Table Talk

Six Parenting Traps to Avoid

My brothers like to reminisce about the time they fooled me into running out into our garden to “see something, quick!”  They both stood excitedly in the soft, spring dirt, waving their hands and shouting.  I ran out to see “it,” and promptly fell into a hole they had dug and disguised under straw.  Having had to endure my bossiness and my many hours in front of the mirror each day (trying to figure out how to use a curling iron), they had appointed themselves my “Ministers of Humility.”  And that day, they were profoundly rewarded. 

Satan has laid traps for us as well.  (Please ignore the metaphor here that compares my brothers to “Satan.”  They really are wonderful people!).   Of course, there are more than six traps, but here are six that I can relate to because I’ve done or been tempted to do all of them.  Maybe you have too.  Let’s talk about these pitfalls, with the hope of avoiding them next time Satan waves his hands and draws us toward them. 

 

1.  Not aiming for the heart.  Solomon, in his earlier (and wiser) years, implored, “My son, give me thine heart.”  (Proverbs 23:26)  Those of us with strong personalities can drag good behavior out of anyone, through intimidation and filibuster.  But that is no guarantee we have our children’s hearts.  One very quick and easy test is this:  “What do my children do when I’m not around?”  Selective obedience is a tell-tale sign that our children are simply enduring a set of rules, which will be abandoned as soon as they “get out” (or even before).   Poor attitudes, provocative  Facebook posts and “selfies”, lack of communication with authority, rebellious friends, a curiosity toward the world and a lack of interest in the Lord, inappropriate music, photos, or videos on their phones, and a muted desire to be around family all point to a heart that has strayed.   Parents who think they can “force” that heart back will be frustrated.   Hearts must be drawn, not dragged.  And of course, our primary mission is to make sure that Jesus has our children’s hearts in the first place, through the salvation that He gives and the power of His Holy Spirit throughout their Christian life.  We do well to pray that God will use anything or anyone to allow our kids will get caught when they are getting involved with secret sin.  Sure, it’s embarrassing, and comes with high consequences the older they get.  But what’s your goal?    

 

2.  Financing things we don’t believe in.  Otherwise known as “enablement,” this practice has deadly consequences spiritually.  Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  (Matthew 6:21)  Parents who believe in godly living do themselves and great disservice to hand out spending money to kids who promptly buy inappropriate CD’s, revealing clothes, and concert tickets to groups mom and dad do not endorse.  At our church, we have a benevolent fund.  When people call for assistance, we are sometimes able to purchase groceries for them, fill a prescription, or put some gas into their car.  But we never, ever hand them cash.  We have a responsibility to make sure that our benevolent fund is financing formula and heart medicine, not weed and whiskey.  If you cannot control what your children buy or trust them to make wise choices (“He buys his video games from his friends at school!”), then stop the cash flow.   For teenagers who have jobs, call a “spending freeze” and send those paychecks to the bank (they have camp to pay for next summer, right?).   

 

3.  Not understanding those “devices.”  I hate to admit it, but it was my son who first informed me that his ipod had a parental control feature on it.  When it came to researching ahead of time—Epic. Fail. on my part, for not using Google.   Thankfully, Jonathan helped me out on that one.  We owe it to our children to know everything their devices are capable of doing.  We can’t say it loudly enough, but let’s try:  USE FILTERS.  Every internet-capable device in our homes—smart phones, ipods, ipads, you-name-it, should have an internet filter.  It’s good for Mom and Dad, too.  Safe Eyes is just one of many filters, but we are thankful for friends who tipped us off to this good program.  We receive a Weekly Usage Summary on each user, including data that shows any attempts to enter forbidden sites.   This is not because I don’t trust my kids; it’s because I don’t trust the devil.  He hates my kids.  Remember:  The devil is a fool, but he’s not an idiot.  He knows our weaknesses even more than we do, and the Bible says he prowls around, “seeking whom he may devour.” (I Peter 5:8)  Our only safety is to walk with Someone wiser than all of us:    “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.”  (I John 4:4)

 

4.  Failing to enjoy the treasure of children.  Life is busy, and we’re going to be late—Get your shoes on and meet me in the car.  Put that down—we’ve got to go!  And life spins us along, like a soccer ball, until we suddenly look back and realize our kids are almost grown up.  I have a memory—It should be a good memory, but instead it’s a convicting one.   I was running late to choir practice on Sunday night.  I had Kaitlyn swinging along in her car set, with an over-stuffed diaper bag slung over my shoulder and the twins each held at the wrist as we flew across the parking lot.  Suddenly, Jonathan bent over to examine a small piece of gravel in the parking lot.  I didn’t have time that evening for gravel, but before I could finish my lecture and yank him along—a lady came up behind us and sweetly said to Jonathan, “Did you find a pretty rock?”  Right there in the middle of the parking lot, she bent down to study it with him.  I was hostage to their science lesson, and since I couldn’t lecture her, I stood there awkwardly, watching her do what I should have had time to do myself:  Enjoy life with my son.  She wasn’t seeking to preach to me that day, but her sermon was not soon forgotten.   Slow down.  Our kids are attracted to people who like to be with them.  Either I can make it clear that I cherish my children and enjoy them—laughing at their goofy stories  and appreciating their talents, choosing to be with them in my free time—or I may find myself replaced by someone who can appreciate them more. 

 

5.  Preaching sermons we don’t believe or understand.   We discredit ourselves when we dive into topics we have not studied out.  II Timothy 2:15 is not a command to “read” the Bible; it’s a command to “study.”  Our children have special radar that enables them to detect when we are simply parroting a sermon we heard on the radio or a warning we read in an article, rather than prayerfully developing genuine convictions.  Be real.  “Easy come, easy go” standards, that constantly get tweaked because we don’t have solid convictions to stand on, produce rebellion.  Eventually, our kids quit listening.   I remember a man who loudly denounced a violent video game-- later purchasing that same game for his son!   I agree with his original sermon (we don’t do Grand Theft Auto here either), and  his severe shift to the wrong side of that issue  did more damage than just in the video game arena.  His son is learning not to place much stock in “early polling.”  Dad will cave eventually.   We have to do our own homework before we preach the sermon, and then stick by our well-proved convictions. 

 

6.  Selfish parenting.  Ugh.  I’m not proud of the time I made some clothes for Jessica that were just ugly.  She balked at wearing them (I’m not exactly a tailor), and I tried making her guilty for not “appreciating all that work!” She reluctantly wore them, out of obedience, but it was clearly under duress!  She’s been sweet to accept my apology and laugh about that these years later, but it wasn’t very funny at the time.  When we impose burdens on our children simply to satisfy our own selfishness, we display immaturity and—even worse—we train our children to live with false guilt.  Is it really a sin to dislike clothes that are universally perceived as “ugly”, just because we are proud of our masterpiece?  What about making a child feel guilty for losing a baseball game-- or mispronouncing a word or not being popular or not having a boyfriend or being overweight or not being musically inclined or stuttering? Even openly criticizing or mocking others outside of the family for their physical anomalies and mistakes communicates to our children, “You’d better not do that either!”  The trouble with selfish parenting is that those children eventually learn how to ignore guilt—which is not a skill we want our kids to be good at!  They need to learn to resolve genuine guilt (the kind that is always the result of actual sin, not just feeling inadequate because we failed to please others), through repentance and confession of sin (Proverbs 28:13).  False guilt over natural human behavior is nasty stuff because it sets our kids up to quench the Holy Spirit in the areas that really matter. 

 

We’re all students.  May the Holy Spirit be our teacher, not the world!