Parenting with Perspective I read recently in a lovely book about faithful parenting that when a child tries to manipulate us in various vexing ways, we should respond with calmness, grace, and wisdom. After all, we don’t want to “answer a fool according to his folly, or we will be like him…. (Proverbs 26:4)”, right? The book went on to give various examples of teen manipulation and proper parenting response. I confess I laughed out loud at a few of them – not that they were untrue statements, but that I’d be able to say them in the mist of dealing with the miscommunication that seems to inevitably result whenever I attempt to talk, direct, teach, discipline, train, or even sneeze in the general direction of my offspring. For example, the other day I asked one of my children to get something from the laundry room - His response? – “That laundry room?” Selah. Now, I am an average middle class woman with an average middle class home – there has only ever been one l