by I wanted obedient children, children who answer yes at first call, children who consider it a joy to be sent by their parent, children who are never grumpy, never storming off, never giving me silent treatment or banging doors in my face. I wanted children who don’t fight with their siblings, or steal at school or gripe about going to Sunday school. I wanted pre-sanctified self-parenting children. And parenting books told me this is possible. All I had to do was lay down the law (my expectations), punish bad behaviour and reward the good, and then expect results. Shock on me.
I had strived in the flesh, instructed and trained my son on what kind of behaviour I expected from him and I had waited for resultant good behaviour. “Answer when you are called”. “Obey on first instruction”. “Don’t talk back at an adult.” “Don’t whine”. “Accept punishment when you err”…
Seven out of ten times, I didn’t get the results I wanted.
I panicked I could not control my child. Instead I felt like he knew all my buttons and which ones to press to irritate me. I had cajoled, threatened, manipulated, screamed, hit, given time outs… I felt weak and out of control and as if I had failed as a parent. All because an eight-year-old was keen on disobeying me.
I remember a point in parenting when I became so frustrated I reached out to a parenting expert. I was trying to follow parenting-by-the-book but the guinea pigs were not following the formula. Our brief conversation left me feeling condemned and as a failure — I was weak. I was being controlled by children. I should attend parenting classes… I locked myself in my bathroom and cried.
In reality, I should not have been surprised that my son was disobeying and trying to irritate me. He was a sinner like we all are. And this sinful nature was bound to fight any restraining. We all have a worship problem, children included. We have put ourselves in the centre of our world, displacing God who should be the object and centre of our worship.
Children are not a mathematical formula of put A plus B and remove X to get H. Hence my frustration with most parenting advice. It was about laying down the law and requiring obedience then getting obedience. Yet even I could not keep the law. Every day in big and small ways, I transgressed. Despite knowing better, I did what I was not supposed to do. My child too couldn’t help it to transgress. Sin, Satan and flesh would make sure he didn’t do his homework after school as required or that he would steal another child’s toy despite knowing consequences. Consequences are not enough to deter us from sin.
The goal of spiritual parenting
Paul David Tripp in his book “Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands” expresses similar sentiments: “I wanted children who had never suffered the effects of the Fall and who possessed the innate ability to make all the right choices. I wanted family devotions and a few lectures to produce children who would do quite well on their own. I too lacked the self-sacrificing love essential in a family full of sinners.”
This year some friends and I began reading a book on spiritual parenting by Michelle Anthony. And right at the introduction I realised where the problem was with my parenting journey.
I was trying to manufacture good behaviour. And failing terribly at it. But good behaviour was never the goal of Christian parenting. Heart transformation is the goal.
Good behaviour was never the goal of Christian parenting. Heart transformation is the goal.
“No good tree bears bad fruit. Nor does a bad tree bear good fruit…The good man brings forth good out of the good stored up in his heart and the evil man brings forth evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:43-45
“The body always goes where the heart leads,” Tripp says. “If a tree’s roots remain unchanged, it will never produce good fruit.”
The heart of the matter is that I was not interested in superficial change in my children. I did not want children who do good when my eyes are on them because they are afraid of me or because of my boundaries. I did not want children who went off to college and went AWOL because they never internalised faith and owned it for themselves. I truly desired that they would do good because that’s who they are. I truly aspired for good from the heart. I therefore needed to change strategy and fire myself from my position of behaviour management to being a sower of faith. Because only faith in God could transform hearts for real.
“Lasting change always takes place through the pathway of the heart… Any agenda for change must focus on the thoughts and desires of the heart,” Tripp says.
“God’s goal for your parenting goes way beyond clean rooms, good manners, proper dress, the tight college, a good career and marrying well. In Ephesians 6 when Paul calls parents to bring their children up in the training and instruction of the Lord, this takes away the horizontal focus. The call is to be part of God’s work of heart transformation — to help the child change from a self-absorbed sinner to one who loves God above all else. When parents forget that the moments of difficulty are the moments of redemption, they stand in the way of what the Lord is doing.”
Michelle Anthony notes that the Bible never instructs us to spend our days managing the deeds and actions of our children. But how often we assume that role and end up frustrated because our children are not behaving well all the time, and especially when there is company. The goal is not moral or obedient children. The goal is children who can discern God for themselves and desire to obey him. The goal is children who become like Jesus every day. And that doesn’t come from sin management. Even we do not become like Christ by willing ourselves to do the right things. We become like Christ through regeneration. Through rebirth. Through washing with the word. It’s a spiritual work.
Therefore, Michelle argues, and I agree with her, that our job as parents is to set our children on the path of the divine, where they can encounter Jesus. Through sharing God’s story, through our own lives, through the faith community.
As we put our children in proximity to God, to fall in love with Jesus, we trust that the Holy Spirit will make their actions congruent with their belief.
Our job as parents is to set our children on the path of the divine, where they can encounter Jesus. As we put our children in proximity to God, to fall in love with Jesus, we trust that the Holy Spirit will make their actions congruent with their belief.
Michelle Anthony
Fixing behaviour is not our responsibility. Fire yourself from the behaviour management department. Cultivating environments for our children’s faith to grow, teaching them how to grow in their love with Jesus, living our lives authentically in front of them so they can be eyewitnesses to our own transformation — that’s our job.
“It is God who is at work in our children’s lives and we simply have the privilege of coming alongside him in that endeavour”.
