“Are we giving our children simplistic explanations they will grow out of or big truths to grow into?” --Tedd Tripp at the Biblical Parenting Conference at Mars Hill
Tripp convicted the fool out of me as he talked about how we tell our children not to hit because they wouldn’t want to be hit (which is simplistic) rather than valuing others because God made them. One explanation is man-centered and the other is God-centered. Guilty on that one. It is amazing how much of my parenting is man-centered and solely focused on behavior. Simplistic parenting is tidier, because it reduces our task to being Pavlov’s dog trainer. There is so much more that God is calling us towards.
It is easy for me to tell when I slide into simplistic, man-centered, behaviorist parenting by watching my frustration level. When those annoying behaviors grind on me and my core temperature gets white hot, that is when I know I have left God out of my parenting to focus on changing natural behavior by natural means and natural truths; frustration is the natural response. God is calling me to the supernatural. By bringing big truths into my parenting—God, the heart, mercy, grace, sin—then I am forced to rely on His Word, His truths, His means, His supernatural work. And the real parenting begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment