Avoiding the TrapsMaking the transition from parenting younger to older children
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
Thanks to the elders for actually giving me a chance to share with you guys tonight a little bit I want to talk some more on the topic of parenting continue on what Sean's been doing for us the last few weeks The session I have for us tonight is actually a variation of a module that I teach in the older parenting class that I've done for some years, but I've expanded on it as I've kind of observed and watched over the years the trials and tribulations of raising older kids as I've kind of now sort of gotten I've done a lot of my parenting and there's still some parenting even yet to go, but now as I enter into the grandparent phase, there's some things I've learned.
I also want to hasten to say that as I stand before you and share some of these principles, while I believe they're to be true, I have to also confess that I've not been, I don't get an A plus for having accomplished all of these. I don't think any parent can ever give themselves an A plus. It's really large that I've decided more by the grace of God than by my cleverness as a parent that our kids turn out. But there are some things that we can do to be effective parents and if we're faithful and diligent, I believe it maximizes the chances that we will see our kids lay hold of the mantle to proceed us and exceed us in the faith.
And so I just want to encourage all of us who are still in the middle of the stream in the parenting process that there's always hope and there are things that we can do to again make our parenting experience a lot better. When you watch a world-class athlete perform in some event, maybe it's the Olympics, whatever sporting event it might be, you just can't help but be amazed at the proficiency with which they perform their task. And there's one thing you know for sure about all of them. Whatever else there may be to differentiate something. The one thing in common, as you know, they have all worked a long time.
They have worked hard. work diligently to train themselves and to prepare themselves for that event. They just didn't wake up one day and say, I think I'll enter into the high jump competition and just walk up and do it. They've spent long hours and that work is necessary because in those competitions you think about it, it's going to be a few hundredths of a second or a fraction of an inch that's going to decide who goes home with the gold and who goes home with nothing. And so the competition is fierce. There can be a lot of analogies that are made when we think about the training of our children. It requires the same kind of discipline, the same kind of effort, the same kind of mindset that we're preparing and training our children to get out there and to do life.
And all of us as parents, I would dare say, would say a hearty amen. Yes, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to train our children. That is the goal, to send them out. But then what happens oftentimes is we train and we train and we train. But then we say, well, wait a minute, don't go out and compete. We're not ready if you do that yet. We're not ready to release you. And somehow we spend all of our time training them. And then when they hit 18, 19, 20, 35, whatever age, we send them out. And that's the first time we get to see them, if you will, perform, to compete, to see how well they do. In essence, we continue to baby them even while we're training them.
And that's a real trap. Two major traps that I see in the parenting process is the tendency to either, when the children are very little, is to give them way too much freedom, freedom way beyond their maturity and ability to handle that freedom. And the other extreme, the other ditch, is to never let loose, to just always be there having to babysit them and to hold their hands. There's got to be somewhere, the ability to make that transition, and that's what we're talking about tonight is how to transition from parenting little kids to parenting older children. And so I'll be talking to you tonight first off about relationship and how parenting by what happens in the older years is shocked to parent more and more by influence which implies relationship.
It'll be less and less, Johnny do this, it'll be more and more influence upon their lives. And then we'll also be talking about a couple of parenting traps, some extremes that we can fall into in our parenting approach if we're not careful. Excuse me a second. Now, obviously if you've raised kids for any like the time, you know they're changing, you know they're growing. Those cute little babies that were once in a little basket are now 6'4", 240 pounds and looking down upon you, they do grow obviously physically. But there are a lot of other changes obviously going on in their lives as well, that are intangible. And we as parents have to be prepared to adapt to that change and and be ready to respond to it.
It's natural, it's not something to fear. Our children are growing up. They are forming their own opinions, their own beliefs, their own likes, their own dislikes. And what we wanna do is we wanna work with that and we wanna shape that, we wanna influence that, but we have to be careful to allow the child to be able to grow as God has designed them to grow. We can see that progression even in Christ's relationship with the disciples. John 15, 15, Jesus said, "'No longer do I call you slaves, For the slave does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you.
There was an evolution in the relationship that Jesus even had with his disciples. There should be one that occurs with us as well, with our children. A wise parent will recognize these changes in their child and adapt their parenting approach. That's the key thing, a parenting approach that's adapting. Attempting to parent a teenager the way one parents a small child will almost always lead to exasperation and resentment on the part of the child. If you continue to parent your 15 year old like you did your five year old you will exasperate them. There are many parents who believe that they are dealing with a rebellious child. They'll come and say, Jim help me out. My child's just really rebellious. They're not compliant or not obeying and when I look into the situation I find out that really it's the parent who is guilty of exasperating the child because they're not considering the child's age or maturity.
In the past few years, I've gotten a couple different calls from families saying, would you help? And in two situations in particular, I'm thinking of, it was situations where parents who had 19, in one case a 19-year-old daughter, in another case a 22-year-old daughter. And the parents came from a very, very ultra conservative belief on the parenting process. And they still saw it as their job to really keep a very tight rein on those daughters until such time as they would get married. It was to the point where the daughter would go out and shop for her clothes. She would come home and she would have to model her clothes.
Her father literally was taking out a ruler and measuring hemlinks and necklines and all that good stuff. If the daughter wanted to go out to be with friends, the father would cross-examine. She would go out, she'd come home, he'd say, okay, now tell me verbatim, everything that was said, what was communicated, very restrictive time limits on what she could do. If she dared deviate and do something, maybe stop for an ice cream cone between point A and point B, she would get in serious trouble. This is a 19-year-old. That is excessive parenting. That is too much control. But we see that going on, and that's a classic case of a parent who has not yet learned.
Your parent and 19-year-old, different than your parent and 19-month-old. As you're, let's talk about parenting by influence, the first main point I wanted to cover tonight. This is, again, dealing with relationship. And I'm going to be giving you eight principles, if you will, eight things to consider as you look at how you parent by influence, how you work out a relationship or build a relationship with your child so that you can parent by influence. As your child begins to transition from the younger child to the older child, and let's just put that roughly in the 10 to 12-year-old time span. Don't get hard and fast on that number, but there's somewhere around there on either side is the dividing line.
You're going to begin to parent more and more by way of influence with that child. With a very young child, you parent mostly by directive. You give instruction to follow, and if they choose to disobey, then you chastise them. It's fairly simple to parent a young child. Johnny do this. And if they don't, you deal with that attitude. With older children, you parent less and less by directive and you no longer chastise them. You can imagine me trying to chastise Jesse back when he was 18. That wouldn't work very well. But there may be other consequences that come to bear in that older child's life if they choose to disobey. By far the most effective way to parent older children is through a parent-child relationship.
And I know Sean has hit this several times in his series. The key is to have that relationship with our kids. The old standard that I'm your parent and I told you so won't get you very far with a teenager if there's no real relationship. It's a very sad thing and we've seen it happen in our families in some cases where that child gets to be 12-ish. They realize they're just a little bit shorter version of you and they begin to question who says, you know, who died and made you God. And in extreme cases, those children tell the parents and not some kind of word, stick it in your ear, I'm going to go do what I want to do.
And that is a really tough situation to turn around. That takes an act of God to change that child's heart. If that relationship has been so weak that that child is willing to just shake their fist in their parents' face and say, I'm out of here. There's sadly in our society and within our church structure, not a whole lot that can be done except to make an appeal and pray. Some parents, by force of their personality, might be able to intimidate their child into compliance. But once the intimidation is removed, the child will simply revert back to going their own way. So, some of you may be thinking, well, my child's well-contained.
They're home on time. They're obeying me. Ask yourself the question, why? Is it because of fear? Is it because of intimidation? Is it because they don't want to cause grief? Or is it because they really have a heart that's right?
that the goal of biblical parenting is to reach the heart of your child. Without a genuine parent-child relationship, it will be nearly impossible to do that. Parents who fail to establish a genuine relationship with their child are going to see anything from passive indifference. That's the child that says, keep my head low, just duck, stay quiet, my day's coming when I can get out of here. Or in some cases, you'll just see flat out open rebellion. It'll just depend on the temperament of the child, but that'll be kind of the two paths they'll take if their hearts aren't right. Just lay low, stay out of trouble, or again, you shake their fist in your face. For those children who are truly saved and have learned submission to God, even they, if they're over, if they have overbearing parents, they might, those parents might still see a proper response. However, their ability to influence the child will be diminished. Jesus gives us the proper motivation for obedience in John 1415. Real simply, if you love me you will keep my commandments. The only pure and
correct motive for a child's obedience is love for God and love for the parent. If your child obeys you out of duty or fear of consequences or to avoid grief, then the child is not, has not learned biblical submission. When the parent-child relationship is strong, the child will make wrong choices, but the bond of love that holds the relationship together will cause the child to want to repent and repair any damage to the relationship. We saw this in our own family life. One of my children had made a serious error in judgment, let's put that way, it caused a lot of grief within the family. And as they were confronted and we were dealing with the issue, one of the things that came back to my ears is that they were one night visiting with a friend and they were saying, the thing that I didn't really anticipate is how this is really affecting my parents and affecting our relationship.
And that was, I was pleased to hear that, that he understood that there was a cost relationally to that decision. But that's what you want to have in the hearts of your children is that relationship matters when they make their decision. Keep in mind that you cannot force a good relationship with your child. It is something that's built up over time. And just don't walk in and say, son, we're gonna have a relationship. You have to build it up. Young children naturally want good relationships with their parents. Even older children generally desire to have a good relationship with their parents. That's the good news is your kids in their heart of hearts likely really want a great relationship with you.
So now I'm going to give you some these eight basic principles that will help establish a healthy relationship between you and your child. First principle is start early. The right time to begin developing a good relationship with your child is when they are young. If no real relationship exists as the child enters into the teen years and ie you've ignored the relationship up until then, it's going to be harder to establish one. But again, it can be done. One good practice is to establish something that Miguel and I call date nights, or some other regular time you spend with the child one-on-one, regularly scheduled times that you get away with them.
Very easy to start that when they're young, and then it makes it a very easy natural thing to continue on into the teenage years. These are times when one or both parents get alone with the child for the purpose of just enjoying doing something together. The outing should include a time to talk and should not be used by you to air your grievances with your child. You don't want the child to be thinking, uh-oh, one of those date nights, dad's gonna lay it on me again. That child has to be able to approach that date night, that time together without fear. It's fair for them to open up their hearts if they have a beef, if they have a concern.
You want to hear their heart. That's what you're trying to do, is hear their heart. but don't use it as your time to give them some kind of correction. Do not try to force a child to open up, but be ready to respond when they do. As a child realizes that these times come with no agenda, they will be more likely to enjoy them and look forward to them. And by starting those habits early, it establishes a pattern that will be natural to continue on as they get older. Again, you can start it up in the teenage years, if that's not been your habit, but it might be a little awkward at first, but just stay with it, because again, in the heart of the child, I believe, is still the desire to have a relationship with the parent.
The second principle, an important one, is repent. It may be that you have already established a pattern of being harsh, indifferent, or in some other way, neglectful of your relationship with your child. If this is the case, then repent of any wrong attitude, and ask your child's forgiveness, express your desire to have an honest relationship with them. It goes a long way when mom and dad are honest and admit their faults, admit their weaknesses. Guess what? It's not a secret to the kids anyhow. They already figured it out, so you might as well be honest. And then you can clear the air that way. It will be very difficult for the child to open up if they perceive hypocrisy in the parent. Left unresolved, hypocrisy on the part of the parent will cause the child to respond either with aloofness or hostility. And again, We see kids go both directions, the quiet, stay out of the way, or open hostility.
I've heard it said, and I believe it's to be true, that the two greatest predictors of teenage rebellion is hypocrisy and harshness in the parent. So if they pick up on your hypocrisy, or if you're overly harsh, that is going to almost guarantee you're going to drive them towards a rebellion. It is possible through no fault to the parent that the child exhibits these attitudes due to their own sin. So I am recognizing that you as a parent can be doing everything right and you may have a child who has a sin issue that's causing them to be rebellious. In that case, then you're just going to have to deal with it through the normal discipline process, different topic.
But as we as parents, we want to make sure that that misbehavior, that rebellion, that attitude in our child is not being born out of them simply responding to us in like-kind. principle under this developing relationship is learning to listen. Part of the job of being a parent is to instruct our children in spiritual and temporal matters. Too often parents forget that their jobs also entail being a good listener. If parents are always the one doing the talking, there is no way to effectively ascertain what's going on in the mind of the child. Proverbs 18, 13 makes that really clear.
who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him. I'll admit, I'm guilty of that one. I've got a whole boatload of knowledge and wisdom that I can impart upon my children, and so there's a tendency for me to want to go into lecture mode. But that does nothing for me to understand where the heart of my child is. I need to listen a lot more than I talk. And I think all of us as parents who have a lot of Bible knowledge and a lot of Bible training, there's a tendency to have it be a one-way communication. Far better to have your child speak so you understand where they're coming from. As your child begins moving into the older years, you should increasingly use more listening techniques to help draw him or her out. And I'll just give you a little tip here for free also. Gail and I found that the ideal time to talk to your teenage kids was between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. For some reason that's the window of time when their hearts really open up. I guess they get so fatigued they finally
start talking. So be prepared for some sleepless nights for those kind of times. The temptation is always to lecture the children, especially when they are doing or saying something wrong, but doing so will likely only make them clam up and be reluctant to discuss what they are really thinking.
Asking lots of questions in a quiet tone is far more effective in getting them to open up than going into lawn monologues that they've heard before. When your child, older child, does something wrong and he knows better, simply ask him if he remembers what you expect of him and ask him if he has a good reason for not doing it. Moms, I'll direct this comment to you. There is a tendency that the child, you know, for the 15th time is doing something wrong, table habits, cleaning up the room, whatever it may be. And for some reason, you rewind the tape and you just play that half an hour lecture again on why it's so important to have good manners. You know, someday you're going to eat with the Queen of England or whatever, you know, whatever reasons you give them. The child knows. They know the rules. They know the reasons why. They're just choosing at that moment to not follow them. And so far better to not go into that lecture mode than just to remind them. Do you remember the rules of the table? Yes. Oh yes. Elbows
off the table. Whatever it is. Okay. Please follow them. But avoid the tendency to go into the lecturing mode. The offense may call for some corrective action, but even that won't shut down good communication if the child knows that he's wrong. We've never found in our home that if we've been fair in our discipline, if we have correctly ascertained what the issue of the heart was and have dealt with it fairly, the children, they didn't like the discipline, but they don't look back with regret. I've asked all my kids, so tell me, what did you think about the times you got in trouble and how did we do with how we handled that?
And they typically they say, boy, dad, you don't know half of what you missed. But there's been never an attitude of, oh, wow, you were just unfair or that wasn't right. They knew when they were wrong. Kids, again, in their heart of hearts, they realize, I'm busted, I am guilty. And if you deal with it properly with the right attitude, without harshness, without hypocrisy, fairly, that child will typically respond to that and it will bolster your relationship. It won't tear your relationship down. What are we on? Number four? Number four, be encouraging. First Thessalonians 511, therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.
Parents who examine their children's lives will always find areas that need improving. That's just the reality. And guess what? If God examines us, he always finds areas needing improving. The problem is that we can too often make parents, we can make parents sting with their praise. When we examine our children's lives, we say, ooh, man, that needs fixing. That's a problem. We've got to work on that. And it can make a stingy when it comes to offering praise to our kids. The fear is that praising the child for something that could have been even better might cause them to end up accepting mediocrity. Many parents negate their praise and discourage your children needlessly by offering them what I like to call a butt sandwich.
Have you ever heard of a butt sandwich? Those who've taken the parenting class have heard it. A butt sandwich is when a parent expresses some kind of praise to their child and then adds a butt to the praise. For example, you did a good job cleaning the bathroom, but you forgot to... Constructive criticism is good and proper in its place. Try to separate your praises from your criticisms. In the example above, praise them for a job well done. the next time the chore comes around, give them further instruction on what you expect accomplished. I've seen just a lot of kids really grow up doubting their parents' approval because they always had the butt sandwich.
The parent just couldn't avoid throwing a criticism on top of the praise, which totally negated the praise. There's been a lot written on the topic of using praise and encouragement to motivate others, some of its nonsense, frankly, such as praising employees simply for showing up for work on time. Yeah, the Boeing guys, and the people working companies or that was literally, we gotta figure out how to get people to show up on time. Oh, we'll applaud them, we'll praise them when they show up on time. Used to be that you got fired if you didn't show up on time. Parents should not get in the, excuse me, parents should not get in the habit of lavishing on merited praise on their child in order to build up your self-esteem.
That's net or imbalance. There's again a lot out there, just praise Johnny for every little thing. It's not their self-esteem that we are trying to build up. It is genuine fellowship with our child that we're trying to foster. And so we wanna look for legitimate reasons to praise them, to build them up, to encourage them.
Look for signs that your child is putting forth their best effort and praise and encourage them for that. Even when they fail at something, if they put forth a best effort, That is praiseworthy. Praisworthiness is found in the process, not the outcome. A diligent student who earns a C average deserves praise, whereas a student with a B average does not. One of my kids had, they had spoken before a group, and they're a pretty gifted communicator, and they got lots of accolades, lots of, you know, That was a great job, super duper. But I knew that that child had not put in their best effort. Again, it was a well done message, but it could have been better because it wasn't their best effort.
I asked them there. I said, was that your best effort? And they said, well, no, not really. I didn't really work that hard on it. And I said, well, son, you got to make sure you don't coast you live because you're gifted in that area. You've got to put in your best effort. And that's what we want to push our kids towards is your best effort. It's been said that the absence of encouragement is discouragement. There's a lot of truth to that statement. Proverbs 27.5 seems to reinforce that principle. Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Think about that one. Your child would prefer an open rebuke to love that is concealed.
Many children grow up rarely hearing encouraging words from one or both parents. This can lead the child to feeling like they cannot please the parent, which in turn shuts down effective communication. Why do I want a relationship with somebody that I don't think I can please? Number five, I think we're on, rebuke when necessary. Proverbs 27, six, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. Parents should not be afraid to rebuke their child when they need it. Part of a genuine parent-child relationship is holding the child accountable. That's what real relationships do. Parents who are overly harsh and those who are excessively lenient will tend to lose the respect of their child and hence the relationship will deteriorate.
A parent who rebukes their child fairly and in love will engender greater loyalty provided that the child is maturing as they should be. Again, it is possible there are children out there who will just resent discipline even when it's fairly administered. But generally, most children who are growing and maturing as they should, they will not resent the discipline, but in fact, it will draw you closer together. Many of you see that with your little ones. Typically what's your response after the discipline? They want to come immediately. They want the hug. They want the restoration. That's still in the heart of that child, even as they get older.
to avoid conflict with their child for fear of losing a relationship with him will most likely lose the very thing that they're trying to preserve. Don't get into the trap of trying to be their buddies and avoid the conflicts. That is not a way to win the heart of your child. They will eventually resent that and it will erode your relationship. The pursuit of a genuine relationship with your child must never supersede the responsibility to correct and reprove your child when they need it. To compromise in this area in order to be buddies with your child is really idolatry, is what it amounts to. Number six, allow for differences of opinion.
I added this one since I first wrote this material. It's one, again, that I've had to really grow in myself, allowing the fact that that little pertinent, well, not so little anymore, not looking eye to eye with me. They got a different mindset sometimes. They have different ways of looking at things. They perhaps in areas of preferences have different views, and I have to make room for that. Most parents hope that their children will agree with and embrace all the personal preference choices they have made. These can include practices in areas of dress, entertainment, drinking, to name a few. The point here is not to compromise your convictions, but rather to consider if your preference is incumbent on all believers or not.
That's a question we need to ask ourselves when we get into these so-called gray areas. Is this something that I can make a biblical argument that all Christians everywhere should live by? Those are hills you die on if you believe the Bible prescribes it for everybody. But if it's an area that there's wiggle room, there's a gray room, some believers can practice that, some can't. We need to recognize the fact that our children may hold a view that's different than us. It's okay to set a standard for your household that is not incumbent on believers and then allow your older child to hold a different opinion even while you still ask them to hold the standard in their home.
Totally fair game for you to have a standard, maybe you've got a movie standard, whatever it is. It's okay, in my household, this is what the Martins do. Then if you have your own household, someday you're free to do differently. And I've had that conversation with my kids on some of the topics. but the dangers is that we try to persuade them that our way is God's way and that gets to be a real tricky deal. Many arguments arise needlessly when the parent tries to out-debate the child insisting that their standard is the biblical one. An example might be how high a movie rating can be before it's out of bounds to watch.
The family standard might be a G rating. Your family may have just said G movies and that's it. And the child might, you know, your adult, your older child might be saying, hey, I don't see anything wrong with that PG movie. And there you go. You know, you're into debate and you're trying to convince them that God says somewhere in the Bible, G movies are the only ones that are allowed. Nevermind the fact that there's other Christians saying no movies. Um, side note, I was teaching Sunday school to fifth and sixth graders and we had a discussion on movie ratings and, um, and cause we were trying to talk them through this principle and, uh, they started saying, well, we, we only watch G's and somebody said we watch a PG and they were back and forth and finally some kid over here says well we watched an R and all these kids about broke their necks whipping around and they were ready to just excommunicate that kid right on the spot. How dare you do that? But made for a fun discussion that day. Don't get into an argument over movie ratings. That's not the point.
Instead engage your child in a calm and thoughtful discussion about how you you arrived at your standard and how they arrived at theirs. That's key. What's yours based on? What's theirs based on? This kind of a discussion will help reveal the heart of your child and possibly expose flaws in your own thinking on the subject. I've had this conversation with our kids in the past. We used to use a movie screening program called Screen It. Some of you used to use that. I don't know what they use nowadays on the So the kids say, dad, can I go see this movie? So we would jump in the screen. Now I'd say, what screen it say?
And they'd go look and they say, oh, it's only got four bad words. And I'd say, oh, wow, that's good. I was concerned it might have five bad words, but it's only got four, so it's okay. And obviously with a little mocking tone in my voice. And then we would have a discussion. How do you decide how many bad words is appropriate? Zero, 15, what can a Christian indulge in and then still keep themselves unstained? And that's the kind of conversation you want to have. Now you're all looking at me like, tell me what the right number is. There is no right number. You have to discern that before the Lord. But you want to have that kind of conversation.
Instead of the hard and fast G movies only, you would rather get into their heart. Why do you want to see that movie? Oh, because all your friends are going to go see it. Well, is that how you make your decisions if all your friends are doing it? That's what makes it OK. When are you going to stand alone and say, I don't care why my friends are doing it? You try to help them think through, what's their standard and again where's it coming from. Again the principle is that it's okay to have your standards. I'm not here to take shots at anybody's standards and the child must follow them when they're in your home but it's okay for the child to respectfully disagree and again we're talking to older children here. Number six if I haven't lost track of where I'm at is be humble. Humble parents will be far more effective with older children than than parents who come across as perfect or always right.
The reality is that parents aren't perfect, and the older a child becomes, the more aware he is of that fact. Parents who are honest enough to admit when they make a mistake or sin will gain the respect of their child. Parents who try to hide or deny their faults will surely alienate the child.
Sadly, there are leadership, There are leaders in churches today who have been trained. You do not let anybody see your flaws. Problem is, everybody sees your flaws, but you never admit them, and that's foolishness. That does not engender loyalty. That is not engender relationship. Admit it when you're at fault. When a parent realizes that they have sinned in the presence of their child, they should quickly and humbly confess that sin. Number seven, be an example of what you expect. That must be number eight, so I lost my numbers. This final principle, be an example of what you expect, this final principle for developing a good relationship instructs us to make sure that we aren't living by a double standard. One standard that we expect our children to live by and another lower standard that we live by.
In other words, don't be a hypocrite. Now this isn't to say that your child should have all of the same rights and privileges you have as an adult. It is to say that when it comes to areas such as speech and conduct, there shouldn't be any differences. It's not okay for daddy to use certain words that the children aren't allowed to use. That would be a hypocrite in that situation. If parents will seek to apply these eight principles and their child is not choosing to live in open rebellion, then there's a great hope for a genuine relationship to form between the two. Out of this relationship the parent will be able to continue to influence the child as they grow and mature and both can look forward to a friendship that goes on into their adult life. It's a real joy for Gayle and I now we can sit down with all of our kids and just enjoy them and they come back and they ask our thoughts and our opinions, now what do you think about this, what about this situation, that's what you want to see happen to have
that kind of relationship. Let me then, at the time we have left here, go into the second major topic I wanted to have. That was all about relationship and building relationship so that you can parent by influence. That's what you want to be doing with your older kids, parent by influence. Now let's talk about what I call transition traps. These are some traps that parents commonly get into by not making a transition from parenting younger kids and older kids. Like many areas of life, these cautions I'm going to give you are warnings against certain extremes or ditches. It's a word we like to use here. These are ditches that non-thinking parents can fall into.
Often the right approach lies somewhere between these two ditches. And so I'm going to give you two sets of ditches to watch out for. The first set of ditches that you want to watch out for as you're making the transition to parenting older kids is mothering versus neglecting your kid, your older kid. Mothering is one ditch, neglecting is the other ditch. The issue here is how to transition from parenting the child as you would when they are very young while still providing for them as necessary since they're not yet totally independent. The mothering parents and men you could throw yourself in there too. We just don't typically call it daddying, but mothering, but dads can mother.
follows along, that person, that kind of parent, follows along after the older child doing for them many of the things the child ought to be doing for themselves. Mothering can show up in various forms, being a maid service for a sloppy child, being a cheering section for a lazy child, being the defense team for a child who is in conflict with some authorities because of their own irresponsibility. Mothering can also manifest itself in not letting the child grow up, keeping them from reasonable activities because they might get hurt. Lecturing the child as you would when training a four-year-old, running the child's schedule for them, dictating what clothes the child should wear.
Let's expand on some of those. Very, again, real-world situations. Mothers who still in their mothering instinct, they want to take care of the child. We have literally seen 18-year-old men go off to college and not have clue when I'm, They might have known how to boil water. That was it. They had no idea. We actually had a young man in our home, and we said, there's a refrigerator. Fix yourself something. And we realized 15 minutes later, they were still staring in the refrigerator. And they honestly, with all sincerity, says, I do not know how to make a sandwich. I have never made a sandwich before in my life.
18-year-old man. Going into homes and the bedrooms, a lot of parents say, that's the child's domain. You hope they keep it clean. But I've walked into the young men's rooms, young ladies' rooms, where you literally are knee deep in clothes and junk and trash, total irresponsibility, because the mama's gonna come in, he knows mama will come clean up for me, and she'll do that once a week. If I got a maid service, why should I do it?
Taking care of a child's schedule for them. Here's an example of, again, how you try to help your child learn natural consequences. We've had this conversation with our kids. Hey, mom and dad, can I go do such and such? And we'll be out till 2 in the morning. Well, didn't you already say you were going to do something tomorrow morning at 6 AM? Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't worry. It's OK. We'll be fine. And I'm thinking, OK, now you understand 6 minus 2 is 4. That means you get four hours of sleep. Oh, it's OK. It's OK. I can do that. I said, all right. Peace. That's fine. So sure. And assuming that the activity they're going to go do is safe, then I say yes, you may go do that.
When 6 AM rolls around and they're still in bed ignoring the alarm, I'm in there pulling the covers off. And I said, you made a commitment. And don't care how much grown-in and complaint they're going to do. Say, you made a commitment. You had a choice. You made a bad choice. Now you have to live with the consequences. That's part of what you want to do as you're training them to accept responsibility for their actions. Notice I did not overrule. In that situation, I did not mutter them by saying, that's a bad decision, no, you cannot go out. I just gave them information and let them make a bad decision. That's actually very helpful to your kids to learn.
It helps you as a parent understand where you may have some gaps in your parenting still to work on. Some of these things we're talking about are appropriate when the child is younger, the mothering activities.
he or she begins to approach the teen years, the wise parent begins to transfer more and more responsibility to the child. You want to see what they're going to do with the training you've given them. Go back to the athlete example. We don't, you know, or use football. You don't do football practices and never get into a real skirmish. You don't wait until game day for the first time you give the guy the football. I mean, imagine if a coach stood there in a locker room with a star quarterback and they just drew plays on the chalkboard. That's what practices were all the time. And then game day, all right, here's a football, you know, you're supposed to throw it now, just like we drew on the chalkboard. That'd be crazy. But we parent that way. We sit there and we train and train and train and explain and explain to our kids, and we never give them the football until they're packing their bags to go away for college or moving out for the first time.
We want to give them the football sooner in life so we can find out what they're going to do with it. The basic rule of thumb is this, do not do for your child what they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves. There are exceptions to the rule, but generally, the child should be expected to do for themselves what they can. Some of the choices the child will make will be mistakes. Your job isn't to prevent the child from all possibility of failure. Failure can be a good thing if the child learns from it. If an older child insists on making a certain choice, staying out too late, and you know it will have a negative consequence, then it's not a sin issue. Then give them your counsel, but let them make the final choice.
Now I want to slip in here something, again, true confession, something that I was guilty of largely because I'm pretty good at recognizing all of the problems with something. You throw any situation at me and I can give you 45 reasons why it's not going to work. One of my children who shall go nameless, but she tends to burn the candle at both ends and she's never met an opportunity or a volunteer project or whatever that she's not willing to take on. And so the joke in the house is that she doesn't burn a candle just at both ends, she sets the whole candle ablaze and often gets herself burned out in the process.
Well, dad, not really following this principle that I'm trying to teach you guys now, call me. I was, you know, dad candle snuffer. I would run around behind her just snuffing out the candle, telling her all the reasons why that was a bad idea and why that wasn't going to work. You know, until it dawned on me one day, you know what, maybe instead of snuffing her candle, I should instead say, hey, okay, maybe burning just both ends of the candle, not the whole candle. Maybe that'd be better because you know what that does to your body if you try and do that. Give her some counsel. Give her some advice. snuff the candle, instead encourage her to use her giftedness.
And if she's going to over commit herself, she'll learn next time she won't make that decision. But so some of us as parents tend in that direction, we can see the problems and we'll end up acting like candle snuffers in our kids' lives, instead of allowing them to use our giftedness and make mistakes along the way as they do it. Mistakes are not a bad thing if they learn from them. The older child will find themselves occasionally in conflict with friends, teachers, or bosses. Do not fight their battle for them. If they need coaching, coach them, but don't try and be their dragon slayer for them. I got into an interesting conversation one day with a parent from, as you know, I was the school chairman, and so there was a very upset parent situation.
There was a child and a student who was actually known for being a bit of a troublemaker, kind of one of those kids you just want to sort of put in a garbage can. And one day somebody actually did that. And the parent called me very irate. And then they were talking about lawyers and gunna sue and this is you know harassment and bullying and blah blah blah. And this was a parent that was well known within the school for being very mothering and always fighting that kids battles for them and always protecting that kid. And I wasn't getting anywhere with momma so she finally put the dad on the phone and and so again he basically he was what mama wants is what I'm gonna communicate to you he wasn't really being a dad but I just you know I said sir you know can I speak freely with you I said I mean we you know obviously we're gonna keep kids from putting your kids in garbage cans we agree that's bad but I am very concerned for your son's sake that your wife is not doing them any favors by going out and fighting
all of his battles. This is really not that big of a deal to be threatening lawyers and going on the war path here. I said, you need to step up and work with your wife and help your son understand the consequences that got him in the garbage can in the first place and be a leader. The dad was quiet there for a while. Then of course he's looking like, who do I have to sleep with? The chairman of the board or my wife. But he went away and the threats of lawsuits went away. But we had to push back a little bit. Our kids they're going to do dumb stuff, they're going to get in trouble. When the teacher comes and says, your kid messed up in class, there's probably a pretty good chance your kid messed up in class.
And yet sadly today, most parents come in there and they go on the warpath and they become the kid's champion. Now I'm not saying doubt your child or distrust them, but consider the possibility that your child might be less than perfect all the time in those situations. Teach them how to respectfully approach authority and make a proper appeal. If the conflict arises from their own failures, help them to see and admit it. Teach them that life isn't fair and sometimes they will suffer consequences unfairly. When a child fails to take on responsibility that they are capable of such as doing chores, keeping their rooms clean, being diligent with homework, etc., then you will need to confront the child and perhaps begin restricting some of their freedoms.
Older children, and this is an important principle as you're working with older kids, older children will naturally want more and more freedom and they will tend to test the boundaries of that freedom. It's important that they learn that personal liberty is inseparably tied to personal responsibility. This works beautiful, parents. The child just saying, they're begging you, dad, I need the car keys. I got to go out and do, hang out with my friends. And you're having this conversation about do you really want them, or are you responsible? Yeah, dad, I'll be responsible. Then you take them over to the bedroom, and you say, well, let's take a look at your bedroom.
It looks like World War III occurred in there. If you can't take care of a bedroom, why am I going to give you the keys to my $15,000 vehicle? Convince me that you are responsible. And end of discussion. a kid understands, yeah, you got a point there. So you help them understand that with the freedoms they want, they have to embrace the responsibilities that come with becoming an adult and growing up. Keep those two tied together in their minds, and that'll help motivate them because they want more freedom, and they'll accept the responsibility that I have to. If they won't, then guess what? No freedom. Our kids have heard more than once from me.
I'm looking forward to the day that I totally set you free. But that day is not going to come until you accept responsibility. You're the one that controls how much freedom you get, by how much responsibility you show me. If the child will not accept personal responsibility, then it is appropriate to restrict their freedom until they learn that responsibility and freedom go hand in hand. Now, on the opposite end of the scale from the mothering is the neglecting parent. This is the parent who largely lets the child live an undisciplined life. This parent views the teen years as a time when the child is going to be a slob or lazy or experiment with the illicit activities.
Don't worry, they say. He or she will grow out of it. There are parents that just view the teenage years. They take the Mark Twain approach to parenting, throw them in a whiskey barrel until they're about 13. And then you plug up the knot hole, and when they're about 18, you let them back out of the whiskey barrel. Mark Twain's advice for raising teenagers, because everybody knows it's going to be terrible teens and just batten down the hatches, and your goal is to help them survive. That's bogus, faulty parenting approach there. But the lenient parent, the neglecting parent, takes that attitude. There's not much you can do with this kid.
He's going to be unreasonable. The hormones are going to take control, and they just let the child go their own way. Whatever you call this approach, it isn't parenting, and its sinful neglect of the parenting responsibility. Often one parent will be neglectful to try and compensate for the other parent being too mothering. Both approaches are wrong and ultimately harmful to the child. Proper parenting in the older years requires that the parents push the child to take on greater and greater responsibilities as they are capable. If the child complains or fails, it doesn't mean that they aren't capable. It may mean that they simply don't want to face the realities of growing up.
The job of parents is to discern if the responsibility is beyond the scope of the child's maturity or if the child is being lazy. Seeking input from other godly parents will help you discern which one is the case. And again, I cannot stress enough the value of talking to other parents. Is this normal? Should I have different expectations? How would you deal with this situation? Those are all great questions to ask. Well, with a few more minutes, let's talk quickly about the other two ditches that I would like you to stay out of. One is what's called the ditch of isolating your kid and the ditch of immersing your kid in the culture.
Again, a big debate that rages in our community. One set of parents says, I'm gonna protect my kid from all the big bad boogeymans out there and they're off, they go into that ditch of isolation and the other ones that are saying, hey, they're salt and light, throw them out there. And that's the other ditch. In these two extremes, the issue is how much parents try to protect their older children from negative influences in the world. That's a good thing. Nobody wants our kids to be affected by all the evil out there. At one extreme are parents who try to isolate their children from the world in order to protect them from its evil influences.
At the other extreme are those parents that allow their children to be largely immersed in the culture. This can happen through parental indifference or sometimes in the hopes that the child will be salt and light to their peers. Each extreme has its potential problems. 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 10, and James 4, 4 are two scriptures that I'm going to try and put together to come up with a principle that we can use to help guide us, that I believe gives us that balanced answer. 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 10, you'll know this passage. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of the world or with the covetousness and the swindlers or with Iodolators, for then you would have to go out of the world.
So that's one scripture passage we can look to when it comes to dealing with the world. James 4-4 is another one. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. In the Corinthian passage, Paul shows us that it is impractical, if not impossible, to avoid contact with the world and its evil influences. He'd said you'd literally have to go to Mars or somewhere else to get away from it. He goes on later in this passage to tell believers to avoid contact with so-called believers involved in ongoing on-repentant sin.
That's where that passage ends up. He was addressing the sin issue in Corinthians, and he said, do not eat with a so-called brother in ongoing on-repentant sin. And as far as the world itself, he recognized the fact that we're going to be in the world, just don't be of the world. We're going to be around evil. James, on the other hand, warns about letting our affections be coming in line to the world. A believer cannot love the things of the world and the things of God at the same time. Worldliness is at enmity with godliness. You've heard it said this way, believers are to be in the world, but not of the world.
There's a big difference between the two. For the parent who strives to keep their child out of the world, any potential evil influence, so the isolating parent, Paul points out that it isn't required, nor is it possible. Remember that even if you could perfectly isolate your child from the evil in the world, you still have a major problem that Jesus reveals in Matthew 15, 19 through 20. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, foreign occasions, thefts, witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man. So isolate your kid all you want, but you're gonna have to cut their heart out if you really want to isolate them, and obviously that's not very practical. No matter how far your child is removed from the evil influences in this world, your child will always be 18 inches away away from evil thoughts and actions that originate within.
Now lest anyone thinks I'm making a case, then, for immersing your children into the culture, let me hasten to say that I'm not. First Corinthians 1533 says, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. We've already seen Paul tell us that we can't avoid contact with evil influences, yet this verse seems to be telling us to stay away from evil influences. He just got done saying, you can't stay away from it because you'd have to go to Mars. But then they're saying, bad company corrupts good morals. What gives? Putting all of these verses together, we see the principle emerging that we cannot avoid contact with evil influences.
However, we must not allow that exposure to let worldliness seep into our hearts and minds. It's like trying to walk through a patch of muddy ground. We have to go through the patch. And so we gingerly watch where we walk so to get as little mud on our shoes as possible. We don't yell yippee and start stomping in every mud puddle that we see. When it comes to transitioning in our parenting from younger to older children, we must recognize that we can't isolate them from the world, and yet we know that based on their maturity level. Let me read that sentence again. When it comes to transitioning in our parenting from younger to older children, we must recognize that we cannot isolate them from the world, and yet we know that, based on their maturity level, some situations might require that we keep them from being exposed to the situation.
So you're going to have to consider that child and what their maturity level is at, and how easily tempted are they? But taking the total isolation approach isn't going to work. It's not even possible. But it doesn't mean we just throw them out there to the lions either. As a child matures, a wise parent will recognize that the child will get mud on their shoes as they walk in this world. What the parents should watch for is how does the child respond? Does the child get disgusted when they get mud on their shoes, or do they yell, yippee, and dive in? Again, I want to know how my children are going to respond to situations before I send them out in the world.
And again, I don't go out and look for tempting situations by recognizing the fact that they are going to be, get involved in situations where ideally it'd be nice maybe to avoid it but some circumstance may dictate they have to be a part of it. Maybe it's unbelieving family members, whatever the situation may be. I'll use wisdom, I'll use caution, I'll coach them, we'll talk it through, possible situations that might come up, but then depending on the situation I may let them go and then find out how do they react, how do they respond. By carefully and prayerfully allowing your child to be in the world but not of it, a parent can see the heart of their child revealed and deal with any deficiencies that show up. That's not to say that we allow our children again to be exposed to everything that is of the world. There are many things that we can and should keep them from under any circumstance. The point that we are driving home is that parents can't and shouldn't attempt to keep their child from the potential of getting
mud on their shoes, nor should parents foolishly immerse their child into the world under the guise of being salt and light. As with much of Christian living, the Bible gives us the principles we've just looked at. It's up to us as parents to carefully think through each situation. And sadly, parents, that's kind of what our job is, is to think and to pray and to use wisdom, to look at each situation that arises and to know your children well enough so so we can discern if it's an area we can let them be in it without the danger of them becoming of it. So let me just offer you a few summary thoughts and we'll be done.
Parenting older children can often feel like living on the razor's edge between sheer joy and sheer terror. There are moments of absolute delight and moments when you look at your spouse and you ask whose kid is that? At TEC, we'd like to say that we embrace the mess because God designed mess into the process of growing us into maturity. Parenting older children is not mess-free. If you haven't figured that out, let me clue you in. Parenting kids is not mess-free. We should not expect it to be. But even in the mess, parenting older children can be immensely enjoyable. That enjoyment will largely hinge on how well the parents and the child are living like image bearers.
Being a good image bearer means actively building godly parent-child relationships and applying oneself wholeheartedly to the responsibilities God has. So again, we're getting back to responsibility and relationship, definitions of what it means to be an image bearer. So really parenting is very much raising image bearers. Wise parents will not attempt to go it alone. They will actively seek out counsel from other godly parents. Many otherwise god-fearing parents have brought grief to themselves and their children by latching on to some latest fad parenting technique in Christendom and then closing themselves off to any accountability.
The two young ladies I told you about at the start of my talk tonight, parents who had latched on to a very ultra conservative, in my opinion, ultra extreme parenting philosophy. And we four have figured it out and all the other Christians in the world are all crazy and their kids are going to hell. That was their attitude and nobody could break in. And those poor young ladies were just getting more and more exasperated as his parents kept treating them like they were 19 months old instead of 19 years. When it comes to After parenting, having lots of counselors is a good thing. Do not fall into the trap of judging your parent worthiness by how well you think your child is doing.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't even dare begin to form an opinion about my kids or anybody else's until at least the age of 25. We as parents, we see them in snapshot form. They're 14 and they're acting like a 14 year old and we think, oh no, I've really messed up, it's too late, you know, start over, have another kid, whatever. You can't do that. The process is you really can't, there's no way to stop and evaluate and say, determine where that kid's gonna end up. The reality is how well your child turned out won't really be known until the day of their death. That's really when they'll have a clue and then only God's opinion is gonna matter. In the In the meantime, regardless of their age, continue to shape them and influence them by living a life before them that is winsome and worthy of imitating.
That's what we as parents want to focus on. Give them something to follow. Okay, thanks. Let me pray and you guys will be dismissed. Well, Father, lots of words, lots of principles. I pray that the stuff that you really want to stick to our hearts would do so. In this room, I can imagine that there are parents who are thinking, well, I wish I'd known somebody's thing sooner. But really looking back and second guessing is really fruitless. All we can do is evaluate where we're at in our own parenting process. If we need to repent of anything to do so and to move forward by faith. Father, thank you for our children.
What a blessing they are to us. Help us to be wise, understanding that we are to a large degree, probably the primary person who will shape their views of what it means to be a Christian. Their earliest views and thoughts of who God is will come from the parents. Tremendous responsibility that we have. And so may we be found faithful to give them a more accurate picture. Father, again, we just love you. We adore you. We know that you are our parent, all of our in this room is parent. help us to have the same kind of attitude towards our own children that you have towards us which is one of hope, one of love, one of excitedness, one of eagerness, one of faithfulness that we would model our parenting after how you parent us. Just be with us now as we head off in the evening for those of us that can gather for our talk or for those are going home just keep us safe and wise throughout this week. We pray all this in your son Jesus name. Amen.
