Babies aren’t made of glass
Twenty-two years ago, we brought home our oldest daughter from the hospital. By today’s standards we were both young in age (both 25) and naive in experience. Neither of us knew much about taking care of an infant. We didn’t have any concept of parenting with a philosophy.
We were green and thrown into the fire. There are exceptions, but pretty much every parent is.
I remember dressing our oldest to go home from the hospital. It was her first “real” outfit. Kia and I very carefully and very slowly fit her arms through the sleeves of a cute little onesie, we painstakingly determined how to get her into a frilly dress, and we gently eased her little baby feet into tiny baby shoes. It took us nearly 30 minutes to get her dressed. We were afraid to pull on her arms too hard or turn her body in the wrong way. We were literally worried about breaking her.
Note for those who were like us – without newborn experience: babies are not made of glass.
That one moment told me we had a lot to learn about parenting. It started with caring for the physical needs of our daughter, but, of course, parenting is so much more than feeding, bathing, and dressing your child. Physical needs are the launching point. The real struggle comes with the emotional needs, worrying about mental health and growth, and what about the social concerns? Finally, if a follower of Jesus, there is raising a child in a Christian environment wrapped by a secular culture, which informs every other part of being a parent.
Parenting is hard.
A Manifesto: Parenting Goals + Parenting Philosophy
Entering into my 23rd year of being a parent, this is what I know from raising my own children and observing other parents: parenting is not a series of acts; parenting is a philosophy. Most parents can’t articulate their philosophy of raising a child, but they have built a belief system to that end. Every parent creates a personal parenting philosophy around their own goals for their children.
Again, this isn’t always well articulated, but take a moment…think about your goals for your children. For a lot of parents, the goal is a great education which will lead to a good, solid and maybe even amazing career. Some parents may put excelling in sports or the arts as the goal. Other parents may make the goal an adjective – creativity, kindness, passionate, etc.
Kia and I have three goals for our children:
- As followers of Jesus, we want to raise children who love and follow Jesus. As adults, we want them to have their own, personal connection to Jesus.
- We want a solid relationship with each of our children — as adults. As they each mature into their own lives and families, we want them to want to be with us. And as the same time, we want adult children we want to be around.
- Similarly, we want them to have relationship with each other. As adults, we want them to enjoy being with one another.
With these goals in mind, we parent to that end.
So how do you practically parent with your ultimate goals in mind? What matters? What can be given a lesser priority? This is where it’s important to develop a philosophy around your goals.
Your goals may be different than mine, so you will need to develop your own philosophy, but here is how we created a parenting philosophy. Take these four ideas and incorporate them into your parenting or use them as a springboard to create your own philosophy.
Parenting Philosophy 1: Balance Grace and Truth
A well known pastor, Andy Stanley, teaches to parent by balancing grace and truth. Grace is more hands-off and full of mercy while truth is hands-on and rule oriented. The most successful parents solve this constantly shifting balance of grace and truth throughout the course of each of their child’s lives. There are two different ways grace and truth play a part of parenting.
Start with truth…
First, lean into the truth side of parenting when your children are younger, and then as they age, shift into the grace side of parenting. The younger your kids are, the more do’s and don’ts play a part in raising children. The younger your child, the more they need discipline. As your child gets older, this should ease, both because you no longer need to deal with childish behavior (you’ve disciplined it out of them), and because grace is the better motivator.
If your children are still young, I encourage you to take this to heart. While you can deal with behavioral issues in teens and young adults, and it is never to late to change, but it’s much harder than when your children are young. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen parents struggle with unruly teens and young adults because they didn’t lean into the truth side of parenting when their children were young.
Again, when it comes to philosophy, the truth of rules and discipline is vital to knowing Jesus. While Jesus is full of grace, he maintains a standard of truth. My children can’t know Jesus if they don’t know truth because Jesus is truth.
…but don’t forget the grace!
Second, if you parent as a couple, you will find you each have a natural disposition. You will either lean toward grace or truth. Personally, I lean toward the truth side of parenting while Kia tends toward grace. That made it a bit easier for me to be an enforcer as our kids were younger, but now as they age, I work hard to find the grace side of parenting.
Yet, Kia is much more natural at listening, caring and hearing our kids. She is the balance to my strict, rule-based views. Not only do I need to work on the grace side of parenting with my older children, but I need to lean on her to help lead in this area of parenting. I need to listen to her advice. I need her help.
If you are parenting as a couple, lean on your spouse or co-parent to help you navigate the grace and truth balance. If you are parenting alone, be aware of your own tendency, and work hard to find balance. You might want to find a close friend or relative who can come in and help you at times – both with perspective and providing that hands-on second option.
Jesus is grace and truth
Think about this: If I only lead through the truth, and I don’t show grace, I won’t model Jesus. When I listen, hear and show mercy during late night talks, I display Jesus. I show a Jesus who my kids will want to know themselves. Jesus is truth, but Jesus is also grace.
Parenting Philosophy 2: Natural consequence is the best discipline.
Whether you tend to respond with grace or truth, discipline is a vital aspect of parenting. I know without doubt, we would struggle much more than we do with our teen children had we not been strict with our discipline as they were young.
If you want to have relationship with your kids as adults, you need to have relationship with them as teens. If you want to have relationship with a teenager, you need to have a teenager you want to have a relationship with. Appropriate discipline when a child is young creates a teenager who you want a connection with.
So, how do you discipline? We tried it all – spankings, time outs, grounding, etc. There can be a place for all of those forms of discipline, but what we found to be most effective was consequence based discipline taught by Kevin Leman. It’s a form of discipline that mirrors what every adult deals with in life.
How to make your kid do anything
When one of our daughters was in late elementary school, she played the flute. As most parents do, we encouraged her to practice the instrument SHE chose, and like most kids, she avoided practicing the very instrument SHE chose to play. At one point it came to a head. She had a test coming, so we encouraged her to practice. We didn’t threaten her with anything but the bad grade she would inevitably receive. She was stuck between the pain of the bad grade and the inconvenience of practicing her instrument, but it was HER decision to make.
Did she feel the pain without me nagging or yelling at her? If you count someone laying on the floor crying and kicking their feet like a two year old feeling pain, then yes, she felt the pain.
What motivates your child? Is it achievement in school or sports? Are the motivated by friends and relationships? Do they see the most value in money or video games? It could be a favorite meal or even dessert.
For one of our kids, dessert got him through dinner. So if dinner wasn’t his favorite choice that night, or if he wasn’t “hungry,” we let dessert be the natural consequence. Dessert was only an option after dinner was eaten. Dinner could be saved and put into the refrigerator. A piece of bread is always an option too. Our kids knew there wouldn’t be a fight to eat dinner, but there would be the natural consequence of no dessert later on in the evening. More often than not, dinner was eaten – no fights, no arguments.
Discipline creates disciples.
How I discipline shapes those I am disciplining. I want disciples who understand their choices lead to either great things or painful consequences. And the beautiful part is this form of discipline allows me the opportunity to talk with my kids about the choices they make – both before and after their choice. I can help them see they can change their personal world for the good or the bad. And this creates relationship.
Parenting Philosophy 3: Turn abstract goals into concrete actions.
Young children cannot think abstractly. It’s a skill they learn as they age – usually beginning in their middle school years. Because of this, it’s important to turn your abstract goals into a concrete actions.
How to make Jesus concrete
One simple example from our life was church. While Kia and I have always had personal times with Jesus, which we modeled in different ways for our kids, church was simple way to display following Jesus in our lives. Equating Jesus with church was natural for them, so we made (and still make) church a priority.
At the same time, we also participated in a lot of sports and activities as our kids were young. In today’s culture, there is no sacred time; activities are scheduled at all times and in all places. In order to model the importance of our relationship with Jesus, we always put church above these activities they participated in. For a while, there was only one church service available for us to attend on Sundays. If a game or activity happened to conflict with church, we chose church first. There were exceptions (tournaments, championships, special competitions, etc), but mostly, we put church first.
There were a couple of advantages to this. First, it made decision making easy. We knew before the schedule came out our choices on Sundays from 8am – 12pm. Second, and most important, it made it clear to our kids where our priorities were. Yes, sports and activities are important, but not more important than Jesus. He comes first.
If you read the first point (grace + truth), you know that this truth principle has eased as our kids have gotten older. Today, we do allow them to skip church for their games, but an interesting thing has happened – there are times they miss the game for church. They have prioritized Jesus first for themselves.
Principles create growth, success and favor
Let me add one unforeseen benefits to this principle — growth, success and favor. There is no easy way to have that conversation with a coach. There is a good chance she won’t really understand, though hopefully she will respect your choice. However, the long-term results have been growth, success and favor with my kids.
There are elements of talent, ability and desire on our kids part, but they have only seen improvement throughout their years of playing. I made it a point to be at every non-Sunday practice and game possible. When many of their teammates skipped practices or games, my kids were there. At that time, some of those kids were better players than our kids. I couldn’t deny it. Fast forward to today, and our kids leaped past them in ability on the field.
Which creates favor. A coach may not like being down a player at a game, but they will love the player who shows up to every other practice and game and who continues to improve. If you create some sort of similar standard based on your goals, it may be an initial set back for your child with that coach, teacher, leader, but long term, if you show dedication and commitment to them and that activity, your child will gain favor beyond expectation.
Parenting Philosophy 4: Be aware of fear, jealousy and strict opinions.
A couple of years ago, I read this quote. It stopped me in my tracks:
“Fear, jealousy and strict opinions keep people from the person of Jesus.”
-Michael Green
Religion of any sort operates through strict opinion. Religion tells me there is a way (ONE way) to act, think, and operate. Jesus came to change this perspective. He taught, connection with God came through following himself — not obeying anyone else’s strict opinion. Christianity – following Jesus – is not based on fear, jealousy or strict opinion, but when Christianity operates as religion it reverts to these three attitudes.
That statement by Michael Green may apply to parenting more than any other relationship we have. Other than a spouse, we are around our children more than anyone else in the world. When I’m uncomfortable with someone (myself included), I’ve found the root is usually fear, jealousy or a strict opinion. If I parent out of any of these three attitudes it keeps my kids from Jesus.
Is fear, jealousy or strict thinking driving you?
Just this week, I had a conversation with my daughter, and in essence she brought up this idea. She said, “I don’t know if I can live up to your standards.” Whether I meant it or not, I communicated a strict opinion of what it means to follow Jesus. I probably had, and if I did, the root was fear.
And here is the kicker, my fear is rooted in my goal – will she follow Jesus?
I stated this above, balancing grace and truth, but, as my kids age, I’m being forced to parent in a new way — grace. Each of my children have faith, but grace means allowing my teen and adult children to determine their individual beliefs on their own. I can and will walk with them through this, but I must be willing to allow them the space to make their faith look different than mine.
And, if so, it’s okay.
God is comfortable with me.
All of this leads to one final point. It may be the most important idea of all. God is comfortable with me, so I am comfortable with my children.
Scripture constantly refers to God as “Father”. He is my ultimate example of how to be parent. It’s only been as an adult I’ve understood how God the Father is comfortable with me. He’s comfortable with my achievements, but God is also comfortable with my failures. The Father is comfortable with my questions. He is comfortable with my moments of unbelief. God the Father wants the best for me, and He is willing to walk with me through all my ups and down to get me to what is best.
God is comfortable with me. I haven’t always believed this. Sure there are things within me that aren’t godly, but God’s grace extends to those places. At times, I still have a hard time accepting God is comfortable with all of me, but it’s my model as a father. If God sees me, with all my imperfections, and He is comfortable with me, then shouldn’t I be comfortable with my children?
I am comfortable with my children.
Kia and I have three goals for our four children: love Jesus, desire relationship with us as parents, and for them to be friends with each other. So I choose to be comfortable with my children — their achievements and failures, questions and unbelief. I work to be comfortable with them in all they walk through – every up and each down.
I want my kids to love Jesus, desire relationship with me, and be friends with each other, so I will serve them with grace and speak truth, I will allow consequences be the best discipline, I will make the abstract concrete, and I will be aware of fear, jealousy and strict opinions in myself.
This is my parenting philosophy, maybe even manifesto. But what is your parenting philosophy?
Leave a Reply