How Do I Show Kindness to My Children and Expect Them to Obey?

00:00:04.000 | Well, one reason parenting is such daunting work is because of the balance required of us parents.

00:00:08.500 | We don't want to be too strict or too lenient, not too consequence-driven, and not so gracious as to overlook rebellion.

00:00:16.500 | Into this balancing act comes a question from a young mom who wants to be kind and who expects to be obeyed.

00:00:24.000 | Her name is Emily.

00:00:25.000 | "Hello, Pastor John. I thank you for your ministry. It has helped me delight in God immensely.

00:00:29.500 | Recently, I have been stomped on how to blend two seemingly contradictory facets of biblical character into the parenting of my two small children.

00:00:38.000 | Number one, me displaying Christ-like humility and gracious servanthood, a la Philippians 2, verses 1 to 11.

00:00:46.000 | And number two, me requiring honor, respect, and obedience from my kids, a la Ephesians 6, 1 to 3.

00:00:54.000 | Could you help flesh out for me what essentially discipline looks like with both of these aspects?

00:00:59.500 | How to discipline children in humility while maintaining my position of respect and authority?

00:01:05.000 | I feel stuck bouncing between being too strong with the "Obey Me" card and then trying to balance myself by being gracious and perhaps requiring too little obedience and respect.

00:01:16.000 | I'm so confused. Can you help Mama out?"

00:01:19.500 | I hope so, because of all the questions Emily might ask, I think she has asked an absolutely excellent, central question.

00:01:33.000 | This question gets at the essence, I think, of gospel parenting.

00:01:39.000 | That is, how to raise children that have a humble respect for God-given authority, whether in parents or husbands or teachers or policemen or pastors or civic laws,

00:01:53.500 | and also see that God's pattern of leadership is servant leadership.

00:02:01.500 | That leadership is not synonymous with self-exaltation or pride or bragging or power-grabbing,

00:02:09.000 | but, as Philippians 2, 3 says, "counts others more significant than itself and pursues the good of others even when it's very costly."

00:02:19.000 | In other words, the challenge in parenting is how to parent so that authentic, gospel-shaped young people come into existence.

00:02:31.000 | And before I give any particular counsel about that tension, I should remind us all that no matter how excellently we teach and model gospel leadership,

00:02:45.500 | we parents are not the decisive influence in whether our children come to faith and walk in what we have taught.

00:02:58.000 | We are a huge influence, but we are not the decisive, final influence, which is why we soak everything we do in prayer

00:03:11.000 | and why we do not load ourselves down with the burden of being God, which we simply cannot bear.

00:03:22.000 | Now, back to the specific question, and I'll make it even more paradoxical.

00:03:28.000 | How do you model the command to turn the other cheek while disciplining a child for disobedience?

00:03:36.000 | How do you model love bears all things and endures all things while requiring compliance to the rules of the family?

00:03:44.500 | How do you model not returning evil for evil while spanking for blatant disregard for your authority?

00:03:56.000 | Now, here's some suggestions.

00:03:58.500 | Number one, there should always be a steady stream of more or less formal teaching—call it catechism, catechesis, whatever—

00:04:10.500 | a steady stream of more or less formal teaching happening in the home in which, in age-appropriate ways,

00:04:19.500 | you are trying to explain what the Bible means.

00:04:23.500 | And that includes passages about children obeying parents and respecting parents and being kind and generous with siblings

00:04:32.500 | and how parents are called to teach and discipline and not provoke their children for their good

00:04:38.500 | and how we're all to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us and return good for evil and bless those who curse us.

00:04:46.500 | And this ongoing steady stream of teaching will include, over time, efforts to help children understand that there are authority structures—

00:04:57.500 | parent-child, police civilian, pastor-church member, husband-wife, government citizen—

00:05:04.000 | authority structures that God has created that give different shape to how we love each other.

00:05:11.500 | In other words, God has given to parents a role for how to love their children that he does not give to children and vice versa.

00:05:21.000 | So parents love their children in ways that children don't love their parents.

00:05:26.000 | For example, by teaching them, by setting boundaries for them, by showing them the painful consequences that happen in the real world if you disrespect God-given authority.

00:05:36.500 | In other words, alongside the thousands of daily interactions in the family which do teach,

00:05:43.500 | I'm saying there should be a steady stream—every day, virtually—

00:05:49.500 | a steady stream of teaching that provides an ever-growing grid, a biblical grid,

00:05:58.500 | through which a child comes to understand the world increasingly and all the relational dynamics of the home.

00:06:05.500 | So that's my first suggestion, that steady stream of teaching.

00:06:09.000 | Here's number two.

00:06:10.500 | I think one reason God designed families to ordinarily have two parents instead of just one

00:06:17.000 | is that this creates wonderful possibilities of interaction with children that display both vigilance for a parent being respected

00:06:27.000 | and the humility of a parent not defending himself.

00:06:31.000 | For example, if a child is very disrespectful to his mother, for example,

00:06:36.500 | say you got a 12-year-old or maybe just a 4-year-old or a 15-year-old for that matter,

00:06:42.000 | and the father—and he says something very disrespectful to his mother, and the father is in the kitchen,

00:06:48.000 | that father steps over, and she isn't saying anything yet, that father steps over,

00:06:53.000 | takes this kid by the arm with a grip he knows means something really serious here.

00:06:58.000 | "Dad has a hold of my arm."

00:06:59.000 | He looks him right in the eye and says, "You may not talk to your mother that way in this house."

00:07:06.000 | Now, the mother, in the meantime, having been stuck up for by her husband, doesn't communicate a self-pitying woundedness,

00:07:17.000 | "Oh, poor me."

00:07:18.000 | This makes really sick relationships in the home when you do that.

00:07:22.000 | Nor does she communicate a smug sense of the child got what is due.

00:07:28.000 | Instead, what she's communicating is a demeanor of love that communicates, "Son, daughter, I want what's best for you, but daddy's right."

00:07:41.000 | Now, there are dozens of settings, it seems to me, in which the interplay of mother and father capture both sides of the tension

00:07:50.000 | between humble patience on the one hand and severe rebuke on the other hand.

00:07:57.000 | So that's my second suggestion.

00:07:59.000 | Now, here's the third one.

00:08:01.000 | Many families are single-parent families, and many times during the day, a two-parent family has one parent with the kids, right?

00:08:11.000 | For like eight, ten hours a day, mom might be the one who's got to bear the whole burden of the discipline here.

00:08:18.000 | So what are some of the ways to help a child see both humility and servanthood in the Christian life of his parents,

00:08:28.000 | as well as strong God-appointed authority to be respected and obeyed?

00:08:35.000 | So here are just several bullet points.

00:08:38.000 | One, avoid correlating anger with the demand for respect.

00:08:44.000 | Insist on it and require it in tones of strength without anger.

00:08:50.000 | Speak of it in times of happiness.

00:08:53.000 | Talk about it. Talk about respect and obedience in times of happiness, not just in the times of angry crisis.

00:09:01.000 | Number two, let the appropriate apologies that you owe your children be woven into your life.

00:09:10.000 | Never think, "Oh, this is going to weaken my authority if I get down low and say I'm sorry for some tone of voice I used this morning."

00:09:19.000 | It won't. It won't weaken if you lovingly are strong when you should be.

00:09:25.000 | Number three, constantly model for the child the role of servant in all your relationships that the child is watching,

00:09:34.000 | including your relationship with the child.

00:09:37.000 | Don't come across just as a boss.

00:09:40.000 | So many children feel like, "I'm just a slave here. All they do is say, 'Do, do, do, do.'"

00:09:46.000 | This does not mean picking up his toys when you have told him to pick up his toys.

00:09:53.000 | A lot of parents cave on that and think it's humility. That's not humility. That's stupid.

00:09:58.000 | But it might mean surprising him by cleaning his room before you ask him to clean it.

00:10:06.000 | Or offering to take him somewhere in the car as a teenager before he asks you.

00:10:12.000 | But here's a warning. Children, including those teenagers, maybe especially,

00:10:18.000 | children are slow to see this for what it is, this servanthood of mom or dad.

00:10:26.000 | They may have to wait 20 years before mom and dad hear back in a letter how brokenheartedly thankful they are for what they gave them

00:10:43.000 | and how unthankful they were for so many years.

00:10:47.000 | I lavished my mother with thanks in my mid-20s a hundred times more than I did when I was 14 and 15 and 16.

00:10:59.000 | And I'm ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of it.

00:11:02.000 | But that's what parents have to reckon with.

00:11:05.000 | Kids assume parents are going to serve them, and you can't do much about that

00:11:11.000 | if you are a loving, firm, caring, sacrificial parent, except pray that when they turn 25,

00:11:19.000 | you're going to get a letter or a phone call that's brokenhearted in their lavish gratitude to you.

00:11:27.000 | Number four, let the dominant tone of the relationship be one of delight in your child.

00:11:34.000 | Let him feel cherished and admired and enjoyed, not just corrected and instructed.

00:11:40.000 | Otherwise, he'll feel that you're just using him for your private ease, not his good.

00:11:46.000 | And number five—I've got two more—number five, don't equate humility with leniency,

00:11:53.000 | as if the only way to communicate humility is by not requiring rigorous obedience.

00:11:59.000 | Humility, in fact, may be what is needed to deny yourself the comforts of not dealing with a child's disobedience.

00:12:09.000 | And finally, teaching grace and mercy will mean that now and then, when wisdom dictates,

00:12:17.000 | you will in fact not punish a punishable offense.

00:12:24.000 | Just to give the child a taste of that form of grace,

00:12:30.000 | knowing that requiring obedience most of the time is also a form of grace,

00:12:38.000 | but you won't neglect discipline so often that it begins to be expected by the child.

00:12:46.000 | So parenting is an art, not a science, and we must be praying constantly for wisdom from above.

00:12:54.000 | Like James 3:17, "The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,

00:13:00.000 | open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness

00:13:09.000 | is sown in peace by those who make peace."

00:13:13.000 | Yes, the art of gospel parenting, indeed.

00:13:16.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, for your seasoned counsel here and for speaking out of your many decades of being a dad.

00:13:21.000 | Well, you can stay current with the Ask Pastor John podcast episodes on your phone or your device

00:13:26.000 | by subscribing through your preferred podcast app or by listening through our YouTube channel.

00:13:31.000 | And if you'd like to search our past episodes or listen to our most popular episodes of all time,

00:13:36.000 | or if you want to send us a question of your own, you can do those things at our online home at

00:13:39.000 | desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn

00:13:44.000 | Well, back in a 2001 Gallup poll, respondents were asked to attribute the description "emotional"

00:13:50.000 | to one of the two sexes. Was "emotional" truer of men or of women?

00:13:56.000 | Of course, 90% said "emotional" was truer of women.

00:14:00.000 | Such a survey adds fuel to a very old stereotype, a stereotype that is at least as old as Aristotle,

00:14:07.000 | that says the pink brain is more emotional and the blue brain is more rational.

00:14:12.000 | But does this dichotomy hold up in Scripture?

00:14:15.000 | That is the question we're going to end the week with on Friday.

00:14:18.000 | That should be very interesting, Pastor John.

00:14:20.000 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Reiki. We'll see you then.

00:14:23.000 | [END]

00:14:25.000 | [END]

00:14:27.000 | [END]

00:14:29.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Show Kindness to My Children and Expect Them to Obey?

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