits in his love bank to allow him the safe comfort to draw from when he sees a need in another life.

3.  Help the boy to see something of your generation that challenges him.
‘Generation Z’ knows that they are smart and somehow look at their parents as laybacks. After all, we come to them to help us turn our smartphone cameras on. At the offices, they are the ones that bring in the digital solutions and they wonder why their bosses are getting the higher pay. These feelings can make them prideful and even resentful. No other generation feels as self-important as they do. This is not about competition. You probably will not win. Just point him to something outside of him that wows him. It will help him grow to respect something or someone other than himself.

  4.   Start early to draw your son to you.
The adolescent years can be challenging; naturally, they tend to be rebellious, but if we start early and not be tempted to outsource their care and nurture to school and domestic help because we can’t stomach their problems, when the time comes when we do love to be more involved, it may have become late.

5. Model predictable stability.
Calling them out early may make some of us wonder, “Is it not late for my own?” You have become so estranged. Hardly talking. “How can I influence him?” you wonder. Like the father of the prodigal son, model the predictable stability that is so alien to ‘Generation Z;’ and wait. He will come back. And when he does, it will be good if you are there anticipatingly waiting like the prodigal’s father. You do not want the “elder brother” or the village mob to see him first. They will  probably lynch him for the shame he caused the family.

More in our next article