Parenting as a teacher
Q: What was the best piece of parenting advice you got?
When you are about to become a first-time parent, you get a lot of advice. Everyone has their tricks of the trade and is more than happy to share it. Accounts on Instagram are built on it. You’ll hear stuff like let your children play and cherish every moment because it goes by fast. Some people use technology, since that’s how the real-world works. Others believe you should hold off on technology or at least minimize their exposure to it. The best piece of advice I got was from a good friend of mine, where I learned about how to make a place in the daily routine with my newborn daughter. Many dads feel like a 3rd wheel after their child is born, but if you can find a part of the routine and make it yours, then you’ll feel more a part of the process than a bystander. For me, that part was the night-time routine. Since my daughter was born, I’ve taken care of things like pajamas, brushing teeth, and bath time. I’m better at night and my wife is better in the morning, so it fits our strength. Plus, it gives my wife, who’s been working hard all day, a chance to catch her breath, particularly on bath nights. Even now that my kids are about to be 8 and 6, I still handle that part of the routine.
The best advice we can get on parenting comes from the One who is the ultimate Father. God designed a special role for a mother and father to play in our development. It’s our first glimpse in life at what a father is, which helps us to relate to and learn about God through that process. It then makes sense that one of the most important things we can learn from God’s design is the importance of being a teacher.
“That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them, another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works He had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10 HCSB)
In the book of Judges, we find out that the generation that followed Joshua, and those who served with him, grew up not knowing of all the things God had done to rescue them. Think about everything those in Joshua’s generation saw. They participated in the taking of Jericho. God delivered army after army, giving them the land He had promised. Yet they didn’t teach their own children about the ways God had impacted their lives. So, what’s the most important thing you can teach your children? Start with ways you’ve seen God work in your life. While I may not have marched around Jericho, God’s protected and provided for me in ways that are just as important to my life. Therefore, the first thing I need to do is share those stories with my children. That’s how they understand that God isn’t just a historical character we read about in a book. God’s living and active in our lives and shows it every day. It’s important to teach our children about God’s character as seen through our own lives.
Q: What’s something God’s done for you that you can, or plan to, tell your children about?
Grace, not perfection
When your kids are little, it’s easy to try and correct all the mistakes they make. You want to help them learn, and part of that process is letting them know when they make a mistake, right? Plus, if it’s an action you don’t want them to repeat, then the sooner you can nip it in the bud, the less likely it is to become a habit. Right?
But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 HSCB)
We are all flawed on our own. But God doesn’t mock our weakness. He shows His power through it. So many times, we find where someone is not as strong in a particular area, and we try to hammer in that skill, so it becomes a strength. But what if we’re not meant to be strong in that area? What if God designed you to need His help so that we can remind ourselves how weak we are without God’s power behind us?
It’s easy to try and over correct the mistakes our children make, and that’s not necessarily bad. The question is, what are they learning from it? Well, that just might depend on how you taught it. We tell our children that we don’t need to be perfect, but if we correct every single mistake they make, that message gets lost. Instead, they feel like we expect perfection. And if we’re being honest, they’re right. If you strongly correct every mistake, you’re telling them they’re not allowed to make mistakes. But when we worry if God expects perfection from us, He reminds us that His grace is enough. Firmly correct disobedience, not mistakes. That’s also how they learn grace.
Discipline in Love
Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. (Matthew 11:28-30 HCSB)
Watch the tone in which you parent. If you harshly correct every mistake, they not only struggle with perfectionism, but after a while, they start to lose the message you were trying to teach. All they hear is the tone and that they’re not good enough. Instead, let them know that they are good enough. That’s how God designed us. God’s love isn’t earned, based on what you do or how well you do it. It’s just freely given. So, give that same love to your children. All throughout the Bible, we see examples of God disciplining in love. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God clothed them before he sent them away. This goes back to correcting disobedience, not mistakes. Be your child’s safe place, where they can be corrected gently, and in love. Jesus used the term humble in heart when talking about His spirit. He wants to take on our burdens and our struggles and give it to Him to fix, but not because you’re a failure. He does it out of love.
Q: When you correct your children, are you humble in heart or are you harsh and critical?
Raise them to God’s will, not your will
When issues come up, like the language we use or how we treat our neighbors, use the Bible as the standard. My wife and I use scripture all the time to support and establish what we’re teaching. Verses like Ephesians 4:29, which talks about using language to build someone up, is a great example. That way, they understand that this isn’t just some made up rule I came up with. They learn God’s design and His expectations for how they live straight from the source. Children can always find faults in my will if it’s from me alone. But not from the Maker.
Q: What are your family rules? Are they Biblically based? If not, what’s a tweak you can make to them to better align them to God’s design?
Teach obedience, as we obey
“Where were you when I established the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?” (Job 38: 4-5 HCSB)
Everyone obeys someone. If you’re in school, you obey your teacher. If you’re a teacher, you obey your principal. If you’re a principal, you obey your school board, who obey the state laws. Even if you’re the boss of a multi-billion-dollar company, you still have shareholders or customers you need to obey. And ultimately, we all fall to our knees and obey God, our maker. So, model that level of obedience to your children. Let them see you obey God’s will and learn from it. Through obedience, we learn humility and our place in the world. Job learned his place in Job chapter 38, when God spoke to him in a whirlwind. He reminded Job that he wasn’t there when God made the earth. We need to obey the one who made it all.
Give them room to grow
God allows us to make mistakes and when we do, he often gives us another chance to prove we learned from those mistakes. Moses pleaded with God to let anyone else be the one to speak to Pharaoh. But God knew Moses had the strength in him to be the leader God called him to be, so he let his brother Aaron join him till Moses was ready to be bold on his own. We also saw it with Jonah. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and deliver a warning. When Jonah decides to run away instead, God protected him, brought him back, and then gave him a second chance. That time, Jonah did go, saving a whole city in the process. My wife met a woman once whose ancestors can be traced back to Nineveh. Had God not given Jonah, and Nineveh, a second chance, that woman might not have existed.
Teach Right from Wrong
Sometimes, we get so caught up on teaching so many little things that we forget to emphasize right from wrong. God’s design was for us to love him and love our neighbor. That’s a core value that drives everything else we do. That means we don’t steal, or gossip about, or fight with someone. Not because of a rule, but because that’s not the fruit of loving well. When you love someone the way you are supposed to, then you want to encourage them with your words and show kindness and compassion.
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth.” (John 14: 16-17a HCSB)
The best part of knowing what is right and what is wrong is that Jesus sent us a helper in the form of the Holy Spirit. Teach your children about our great Counselor, and how to listen to that voice. Let Him guide them.
Love
Above all else, love. Teach it and live it. Let it show in words and in action. Just as God does with us.