Parenting Teens: Good Parents: Difficult Kids: Part 3
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 09:25AM Good Parents: Difficult Kids Part 1
Good Parents:Difficult Kids Part 2
Especially difficult for parents of faith is our young adult children making moral/religious choices different from the faith we brought them up in. Our anger and judgment as their parents isn’t going to help. We tend to put the blame for our adult child’s decisions on others. They (who ever they may be) are a bad influence. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous “they” would not influence your adult child if the child’s heart were not leaning that way already. If getting to church on Sunday were important, she would get there. Nagging, anger and judgment will not chance her heart. If marrying inside the faith were a priority, he wouldn’t be dating women outside the faith. It is not his fiancée’s fault she isn’t of the same faith. Being mad at her for leading your child away from the faith is nonsensical. Demanding she change is unfair.
Sometimes there are no easy solutions. Speaking as Christian parents, we have taught our children the Bible is the final authority on the nature of who God is. Morality, what is right or wrong, is based on the revelation God’s character to the world through the Scriptures. As adults if they chose to reject this or see different application of the Truth (we disagree on entertainment issues and smoking) that is a heart issue and the One who can change the human heart is not us.
These battles are best fought first and foremost by prayer, prayer for the heart of your child and wisdom for you as to when to step in and when to stay out of the way, when give way and when to stand fast in grace. Ruth Graham wrote a now out of print book (which means you can get it used for cheap) called Prodigals and Those Who Love Them.
She had experience with wayward children. What impressed me is reading her children’s accounts (written in other books) of how she and her husband treated them during their difficult years. Ruth and Billy were kind, patient but firm on the truth of the Scriptures. I nail the firm on the Scriptures part but I all too often behave as if my anger and judgment is what will bring my struggling children to either maturity or repentance.
There is always hope for parents struggling with difficult children. That hope exists not because of some wonderful parenting technique out there somewhere for us to hunt down like some magic formula to change the heart of our child. Nor does it reside in time and life experience brings our child to maturity. That often happens but that is not where hope is found for a hurting confused parent.
Hope is not a feeling, a mind set or a matter of temperament. Hope in the Biblical sense is a person.
13 May the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Ro 15
This is the promise He offers hurting parents. He promises not to fix your kid as you define fix….He promises something better….Himself.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4
Does this mean we stand by while our children get into more trouble or farther from the faith, we raised them in? No.
This means that we can chose to put aside anger and judgment as the means of changing our child’s behavior. We can act or not as the Holy Spirit leads. We, like our kids have the option to live out the truth of the Scriptures or not.
God’s promises His peace in the conflict. We want so much for our kid to live out the faith we taught them because they also at one time accepted Jesus as their Lord. As parents struggling to raise difficult teens and young adult’s, we have to ask ourselves, “Am I willing to rejoice, to pray, to give thanks, to receive His peace in the heat of the on going problem? Where does my heart turn, to anger and judgment or to Truth?”
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
View Printer Friendly Version
Reader Comments (4)
Parenting is very difficult and it seems you have a good approach to it by trusting in the Lord. Each person does make his/her own choices. The enemy (the devil) is out to make Christians ineffective since he can't steal our salvation. Just keep praying for your children and hang in there!
What a thoughtful post Carol. Right on for raising your children in the ways of the Lord!
Thought you might be interested in joining a new Entrecard group, focused on Christians. Please stop by my blog and see if you are interested in joining us!
We are going through this with my stepdaughter. She is making all choices that are the opposite of everything we believe. It's heartbreaking.
Sometimes I believe I am not up to the task of raising a child into adulthood with all of the sin I chose in my past, I sometimes think genetics and past lifestyle rear their ugly heads. For the strong willed son of mine, these are the more potent forces playing out in his choices. Another strong message is that his father and I are often not on the same page when it comes to raising a son. We both came to Christ later in life and are reluctant to surrender all. What is heartbreaking is knowing our choices have allowed for his choices.