My husband
and I truly desire that our girls will grow up and follow God all the days of
their life. Isn’t that what all
Christian parents want for their children?
We would love to believe that there is some formula we can follow to
guarantee that our children will not rebel and turn from God. Unfortunately, there is no such formula. However, as I prayed about how to keep our
girls from rebelling, I believe that God revealed to me five reasons that kids
rebel and what my husband and I can do to guard against it. Let me share them with you:
Reason 1 - Parents try to raise their kids in their own wisdom
and strength!
John 15:5 tells us, “I am the vine,
you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in Him, he bears much fruit; for apart from
Me, you can do NOTHING.” (emphasis mine)
Many
Christian parents aren’t in God’s Word!
The American Bible Society tells us that 2 out of 3 Christian adults
read the Bible just once a month! We are
starving ourselves spiritually and then wonder why our children are
rebelling? We forget to pray and wonder
why we get our children to obey us. We
don’t read God’s instructions and then fret about not knowing how to get our
children to obey. When we are struggling
with an issue, we seek answers everywhere but directly from God. Think about it. How often do you specifically pray and ask
God to help you with what you are dealing with in your children? When they continually won’t put things
away…When they are having a problem with their friends…When they are always
making you late… When they are always talking back or being disrespectful…etc.
We need to
pray daily and purposely for our children and we need to dig into God’s Word
for answers! Ask God to speak to
you. He promises He will if you
diligently seek Him. (see Jer. 29:13) In
James 1:5, we are promised wisdom when we lack
it, if we will only ask. We have been
given the mind of Christ. (see 1 Cor. 2:16 and Romans
12:2) Pray specifically and pray scripture. These promises are too precious to leave them
unclaimed!
There are
some great resources out there to help you pray purposefully and specifically
for your children. Many good prayer
calendars can be found on line. Google
prayer calendar children and pick one that works for you. One way to be purposeful in your prayers is
to make a prayer card for each child.
Write their name on it, what character trait or traits you are working
on, and some specific scriptures to pray for them. Keep it in your Bible to use
daily during your devotion time. There
are some great books that will give You plenty of examples. One such book is The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian.
Reason 2 - Parents are provoking children to anger by focusing
on rules rather than the relationship!
Ephesians 6:4 says
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the
discipline and instruction of the Lord.” NAS - NIV says exasperate
Josh McDowell came up with the following
formula: “Rules - Relationship =
Rebellion” This is why Growing Kids
God’s Way emphasizes working on your children’s love language, building family
identity, and transitioning from the rule of your authority to the power of
your relational influence! Love
motivates a desire to please the one you love and love is found in
relationship. Review your Growing Kids
material if you need to. You don’t want to miss these important principles!
If our
rules are too strict, our children will rebel.
If they are too lax, they will run wild.
Zig Ziglar said, “The child who has not been disciplined with love by
his little world, will be disciplined generally without love by the big
world.” So what are we to do? How do we know what the right boundaries are
and how do we enforce boundaries without provoking our children to anger or
exasperating them? We need to realize it is not about the rules; it’s about the relationship. We start with training the heart!
We need to teach them that boundaries and
discipline are good things! Boundaries
= security and discipline = love! They
are positive life giving words! Rules
and boundaries are not to be feared or hated.
They are for our protection! (This can be clearly seen in a drug
infested neighborhood. Rules and
boundaries are ignored, therefore no one is safe and so no one is really free!)
Good boundaries are rooted in relationship and are more about freedom than
restriction. When boundaries are
respected and self-control is used, there is plenty of freedom. We know these
things, but do they? Show them Hebrews 12:11. “All discipline for the moment seems not to
be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
(read Heb. 12:5-11 for more) When teaching your children this principle,
talk about examples like the following:
- games w/o
rules (either not fair, meaningless, or chaos)
- discipline
and sports (the more discipline, the more fruit produced)
- doctor -
broken arm example (instructions for your best interest – no baseball for 6
weeks or for life?)
If you have
a prohibitive conscience, you may struggle with these same issues. Remember God’s Word is truth
and makes us free! His Word tells
us discipline is a good thing! Children
not only need boundaries, they want them!
There was a study done on school children where they gave them a huge
field to play in but no fence. All the
children stayed closer to where the teacher was but when they put a fence up
the children used the whole field. They
found security in the boundary of
the fence and were able to move freely
throughout the whole play area.
As parents,
it is our job to clearly define the boundaries for our children. Don’t expect them to or assume they know
them. Just because it seems like common
sense to you doesn’t mean it is evident to them. If you haven’t trained them, you can’t and
shouldn’t expect them to know it.
However, once you are sure you have trained and defined boundaries,
enforce them! As parents, nowhere in the
Word are we made responsible for our children’s happiness, just their training. When we enforce boundaries the right
way, the anger and sadness of our children will be temporary but the
training and fruit will be eternal.
So be sure you have defined your boundaries ahead of time and follow
through.
It is
important that parents remain calm while enforcing boundaries. This one speaks for itself. For more on this review the difference
between Biblical Chastisement and Cultural Spanking laid out in GKGW. The principles there apply to all types of
consequences, not just chastisement.
When
defining your boundaries, the standard for them must be God’s, not something
arbitrary and moveable. There must be no
compromise on black and white issues.
Give the moral reason why and show them the Word behind your
words and rules! In other words, don‘t
just tell them what to do or not do but tell them the why behind it. When our
children know what to do but not why, we are simply raising Pharisees! In order to give them the moral reasons why,
we must know them. There is no
substitute or short cut for growing in wisdom.
We must spend time with our Father!
With gray
areas, freedom areas, we need to be more flexible and be sure to transition
properly as children get older. Give
them a respectful way to question your rules.
A big part of transitioning is telling them less and asking more
questions. Make them think things
through for themselves. Carol Adams, a
great teacher, says “The one who is doing the talking is doing the
thinking.” In other words, when they
reason it through for themselves, do the labor themselves, they really own
it. That’s how you reach the heart! (see
appeal process in GKGW and transitions cd’s from Mom’s Notes for more on this
subject)
As you
develop your rules and boundaries, be sure you examine your heart. What are you basing your decisions on. Could you say yes? Be a yes parent as much as possible! There will be enough no’s in their lives. Is the rule fair? Too strict?
Have you considered all sides? Have
you listened to their thoughts and feelings?
Is compromise needed? Be
thoughtful and prayerful about all your rules and boundaries and be willing to
redefine them if needed.
If you must
say no or enforce a boundary, consider their heart in your response. One
Christian author put it this way: “Remember the fastest way to alienate your
child from you is to discount his or her emotional response.” Alienation is a root that will grow up to
rebellion. This doesn’t mean you give in
to their desires in order not to alienate them.
The principle is respond to emotion with emotion. Don’t discount their feelings. Show empathy and help them know what to do
with their feelings! When my daughter
started to fight me on wearing certain dresses, I soon discovered it was
because she feared being made fun as the dresses were “for little girls”. She was entering into the middle school
transition. While I didn’t want her to
make decisions based on what others thought, I also needed to respect her
feelings and help her to make decisions about what she wore based on what God
says. I couldn’t do that, if I made it
all about obedience. “Obey me or
else! You will wear what I say.”
In part 3
of this blog, we will discuss the final 3 reasons for rebellion. In the meantime, I pray that we all will look
to God for our wisdom and strength, work on our relationships with our
children, and define our boundaries with much prayer and searching of the
Scriptures!
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