Parenting 101: The Golden Rule

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"

And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
-- Matthew 22:37-40

This week’s parenting focus is how we should treat others – and why.

The “how” is generally the easy part. I mean, really. We know how we want our kids to act: be nice, share, say the magic word, don’t hit/pinch/bite/scream/yell/flush your brother’s Legos down the toilet. The “how” is easy.

“Don't act out of selfish ambition or be conceited. Instead, humbly think of others as being better than yourselves. Don't be concerned only about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others.” -- Philippians 2:3-4

But WHY???
• Because Dad and Mom said so? Well, that’s a good start, but what if Dad and Mom aren’t around? Do I still have to? What if they didn’t exactly say so?
• Because the Bible tells me to? That’s good, too, but it’s a little abstract for most kids. Plus, isn’t the Bible more than just the 10 commandments?
• Because I’m going to be punished if I don’t? What if I don’t get caught?

A child who is taught to behave correctly, but is never taught why they should behave correctly, becomes a moral puppet – and they’ll have no backbone. They will be at the mercy of the one who holds the strings.

A child who is taught to think correctly will become morally strong and free to make his or her own choices.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

So, the trick is to train our children to think correctly. How do we do that? First of all, we need to model right behavior. It’s hard to teach your children to be honest with you when you tell lies in front of them.

Second of all, we need to have on our minds the reason behind our desire for their right behavior.

Let me explain that better.

I need to know why it’s important for my child to not lie/hit/steal/scream/run out into the middle of the street. If I don’t know, how can I explain it to him?

Does that mean that I always need to answer every “WHY?” my son comes up with? Absolutely not! Especially if he’s four! You could go on forever about where salt comes from! :^) It means that I train my kids to think things through. One day, they'll arrive at their own moral conclusions because they've been trained to think about the outcome of their actions -- not just whether a specific action is permissible! I pray that I've trained them so their conclusions are Godly.

You know one interesting way this principle helped me in my parenting? I used to say NO a lot. I like being in charge of things, and I really enjoy things being “in order”. When I began to apply the principle of moral training to my kids (who were then 5 and under), I realized that I didn’t have a good reason for a lot of the things I did or said. I eased up. I did get firmer on the important things, but I eased up a lot on the more “fun” stuff.

“Mom, can we eat on the back porch?” No. Why? ‘Cause I’d have to move all the food out there, and it’s all set up here. Lame reason. If I have to actually think through and explain my reasons, I’m more likely to be reasonable!

“Mom, can we eat in the living room?” No. Why? Because the carpet is new and white and this is a rental. Valid reason. Let’s eat on the back porch!!!

Do you think giving your kids a moral reason for not fighting/being selfish/stealing/whining or whatever would cause a change in their behavior? Are you willing to give it a try? Let me know what happens!!! (Be sure it probably won’t change overnight, but you might be surprised!!!)

Parenting 101: Intro

Doug and I took some parenting classes decades ago (feels like!) and I think we really learned a lot. OK. I know we learned a lot. I’ll be honest: I was a ding-dong mom for at least the first year of Sarah’s life.

I was, in fact, such a ding-dong that I remember talking to Aunt Nancy on the phone one evening when Sarah was almost two and Caleb was bouncing away in his bouncy seat. During the course of our conversation, I bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t have the table set nicely for Doug when he came home from work. She asked me why not, and I told her it was because every time I got the table set for dinner, Sarah climbed up on the table and destroyed everything. She would pull the table cloth down, knock over candles (unlit, of course. I wasn’t that much of a ding-dong.) throw dishes on the floor and whatever else she could find to make me want to yank out my hair (or hers).

Nancy said something at that moment that I’ll never forget: “Tell her, ‘No.’”

It was like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky.

Sometimes we just need a place to start. For me, the beginning of victory in my Mom-Journey was when I realized that I was indeed the Mom and my kids were, by definition, the kids. That meant that I out-ranked and out-voted them, even when there were 6 of them and only one of me. My battle cry became, “Let’s take a vote. Mom counts 10.” I still say that.

So here I am, 15+ years later and the student has become the teacher…sort of. We started parenting classes in Boca a year ago and had a really great time. We certainly learned a lot! We struggled a bit with the Spanish – lots of words we didn’t know! Now we’re starting our 3rd series and are really excited!

I’m so excited that I decided to make weekly blog posts about the classes and share the “theme” of the week – starting this week. I’ll call it “Parenting 101” and I hope that you’ll check back every week to see what I’m learning, er, I mean teaching.

Seriously, even in the introduction to the book we’re using I was reminded of important truths – things I hadn’t thought of in ages, and it did me good to be reminded of them. Here’s a “sneak-peak”.

Two points to consider:
1. We can’t teach our kids something that we ourselves don’t know or don’t put into practice. If we want our kids to be godly, respectful, honest, dependable, trustworthy, etc., we can’t just tell them to do it, we need to model that behavior for them.
2. Our childhood experiences affect our parenting. Duh. Yeah, I knew that, too. But here’s something you may not have known:
• If your parents were of the “my way or the highway” mindset, you will tend to be a more permissive parent.
• If your parents were very laid-back, wishy-washy or just plain negligent, you’ll tend to be more strict.

Yes, that’s a generalization. But we tend to swing to the opposite extreme of our parents. The goal is to be at neither extreme, neither permissive nor authoritarian, but to work toward balance and consistency.

Well, that was the intro. Whadaya think? Each class is over an hour of lecture with discussion questions and such, so this is a very, very small nutshell, but I don’t feel like typing four pages and you probably don’t feel like reading them! I pray that these sum-ups become an encouragement to you and maybe even a challenge to reevaluate your parenting strategies to see if you can improve in certain areas.

Do you have an “Aunt Nancy” in your life? Someone who has said what needed to be said or just stood alongside you when you needed her to? Why not send her a note telling her thanks!!!