1. Don’t try to raise sinless children.
We are all born sinners, saved by grace. So our children are sinners, and this should be no surprise. We know why Junior lies. He is, in his heart, a liar before he knows a word to speak. We know why Sonny is violent, disobedient and lazy, or at least how this sin nature works. We have experienced it; so don’t be surprise when you find sin in your children’s lives. They are just like us!
And Junior's sin nature won’t be instantly eradicated through Christian books, Christian videos, Christian friends, Christian toys, scripture memory and obsessive Christian parenting. Junior is a sinner. Tell him so, so he can understand himself, and better understand why you are more interested in his transformation to Christ-likeness than in his obedience to you. Make him responsible for his sins by pointing him to the Cross more than pointing him to your own frustrations with him. Make the Cross of Jesus Christ the centre of you dealings with him, rather than your emotions being the centre of every battle against his wrong doings.
2. Don’t use church and the Bible as punishment.
You will lose your children in their faith journey when you tell force them to memorize scripture, for instance. Force them to write pages and pages of Bible verses. Or punish them by keeping them from going to church or youth activities.
Have you met any kid who really blossom under this kind of miserable coercion? Now I am not saying we shouldn't require our kids to memorize scripture and read the Bible, but that shouldn’t be as a punishment!
Punish them some other way. Make them clean their room! Or better yet, remove some privileges. And pray with them. Keep God always in the equation of every form of discipline.
3. Don’t say "God told us to" as your reason for parental decisions.
Yes, God could have spoken to you. But your kids need you to process issues with them so that God can also speak to them about those same things. So if you short-circuit the process of reasons, discussions and communications with an authoritative “God told us” liner, you are not growing your kids spiritually. Instead, you will be encouraging rebellion.
It is always harder to process issues with teenagers. So start early, in the pre-teen years so that they understand that this is the way we deal with issues in our home. We talk through things. We pray through issues. We come into agreement and then we respect and honour the boundaries we have set and where we transgress, we admit wrong and give room for grace and growth.
Do this and your kids will grow up loving God and loving you.
4. Don’t fear of what is normal.
We, Christians, have kids just as normal as the kids from non-Christian homes. I mean it's normal for our kids to want to sleep in on a Sunday morning instead of excited about going to church. It's normal to want to watch cartoons instead of read Leviticus. It's normal to prefer watching a soccer match to an having family altar. And here is some news: it's normal for girls to like boys and its normal for boys to like girls. It's normal to wonder why they aren't allowed to listen to or watch something. It's normal for them to ask questions. It's normal to want to be yourself and not just what your parents think you should be.
If you drive normal out of your kids, you may feel you've done the Lord's work, but you're wrong. You are not helping them grow in their faith journey. You are not allowing them to stumble and find their way to Christ. You are forcing them into Christ-likeness and neither they nor God would appreciate that.
By the way, it is not normal for a fifteen year old child to be a mature Christian, and it doesn't matter if she is a youth leader. It is not normal for a teenager to have the wisdom, maturity and experience of an adult, and we shouldn't be so foolish as to encourage our kids to act mature for the approval of a church audience. Our young people will usually have more curves in the road of life than we have map to chart, and that's okay. God will bring them to Himself, His way. When young people are herded by their parents down the broad path called Christian approval, they may never find the narrow road called Christ.
5. Don’t ignore culture, and isolate your children from it.
I am not suggesting you allow Junior the freedom to view pornography on the internet or introduce him to drugs yourself. I am saying parents who attempt to build a bunker and hide their children from culture make two mistakes: First, you probably make secular culture more appealing than it really is, to them and second, you won’t be teaching them to fight the battles in our culture, themselves.
I am certain that I have accomplished more by discussing the inanities of MTV with my kids than by forbidding it. My kids have learned to think biblically as I raised issues that surface through watching TV and movies. I think they will be the better for it. We see movies together and talk about them. My son introduced all of us to Heroes, and it brought up lots of discussions. My daughter loves watching Oprah and Ellen Degeneres and that has resulted in many discussions on biblical values and principles as we sought to square what was said in those shows with the Bible.
Locking a child in the Christian world with little exposure to the prevalent culture has the remarkable effect of turning the world's empty pleasures into a paradise of desire for them. It is better to hold your children by the hand and together face the culture before them than hide then from it.
Let me close with this thought. Our parenting is only part of what God will use (although it is the biggest part) in the life of a young person to bring them to Himself. He will also use poor choices, bad friends, failures and hard knocks. We would like to make sure God doesn't have to use those tools, but then they worked pretty good on most of us, didn't they? Let's follow the calling God gave parents so long ago, a calling that is as true now as in the past:
Deuteronomy 6:6-9
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
