3. Realise that of themselves your parenting skills guarantee nothing
So your child or children are given to you by God. The most important thing is that they should be saved in order to serve God in their own generation. It’s an awesome task then to bring them up, as Paul says, in the training and instruction of the Lord. This leads to a word of encouragement and of warning. The warning is chiefly for younger parents and the warning chiefly for older ones.
Let’s begin with the warning. It is very easy to listen to a talk like this, especially if your children are still very young or not even born yet to think ‘Right. These are God’s children and the most important thing is that they should be saved and so I’m going to make sure that I so arrange things that they are bound to become Christians. We will read the Bible every day and we will keep the Lord’s Day special and not a day will go by without me praying for them.’ Now it is good to be keen to do such things, of course. I’m not saying anything against them. However, at the same time, we must continually remind ourselves that salvation is entirely from the Lord. It is a sobering thought to think that even those with the most godly parents you can imagine have nevertheless sometimes rejected the truth. We must do all we can then - but we must not think we can convert our children or make them Christians. Only God can do that. He uses means, of course, but he is sovereign in his use of those means and is not bound by them.
No doubt you can see the comfort in this. After you have been a parent for a while you are conscious of many, many mistakes and errors – some you can out right, some it is too late. Your children see you eventually at your worst. They know you like no-one else. They see your inconsistency, your hypocrisy, your poor leadership skills, your incompetence and lack of self-control. It is enough to make you want to give up some days. Now the comfort here is that children are not saved on the basis of how good we are at being parents. There is no slot machine here. This is not to make an excuse for bad parenting. It is simply reminder of the grace of God. That is our hope. If any child comes to know the Lord or turns out even halfway decent it is the grace of God. Good parenting is often a means to this but children are sinners too and sometimes even the best parenting produces nothing while even where there is quite poor parenting nevertheless the child grows up to be a good citizen and in some cases a citizen of heaven too.
4. Be prepared to discipline your child
Let’s begin with the warning. It is very easy to listen to a talk like this, especially if your children are still very young or not even born yet to think ‘Right. These are God’s children and the most important thing is that they should be saved and so I’m going to make sure that I so arrange things that they are bound to become Christians. We will read the Bible every day and we will keep the Lord’s Day special and not a day will go by without me praying for them.’ Now it is good to be keen to do such things, of course. I’m not saying anything against them. However, at the same time, we must continually remind ourselves that salvation is entirely from the Lord. It is a sobering thought to think that even those with the most godly parents you can imagine have nevertheless sometimes rejected the truth. We must do all we can then - but we must not think we can convert our children or make them Christians. Only God can do that. He uses means, of course, but he is sovereign in his use of those means and is not bound by them.
No doubt you can see the comfort in this. After you have been a parent for a while you are conscious of many, many mistakes and errors – some you can out right, some it is too late. Your children see you eventually at your worst. They know you like no-one else. They see your inconsistency, your hypocrisy, your poor leadership skills, your incompetence and lack of self-control. It is enough to make you want to give up some days. Now the comfort here is that children are not saved on the basis of how good we are at being parents. There is no slot machine here. This is not to make an excuse for bad parenting. It is simply reminder of the grace of God. That is our hope. If any child comes to know the Lord or turns out even halfway decent it is the grace of God. Good parenting is often a means to this but children are sinners too and sometimes even the best parenting produces nothing while even where there is quite poor parenting nevertheless the child grows up to be a good citizen and in some cases a citizen of heaven too.
4. Be prepared to discipline your child
You would expect me to say something about discipline so let’s look at that next. Eight brief things.
1. Understand the biblical authority structure in the family. It is not the father at the top then the mother, then older kids with the younger ones at the bottom. Rather, both parents have equal authority over all the children and unless it is specifically given to them for a certain occasion the children have no authority over each other. Obviously in the marriage bond the wife must submit to the husband and so when big decisions about parenting are being made that may come into play but as far as the children are concerned what dad says goes and what mam says goes. We will say something about when those two disagree later.
2. Recognise the legitimacy of physical punishment. There is quite a strong movement against physical punishment at present. Where physical punishment is allowed it can be too harsh. Generally speaking, society can never get a balance so having corrected one danger it now wants to go to the other extreme and ban all physical punishment. It is quite clear from the Bible, however, that physical punishment is permissible, indeed in many cases necessary.
No detail is given – What age?, Girls and boys? With the hand or an implement? Etc. Common sense will guide us in most of these matters. Let me just say that smacking is an important tool in a parent’s toolbox. Clearly we must never smack in temper. It should be done in a judicial way.
3. Every child is an individual and it is important to remember that. In the area of discipline this is clearly so. I have one son who is not particularly bothered by a smack if he deserves it and another who will often cry if you speak sternly to him. Obviously I deal with them differently. I have no girls but I would guess that they are quite different again and need to be handled so.
4. Physical punishment is not a panacea and really only works up until the age of about 8 or 9 with most children. This leaves another 10 years or so when smacking will not be an option. Even then, however, we must work on being fair and effective and try to come up with punishments that don’t drag on indefinitely.
5. Aim to break the will not the spirit of the child. They must learn who is in charge and respect our authority but we are seeking to control them or to press them into some mould of our own making. There is a difference (hard to spot sometimes) between rebellion and high spirits.
6. Be positive and encouraging. It is so easy to forget to do this. We are so busy with correcting them that we forget to give praise when praise is due. I’m sure my children would tell me I’m very bad at this. My own mother believed that too much praise wasn’t a good thing and might make a child too cocky. I think that is wrong. I suppose constant and unwarranted praise can puff someone up but God has his ways of bringing down the proud and it is not our job to burst people’s bubbles. God does that. Encourage them all you can. Like you and me, they need it.
7. Try to pre-empt trouble. Obviously thinking ahead helps. Best to avoid trouble than to get into a confrontation. One of our members, who is a single mother, was telling me how she read in a book about the danger of giving children too many choices. She suddenly realised what she was doing wasn’t helping her son. He’d come down in the morning and she’d say what cereal do you want for breakfast? And there would be a good choice. Then Which colour cup do you want? Then what did he want in his sandwiches as she made them? Then she’d let him have a choice over which clothes he would wear and what he might do before school and so on. Then at some point he would choose to do something that she didn’t want him to do and he’d be in trouble. Yet all he was doing was making another choice. We need to think things through then.
8. Try never to shout. Some of us rarely shout and it’s not too much of temptation. Some of us often shout. With children it is almost never a good idea. It’s easy to fall into though. Try not to do it.
1. Understand the biblical authority structure in the family. It is not the father at the top then the mother, then older kids with the younger ones at the bottom. Rather, both parents have equal authority over all the children and unless it is specifically given to them for a certain occasion the children have no authority over each other. Obviously in the marriage bond the wife must submit to the husband and so when big decisions about parenting are being made that may come into play but as far as the children are concerned what dad says goes and what mam says goes. We will say something about when those two disagree later.
2. Recognise the legitimacy of physical punishment. There is quite a strong movement against physical punishment at present. Where physical punishment is allowed it can be too harsh. Generally speaking, society can never get a balance so having corrected one danger it now wants to go to the other extreme and ban all physical punishment. It is quite clear from the Bible, however, that physical punishment is permissible, indeed in many cases necessary.
No detail is given – What age?, Girls and boys? With the hand or an implement? Etc. Common sense will guide us in most of these matters. Let me just say that smacking is an important tool in a parent’s toolbox. Clearly we must never smack in temper. It should be done in a judicial way.
3. Every child is an individual and it is important to remember that. In the area of discipline this is clearly so. I have one son who is not particularly bothered by a smack if he deserves it and another who will often cry if you speak sternly to him. Obviously I deal with them differently. I have no girls but I would guess that they are quite different again and need to be handled so.
4. Physical punishment is not a panacea and really only works up until the age of about 8 or 9 with most children. This leaves another 10 years or so when smacking will not be an option. Even then, however, we must work on being fair and effective and try to come up with punishments that don’t drag on indefinitely.
5. Aim to break the will not the spirit of the child. They must learn who is in charge and respect our authority but we are seeking to control them or to press them into some mould of our own making. There is a difference (hard to spot sometimes) between rebellion and high spirits.
6. Be positive and encouraging. It is so easy to forget to do this. We are so busy with correcting them that we forget to give praise when praise is due. I’m sure my children would tell me I’m very bad at this. My own mother believed that too much praise wasn’t a good thing and might make a child too cocky. I think that is wrong. I suppose constant and unwarranted praise can puff someone up but God has his ways of bringing down the proud and it is not our job to burst people’s bubbles. God does that. Encourage them all you can. Like you and me, they need it.
7. Try to pre-empt trouble. Obviously thinking ahead helps. Best to avoid trouble than to get into a confrontation. One of our members, who is a single mother, was telling me how she read in a book about the danger of giving children too many choices. She suddenly realised what she was doing wasn’t helping her son. He’d come down in the morning and she’d say what cereal do you want for breakfast? And there would be a good choice. Then Which colour cup do you want? Then what did he want in his sandwiches as she made them? Then she’d let him have a choice over which clothes he would wear and what he might do before school and so on. Then at some point he would choose to do something that she didn’t want him to do and he’d be in trouble. Yet all he was doing was making another choice. We need to think things through then.
8. Try never to shout. Some of us rarely shout and it’s not too much of temptation. Some of us often shout. With children it is almost never a good idea. It’s easy to fall into though. Try not to do it.
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