The Objective of Parenting - Part 1

By Rawly Glass

“Whoa! You see that? That kid needs his ears boxed!”

“Yeah. He almost clipped the old lady. She barely made it to the sidewalk!”

Walking down the main street of town, Jeffrey’s face flushed with embarrassment and anger as he heard the comments from the two men behind him and recognized the offending sports car as his own. With his son at the wheel.

Ever been embarrassed by your child’s behavior? Ever felt angered or frustrated?

The burning question is: How are we going to respond to our child’s misbehaviors, indiscretions, and out-and-out wrongdoings?

To find out what our next step is, it helps to look at the big picture. In this series, we started with our parenting mission: Sharing the Good News of salvation with our children. Becoming a bit more specific, we narrowed our focus down to the parenting goal: Developing a relationship with our children.

In this article we’re narrowing it down even further into the parenting objective: Taking responsibility for our personal behavior.

When we, as parents, take personal responsibility for our own behavior, we are at the same time building and nurturing a relationship with our children which, in turn, enables us to share— and them to hear—the Good News of salvation.

The sequencing flows backwards and forwards like a well-lubricated machine. Next comes activities, but we’ll get into that later.

One of the primary dynamics parents get caught up in today is focusing on their child’s behavior rather than their own. When we focus on someone else’s behavior, however, we create a division, an adversarial atmosphere. Us against them. We zero in on how to get them to behave appropriately, in an acceptable manner—how to get them to do what’s right and good. A worthy goal, but it flat-out doesn’t work.

Unfortunately, many parenting philosophies are wrapped around the concept of keeping the children in line, making them obey, getting them to comply with what the culture or the parents say they should do.

And it always backfires.

When we talk about personal responsibility in the parenting arena, we focus on how the parent does his work, not on the child’s behavior.

With most parenting philosophies, when the child misbehaves the first question is: How do we get the child to behave?

With the Irresistible Parenting philosophy, the first question is: What is it I need to do that will draw this child back to me? Because when we’re connected, then they are in the right space behaviorally, and they have the right attitude.

Let’s look at a 3-year old. A 3-year old is by nature very narcissistic; his world revolves around himself, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean, however, that the 3-year old gets everything he wants. And 3-year olds really know how to act out when they don’t get what they want.

God’s instructions in dealing with people who ill-treat us—and many times our children, even 3-year olds, ill-treat us— is to love them and pray for them (Matthew 5:44). Sometimes what happens is that our children become viewed almost as enemies because they’re always making messes, they’re always fighting against us, and they’re continually making bad choices. We have to control them, contain them, keep them in line. We’re the good people, and they’re the bad people, and we have to make sure that these little, bad people do good things. It’s very much an adversarial concept. So God, in loving and wise instruction, tells us to love and pray for our enemies which changes the dynamics to taking personal responsibility rather than living reactively.

What becomes relevant for the parent that is focused on his personal responsibility is that, as the child is acting out in a normal, narcissistic fashion, the parent is centered on how to respond to that child in a way that is responsible and not based on the child’s behavior.

Most parents would agree that the ideal response to naughtiness would be to stay calm, gentle, and loving while giving clear guidelines. What often happens, though, is that the parent comes down to the child’s behavior and acts out in ways that are counter-productive to what he or she actually believes in. When a parent gets frustrated and angry and yells at the child or is physically abusive, the situation quickly escalates into ugliness.

So personal responsibility says, “I am who I am,” which is based on what you believe regardless of how the child is acting or what the child is doing.

When you treat a child consistently based on principles rather than based on how the child behaves, the child is drawn to you. He knows you are safe, he knows you love him, he knows the love is unconditional. Irregardless of how they do their own life, you are still consistently gentle, loving, and kind. That draws them into a relationship which ultimately opens the option of salvation which is the primary target.

Next month we’ll talk about the teen who almost “clipped” the old lady. We’ll discover what not to do and learn what does work

Rawly Glass writes from Medford, Oregon. Relationshipsfirst.com