Relating To Your Kids

by David Beckmann

Parents, you love your kids. You want them to turn out well and become men and women of God. You want to be a good parent. God wants this, too. He loves your kids; indeed, they are more His than yours! We are ultimately raising them for Him, to be Jesus’s disciples.

Yet, we know that there is work that needs to be done in their hearts that only He can do. So, it makes sense that one of the most important things we have to do as parents is to be sure we are not relating to our children in some way that is hindering or frustrating what God is wanting to do worth, 4) having unrealistic goals—trying to make them be or do something that God has not given them the talent for, 5) failing to show affection, 6) not providing and protecting, 7) leaving them to themselves—not teaching and training them toward godly adulthood, 8) destructive or habitual criticism, 9) not matching correction with the weight of the offense, i.e., overcorrecting, and thus, 10) being unfair— which is huge! for them. We want to be a help to their discipleship, not a hindrance!

The other side of the coin is to be thoughtful and purposeful in our relationship with our children: nurture and train. If we are just letting things go along and only intervening when they are doing something we don’t like or that bothers or embarrasses us, we are just being capricious. We are not taking on the responsibility of parenting. There is no nurturing or training going on; there is no plan, no objective, and certainly no careful maintenance of a good relationship with the kids. We are certainly not modeling for them what their Father in heaven is like.

St. Paul gives us some help with this. Combining Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, we read: “Fathers, a) do not provoke your children to anger or resentment, lest they be discouraged, but b) bring them up in the nurture and correction of the Lord.”

So here we have “two sides of a coin” for relating to our kids. First, do not treat them in such a way that leads to the breakdown of their relationship with us, resulting in a loss of hope. We learn from John MacArthur that we must watch out for: 1) overprotecting, 2) favoritism, 3) depreciating their

And by the way, who was the imbecile who said you maintain your dignity in your position by never apologizing for anything? Good grief! God doesn’t have to apologize for anything because He is perfect. We, however, must—and the best way is to do it immediately upon an offense. The kids know when we are wrong. When we apologize, they see we are being honest. Few things earn their respect better than humble honesty.

Raising children is part of your own discipleship; part of your own training as a child of God. Embrace it, and lean on your loving Father who gives you grace to follow His example (2 Corinthians 9:8). Keep up this good work—they grow up so fast!