How Can I Like My Teacher If He Doesn’t Like Me?
by Ruth Willms

Description: Tips for helping your child understand and submit to authority in a healthy way.

"Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders."
1 Peter 5:5 NKJV

"You younger men, follow the leadership of those who are older. And all of you serve each other with humble spirits, for God gives special blessings to those who are humble, but sets himself against those who are proud.

"If you will humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, in his good time he will lift you up.

"Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you." 1 Peter 5:5-7 The Living Bible

Do you ever wonder if your teacher doesn’t like you? Do you ever think he or she is being very hard on you?

Do you know what? Everyone at times wonders this about the person over them, be it their teacher, their employer or even their pastor. Often it comes down to personality. It helps a lot to get to know your teacher, even personally, and let him get to know you. Maybe there is someone in his life who is giving him a hard time and your personality reminds him of that person.

Teachers can be wonderful. They were always my heroes in school. I just loved school and I loved my teachers. I didn't like summer holidays as a kid in elementary. Now, when I look back, I realize I had first class teachers. I think teachers have an awesome job and most of them became teachers because they love kids and understand them. Maybe I'm a little prejudiced, because I was a teacher.

I went to a small country school with only two classrooms. Can you imagine that? The good thing about that was my teacher got to know most of the kids' families. We had the teacher over for dinner and sometimes we even attended the same church. Occasionally we played baseball together in the evenings. We had the same beliefs so we understood where each person was coming from.

Maybe you can get to know your teacher better and build a relationship with him by joining a club or team that he leads. Maybe you can hang around him at recess or lunch or even after school, and just chat with him. It doesn't hurt to let him know that you don't understand why he gives you certain assignments or does things a certain way. Most teachers want to know their students better so they can help them grow.

The number one way to get along with your teacher is to respect him. You may not like the assignments he gives you, but he is your teacher, and in charge of what you need to learn to get through the educational system. The Bible says to "submit to your elders –" this also means someone who has authority over you, not just older.

Although we need to submit and work with our teacher, we also need to be careful to never let him bully us. If your teacher puts you down or hurts you physically or speaks disrespectfully to you, tell your parents. Sometimes you will need an adult to intervene for you.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you always have someone who cares about you and loves you. Some people don't like us to tell them all our problems but God is just waiting for you to tell Him about everything that bothers you. He is "watching everything that concerns you." And He cares about it. He listens to your prayers and then He teaches you how to handle that problem and grow to be like Christ.

Going Deeper for Parents

As adults we too have people in authority over us, like managers and employers, and pastors and church leaders. Hopefully we have learned people skills and strategies to cope with our differences in a Christ-like manner.

Building a personal relationship with them, whenever possible, helps a lot. If you understand where a person is coming from and they know where you stand, it is much easier to accept them.

God says to humble ourselves. This is hard to do sometimes, especially when our personalities clash, and we insist we need to be true to ourselves. The answer is simple but it is hard to live. Jesus says to submit to those over us; work with them. And don't forget to add a ton of prayers. Our prayers move God to work in both our heart and that other person's heart to conform to God's way, even if our difficult person doesn't know Jesus.

A lot of people, even our best friends, get tired of us dumping our problems on them at times. It's great to know that Jesus is just waiting to hear about all our problems. I imagine Him hanging on our every word, though He knows all things about us before we tell Him.

Just as we as parents watch over all that concerns our children, God is watching and supporting us.

Memory Verse for This Week

John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [The Living Bible].

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Want to know more about how God can help you every day? Check out my new book The Lion Tree at http://www.RuthWillms.com

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