Raising an Independent Child Who is Dependent on God

When our daughter was a toddler, she went through what we refer to as her "Trinna do" stage. She was beginning to learn she could actually do some things for herself and the idea was exciting. Suddenly, "Trinna" wanted to do everything. It was interesting to watch as she had some successes and found out in some areas she still needed a little adult help.

I don't remember if this lasted for a few weeks or a few months, but suddenly our "Trinna do" girl reverted to a "Mommy pick me up" girl. Evidently, this is a pretty common pattern. While I am no expert in early childhood development, my guess is that she experienced a bit of what even adults have learned. Always doing everything for yourself can get exhausting. Sometimes (especially as an adult!) you just want to revert back to the stage where someone else handled all of the problems and carried you home when you were tired.

The problem is that either extreme makes for either a very irritating adult or a weak (or non) Christian. If your child doesn't learn to be independent, you will one day find yourself on one of those sad Dr Phil type shows. You will be the desperate parent begging for advice on how to finally "launch" your 45 year old son out of your house and on to his own dollar!

On the other hand, if your child doesn't realize her need to be totally dependent on God and His grace, she could reject God entirely. If she is totally independent, why does she need God's help (or grace or anything else from Him?)

So how do you balance the two concepts so your child "grows up" in the real sense of the word while still realizing his need to be God's "child" forever? Just like balancing the need for healthy self esteem and humility, balancing independence and dependence can be a tough concept to teach. With a little effort and a lot of prayer though, you may just raise a child who moves out "on time" and is still a faithful God-dependent Christian. There are several ways to get started.

1. Don't be afraid to increase responsibilities as your child gets older. As the parent of a child who will start driving soon, I am painfully aware of the fear that can grip you when you turn over responsibilities to your child. The trick is to turn it over at age appropriate times and ways. Think of it like driving. Your child isn't immediately given a license. First they have to pass a written test. Then they practice with adults in the car for months. Finally they take a behind the wheel test before they are given a license.

You would not dream of letting your two year old do all of the laundry. How about letting her help you move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? What if he helps you sort the clothes into piles for different types of loads?  What other household chores can they begin to learn?

We don't have set chores in our house because our daughter is swamped with advanced school work and extra curricular activities that we believe are important. She is expected to help on an as needed basis every day though. This means keeping her room neat, putting away her things, keeping her bathroom clean, helping clear her dishes and whatever else I need. The important thing is that your child realizes that no one gets a "free ride" in the house. Not only does it start teaching life skills, but it instills a work ethic.

2. Develop a list of life skills you would like your child to have by the time she leaves your house. We complied our list from several sources. It includes cooking certain basic dishes, cleaning chores, maintenance type activities and finances. (I would be happy to share our list if you are interested.)

During school breaks make a concerted effort to work on items on the list. We have done pretty well with a little over two years to go before college. If you are consistent, you won't have a panic attack the summer before college trying to teach them how to do everything.

3. Show them your dependence on God by sharing with them how God has helped you through life. Especially share the times where you are not sure how anyone that didn't have God in their lives could have made it. Pray in front of your children for guidance. Tell them you are praying for certain things. Let them know when you see God working in their lives or in your own.

4. Share the stories from the Bible of people like Joseph, Moses, Gideon and David. Discuss how important it was for them to be totally dependent on God. Share the stories of King Saul and how badly things went when he tried to take the control away from God and do things on his own.

5. If you have done a great job teaching independence, you may need to remind your teen a little more about the need to remain humbly dependent at times. Tell them stories from your teens and twenties when you failed to seek help or listen to the wisdom of those who were older and wiser and the consequences. Watch to make sure they aren't becoming arrogant in their independence.

Sometimes you may just need to remind them it is ok to ask for help when you need it. Asking for help when you truly need it does not mean you are weak, stupid or a "baby". Sometimes it is actually the most mature, wisest thing to do. I know if I tried to change a flat tire on the interstate, the results would be pathetic at best. I definitely need the help of someone more experienced if I find myself in that situation and hope to get out in one piece (and in less than six months!). Asking for help is the best thing I can do.

6. On the other hand, there is 'learned helplessness". Doing things for a child who is capable of doing them for himself is teaching him he cannot and does not need to do them. Every child is different, but I doubt most parents are still bathing their teen children. You need to thoughtfully turn over other responsibilities to them. By high school, they should be taking care of most of their needs themselves.

7. Don't be afraid to tie new privileges to new responsibilities. There is nothing wrong with granting a new privilege, but adding a new responsibility with it. "I agree you are probably ready to stay up an extra hour. If you are going to do that though, you need to start laying out your own clothes and packing your own lunch before you go to bed."

8. Help your child find God's plan for him. God has a plan for your child. Your child's job is not to "do anything he wants to do", but to find out what it is God has planned for him and follow that plan. This encourages his dependence on God as he prays to ask for guidance to find God's path.

Tell him the many ways God has shown you His way for you during your life. If you are not sure, re-examine your own past. How can you see God was working through your Christian eyes? I would imagine your conversion story is probably a great place to start.

Don't be afraid to teach your child to be a healthy independent adult. Just remember to teach her a healthy dependence on God at the same time. In a few years, you may just get to have lunch at your child's house after going to church with him!

Parenting's Ripple Effect

This is the time of year for family gatherings. While you tell old stories, laugh at good times and re-fight old fights, think about your family legacy. Parenting has a ripple effect that continues for generations beyond the "original" set of parents.

When I hear horrific stories of child abuse, I shudder not only for the child but I also wonder about the abuser. Sadly, he (or she) probably had the same horrific things done to him as a child. The pattern often continues for generations unless someone is able to make a conscious effort to break the pattern.

Good parenting patterns can be passed on also. I tell my child some of the same sayings my grandmother told my mother. "Be sure your sins will find you out" and "To each his own, said the old lady as she kissed the cow" are two of her favorites. I also am faithful to God partially because it was such a priority to my grandparents and parents that I was surrounded by God's Words during my childhood.

Most parents are probably pretty good about identifying the really good things and if necessary the really bad things their parents did in parenting. Many have made a concerted effort to break unhealthy habits. My concerns are the seemingly innocent choices that you make as a parent which will effect the spiritual health of your family for generations to come.

My heart breaks as I hear the same story over and over again. Parents who chose to make sports, extracurricular activities or the lake/beach/mountains a priority over attending church. How many times have I heard "It's ok. We talk about God at home"?

I am sure some families have made those choices and managed to raise strong, faithful, Christian children. I just have never met them. Every story I have heard ends badly. The problem is not just missing the services. It is sending the unspoken message that God can take the back seat to anything. The truth is, He can't. The minute God loses top priority is the minute you start off on the wrong path away from God.

Another seemingly innocent choice that seems to have lasting repercussions is choosing a church to attend based solely on the fact that either your child's school friends attend or that your child "enjoys" being there. Now that can be fine if the church follows God's plan, but often the choice is made with no knowledge of what is actually taught at that church.

The saddest discussions I have had on this subject begin with "Well I know they don't push baptism, but we will teach our child what is right at home." I will give most of those parents credit because most of them do have baptized children. There are two remaining problems that have lasting effects on future generations though.

First, you are teaching your child that enjoying church is what is most important. The truth is church is about worshipping God, not pleasing yourself. Now, I happen to believe in some places you can do both. Given the choice of only one though, I tend to think truth trumps fun. The most important thing you can teach your child is to seek God's truth and follow it wherever it leads. If you go somewhere admitting they teach in error, you are telling your child her personal enjoyment and comfort are more important than anything God has to say.

The second problem is that you are entrenching your family in an environment that does not follow God's Words completely. Sadly, one day you will die. Even if your children remember hearing you teach the truth at some point, their current church environment tells them constantly that God didn't really mean that or it wasn't really for "now".

At some point the environment will carry more weight than anything you taught while you were alive. You have placed your descendants in an environment that does not care to follow any of God's commands that are not convenient for them. Once again the path you have placed your family on is slowly but surely leading them away from God's original Words and Plan.

I think the most important gift you can give your present and future family is God. Let them know that following God is THE most important thing they can do. Let them know that your heart's desire is that you see them and your grandchildren in heaven. Emphasize the importance of checking what even the "most famous" preacher says against the Bible. Teach them God's Words trump everything and are not up for a popular vote.

During this holiday season, give your family the gift that will hopefully keep on giving for generations to come - the gift of dedicating them to God by not only teaching, but attempting to live out His Words. It's a gift you will never regret giving.

Is it Better to Be Smart or Wise?

The world values knowledge. We spend millions of dollars on education. Large cash prizes are awarded each year by the Noble committee to people they feel have contributed the most to certain fields of knowledge. Game shows give value to having even the most trivial knowledge as a part of your repertoire.

Yet we look around us in the world and see what looks like an absolute mess. If people are so smart, why are there so many problems in the world? Why do equally well educated people have polar opposite opinions on almost any topic? Why does it appear that seemingly well educated, intelligent people make  really poor choices?

In the rush for instantaneous knowledge on any and every topic, we have been graced by websites like Wikipedia which can answer almost any question in seconds.  Internet and media created "experts" claim to have all of the answers. Eventually, we feel like we have all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips. This of course makes us very smart. (Or at least that is what we think!) Yet somewhere along the line, I think we have lost the Biblical ideal of wisdom.

One of my favorite Bible stories when I was a child was the story of King Solomon asking for wisdom. God gave Solomon the opportunity to ask Him for a special gift.  He gave Solomon all of the options he wanted. Solomon could have chosen power or riches (probably a likely choice for many of us!). Instead he asked God for wisdom.

The story of his decision about the women fighting over the baby is known by many people who know little else about the Bible. The book of Proverbs is mostly a result of the wisdom God gave Solomon. (There were a few other writers, too.) Even Ecclesiastes tells us of the wisdom Solomon learned from poor choices he made later in his life.

So what is the difference between being smart and being wise? Can you have one without the other? Is one more important spiritually than the other? How do we train our children to possess godly knowledge and wisdom?

Knowledge is what used to be called "book learning". It consists of facts, principles and other items that you have committed to memory. It can be as simple as addition facts or as important as God's Words in the Bible.

My favorite definition of wisdom is: the knowledge of what is true or right PLUS the proper judgement of how to put that knowledge into action. Wisdom adds the characteristics of true, right, proper judgement and action. It is so much richer and more meaningful than just possessing knowledge.

Knowledge is basically an intellectual exercise. Wisdom requires making value judgements and then putting into action the knowledge that will have the true and right outcomes. Anyone can occasionally make a wise decision even without any knowledge. I can sometimes make an accurate medical diagnosis even though I have no training in medicine. I doubt seriously anyone would argue I have the wisdom necessary to be a good brain surgeon. I would need a much broader base of knowledge to make consistently good decisions during a very complex surgery.

On the other hand, I could have memorized every medical book on brain surgery ever written. I could even understand them. I might have even practiced on dummies. If I lack wisdom though, I could still make some very dangerous choices that could lead to someone's death. That is why some doctors like Ben Carson are so sought after for complex surgeries while others are avoided. The highly sought after surgeons have learned to combine the knowledge with skill and wisdom.

Spiritually, both knowledge and wisdom have a place of importance. Watch television for very long and it isn't too difficult to find someone quoting "God" or telling you what "God thinks". Yet most of the time, if you know your Bible very well, you are soon talking to your television. I have even heard people quoting Benjamin Franklin as God (not to mention sometimes just plain nonsense!).  It is so critically important for everyone to become very familiar with God's actual Words.

Biblical wisdom is vitally important. It is the ability to put your Biblical knowledge into action. Jesus often criticized the Pharisees. It seems they had plenty of Biblical knowledge. I imagine they could probably quote large passages of scripture from memory. Unfortunately, they lacked the wisdom to put it into practice properly. They didn't recognize Jesus as the Messiah and missed the point of many scriptures. They saw the surface, but lacked the wisdom to understand the principles and put them into action.

The great news is that you can work on increasing your child's Bible knowledge and Bible wisdom without special training. The best thing you can do for your child is to make Bible reading a part of his life from birth. I started reading to my daughter from a baby Bible when she was only a few days old. As she got older we gradually increased the difficulty of her Bible and very quickly she was reading the Bible on her own. There are great Bibles now at easier reading levels and with lots of child and teen appropriate notes.

The best way to start developing your child's Biblical wisdom is to discuss with your child what she is reading in her Bible. What lessons does God want us to get from that passage or story? What does that look like in our times? Make it apparent that you turn to God to lead you when your are making decisions. Relate events in your child's life or in the world back to the Bible. How could that incident have turned out better if the person had used Godly wisdom?

I would love to see parents spend as much time and money on developing their child's Bible knowledge and wisdom as they do in other academic areas. If you think about it, you may even want to spend more time and money on God's Words. Academic knowledge can at best only improve our living conditions for a few years. Bible knowledge coupled with Biblical wisdom can influence where your child spends eternity. I looked it up on Wikipedia and evidently eternity is a very long time!

Self-Esteem and Humility

A few years ago, some experts decided children with behavior problems suffered from low self-esteem.  A campaign began to educate parents and teachers on how to improve the self-esteem of children to minimize bullying and other negative behaviors. It started out innocently enough. Parents were told to encourage their children instead of constantly criticizing them. Surely, there were quite a few parents who needed a reminder that constant criticism without some praise and loving words thrown in was potentially damaging.

But by the time my child reached school age, things were getting out of control. Children were allowed multiple chances to behave before a rule was enforced and consequences given. They were learning stop light colors and fractions more than they were learning to obey. There couldn't be a dean's list because the children who didn't make good grades might "feel badly about themselves". There were hardly any competitions, because it hurt a child's feelings to lose.

What has became the new norm is children who are basically allowed to decide when they want to behave. Many children also believe they should never have to expect to lose and that life will always be fair (translated: in their favor).  Studies are showing that children now often have unrealistically high views of themselves and their capabilities. Interestingly, there also seems to be a corresponding lack of taking responsibility for one's actions. Suddenly, everything you do wrong is someone else's fault.

Eventually more studies were done.  It turns out bullies actually have unrealistically high self-esteem that  contributes to their behavior. But by then, the complete fairness doctrines were entrenched and many schools kept them in place. Parents have been trained to think they need to hover over their children and protect them from any disappointment. Teachers will tell you that now the parents are often angry with the teacher and not the child if the child is in trouble at school for misbehaving or getting poor reports.

How does this effect Christianity?  To accept one's need for God means you to need to be humble. Humility allows you to see and admit your faults or sins. Humility allows you to admit your need for God and obey His plan for salvation and forgiveness. When your self esteem is too high, you find it very difficult to be humble. What obviously perfect person needs God or forgiveness?

But being a Christian also calls you to love others as you love yourself. If you hate yourself, you will find it difficult to love others. If you have horrible self-esteem, you feel unloveable.  How can you accept God's love for you and share it with others if you don't believe you are worthy of being loved?

God created the world for us to enjoy, but Christianity may call us to sacrifice and even potentially die for our faith. I thinks it takes a certain combination of self esteem and humility to be able to stand up for your beliefs while still turning to God for His help and guidance in difficult times.

So how do we teach our children a healthy Christian self-esteem which helps them love God and others while teaching them the humility to recognize their need for God and His mercy? It's a difficult balance, but I think parents can help their children learn both.

1. Praise your child appropriately. This does not mean you tell a three year old his drawing is "just scribbles", but it also doesn't mean you tell your daughter she will be a professional artist unless you really think she has talent. A lot of talents can be developed with training and practice. Usually a true "genius" at something has a God given gift that is obvious. It's fine to encourage your child to work on his talents and gifts, but it's not necessary to over-do the praise to accomplish that.

2. Make your child take personal responsibility for her actions. Students in my class always love the exchange they have with me when they inform me someone "made them" do something wrong. I usually respond by asking them if the other person had a weapon. I always get the strangest looks from the children! I remind them they may have an argument if someone was holding a weapon on them, but even then they had the free choice to not make the wrong choice. It is important for your child to understand that even the devil can't "make" them make a bad choice. If they make a bad choice the responsibility is entirely theirs.

3. Your child may "know" you love him, but tell him "I love you" every day. Show her you love her and value her by speaking in her love language. (Gary Chapman has an interesting book on this: The 5 Love Languages of Children) This may mean a hug, some special time one on one or a little treat. Continue to tell them you love them even if you feel they don't respond in return. Many children go through various phases when they feel uncomfortable telling their parents they love them or returning hugs. Continue to love your child through the phase. Tell them you love them and don't react if they don't respond. If they won't let you hug them, put an arm around their shoulder or rub their back quickly.  You may be surprised when they eventually respond with their own hugs.

4. Teach your children to be thankful to God for their gifts. When you praise your child's talent, try adding "God really blessed you with musical talent" (or whatever). Hopefully, your child will begin to think of his gift as a blessing from God. Part of humility is realizing that everything we have is from God. Make thanksgiving a major part of your family prayers, especially taking the time to thank him for your family's gifts and talents.

5. Model humility by admitting your faults to your children. Apologize if you overreact or commit a sin in front of them. Tell them how grateful you are God forgives us of our sins. The "perfect" parent is a myth and trying to pretend to your children that you are doesn't help any of you.

6. Help your child discover his gifts and talents. You may want your daughter to be a swimmer, but God may have created her to be a gifted artist to accomplish things for His kingdom. Let your children experiment in different areas to find what their talents are. In our house, the rule is that if you commit for a season or event, you must follow through because people are depending on you. If at the end of that time, you feel the activity is not for you, it is okay to try something else. You may be surprised that with a little freedom and encouragement your child may quickly discover his passion to use for God. (Max Lucado has a great book that will give you more ideas: Cure for the Common Life)

7. Play board games and let your child lose. Admit it. Many parents will lose games on purpose to avoid the inevitable melt down that occurs when a small child loses a game. At some point (preferably very early), it is important to take the time to teach your child how to be a good loser and a good winner. Ironically, both require humility. Try to play games at first that require more luck than skill. This will make the odds of winning more equal and allow several people to take turns being good winners and losers.

8. Teach your child to serve others. True service teaches a child to be grateful for their blessings. Often they must humble themselves to do things they consider "yucky" or "boring" to help others who desperately need their help. Remind them how Jesus washed the apostles' feet. Service is a great way of teaching humility and self esteem at the same time.

Helping your child maintain the correct balance of self esteem and humility may be one of the most valuable things you can do to position him where he not only understands his need for God, but acts on it and shares it with others. It may take extra effort on your part as a parent, but it makes a big difference in how they receive and share God's words. I wonder if the Apostle Peter's parents had any idea the life they were preparing him for in Christian ministry?!





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