Category: Character Training

Ask almost any mother of daughters about “mean girls” and you will most likely hear a litany of horror stories. The really sad part is it seems to start at younger ages every year. Our first really stereotypical incident happened in fourth grade to our daughter, but there were girls behaving in “mean” ways as early as kindergarten.

Perhaps the scariest part of mean girl behavior is that they are actually intentionally and unintentionally being coached by adults to act in those ways. In fact, in many areas the behaviors are so ingrained in the culture, the mean behavior is considered “smart”. You can even go into many churches and see adult women behaving in mean girl fashion – often without any apparent awareness many of these behaviors are ungodly.

So what should we be teaching our daughters, so we don’t raise more mean girls? There are probably a lot of things you can say and do, but here are some I think are critical:

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Have you ever given your child a dollar to spend at a dollar store? It is amazing how much time and thought a child can put into a decision about exactly how to spend that dollar. Yet that same child may be faced with a decision that can have lasting consequences and make it with little or no thought at all.

Good, godly decision making must be taught to kids. Making your children’s’ decisions for them may seem like the best path, but it really isn’t at all. A parent who controls almost every decision a child can make is robbing that child of learning the skills for making a good choice.

Sometimes that learning process also involves learning the consequences of making a not-so-great choice. Unless those consequences have long-term negative effects, sometimes it really is best to allow your child to fail a bit in order to grow.

You can keep those failures to a minimum though, by teaching your child the basic steps for making a good choice:

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Anger seems to be a popular emotion with young people. Thankfully, God understands the actual emotion of anger is something our body does in response to certain triggers. He does, however, command us to be slow to anger (James 1:19-20), not hold on to our anger (Ephesians 4:26-27), not to sin in our anger (Ephesians 4:26-27) and not to give full vent to our anger (Proverbs 29:11).

So what do you do if you have a child who seems to anger easily? Even though the tendency may be a part of his/her personality, you still need to work with him/her on how to better control the impulse to get angry and especially how to act in godly ways when angry. There are probably plenty of things you can do, but here are some of the first things you need to think about when helping a child who seems to be angry all of the time:

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Sibling conflict is a constant issue in many homes. Let’s face it. Living with anyone can get on your nerves at times. Make the people living together young people whose brains aren’t fully developed, who are still being taught how to treat others in godly ways and who may have to share a room, bathroom or other close quarters, and well….you probably already know what happens.

What never ceases to amaze me are the “parenting experts” who continue to advise parents to let kids in conflict “work it out for themselves”. So how do young children resolve conflict “naturally”. I’m sure you remember from your own childhood attempts plenty of screaming, name calling and probably a good punch or two. Not exactly godly conflict resolution skills! (Not to mention, that is most likely why we have a world full of people who act like four year olds when they are in conflict with someone!)

Godly conflict management skills have to be taught and practiced. You as the parent, will have to do the teaching. I am sure your kids will make sure they get a lot of practice! So how do you teach your kids these skills, when you may struggle with conflict resolution yourself? I am sure if you research, you can find a variety of techniques. Most though seem to flow through a process like this:

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I’m not sure whether it is good news or bad news, but it may be easier than ever for your children to stand out as salt and light in the world.

In Raising Kids Who Are Salt and Light, we talked about the necessity for your kids to stand out and be different in godly ways. When they do, they will draw other young people and adults to want to learn more about God…which is exactly why God told us to stand out in those godly ways.

So how can your kids be salt and light in their world? There are a lot of little things that make the difference, but focusing on some of these main areas will make your kids stand out in a good way:

Continue reading Tips For Raising Kids Who Are Salt and Light