Blog: Max Dawson
October 27, 2016
When it comes to raising kids, there are lots of things that can scare us. We live in an increasingly wicked world that threatens to swallow our children in moral depravity. We are concerned about their physical safety as we send them off to school. We can experience anxiety about something so simple and seemingly innocent as leaving them with a sitter or relative for a few hours.
But one of the greatest fears that parents have is the possibility of failing as a parent. One mom said, “I am scared that I will be the reason my child needs to see a therapist some day.” Really? Are you that fearful of being a parent?
In an attempt to avoid failure, we might just be frozen into inaction–as was the case with one mother.
This mom plainly admitted that she was afraid to correct her four-year-old daughter. She worried that her daughter would not like her if she corrected her behavior. That mom was not the first to think that way. Others have also thought that any attempt to remedy unacceptable behavior would produce a bad result. “My kid might not like me” is the fear of some moms and dads.
And, the fact is, there are times when our kids will not like us. (See ). Correction often produces pain–pain that is necessary for our kids’ own good. In this text, that pain can produce the “peaceable fruits of righteousness.”
Parents must learn that they can’t be cowards and let their kids hold them hostage with threats of anger or not liking them. If we let our kids do that, it will produce the very thing we fear most: kids who disrespect us, disobey us, resent us, and who constantly whine to get their way, as they demonstrate brattish behavior.
THE FINAL WORD
The word of God contains sound thinking on raising kids. Yet, it is the last place most folks turn for help. The text mentioned above is penned in a context about God’s correction of His children; it is an expression of His love for us. The writer teaches that a parent disciplines a child because it is the right thing to do–it helps the child. So it is with God disciplining His children. It helps us.
Here is the text from . Read it and think about your own correction of your children. Especially note what it says about respect.
“Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
May God’s hand be upon you, my dear friends,
–Max