"The first step of parenting, the step without which all other attempts are in vain, is to establish mutual ties of respect and honor. Unless the children can trust their parents with the handling of their souls, they will not make themselves vulnerable. It is the same with you, is it not? Children must be brought to the place where they want to please their parents. Until children value the approval of their parents more than the lure of any indulgence, there is no foundation for training.
Fear of punishment is not sufficient to make children compliant; it will certainly not remove their adversarial mentality. When parents get to the place where they are relying on threats alone, they have totally lost fellowship and are functioning as the IRS. Threats might get outward compliance but never the heart---quite the opposite.
So…enjoy the children and cause them to enjoy you. Give them your time, your attention, your laugh, your approval, your touch, hugs, reading, silly funnies; roll on the carpet or out in the yard, push them in the swing, or pull them in the wagon. But most of all let them bask in your smile until they need it like they need breath. Cause them to feed on your fellowship, to relax until they are sure you care only for their good, that you live to enjoy their company and would not be happy without them. Do this and you will have achieved what most Christian homes are missing.
Your reach as a disciplinarian cannot exceed the limits of your fellowship with the child. Rebuke must be delivered in an atmosphere of trust and respect. If you have lost the child's heart, then the child will have lost the heart to please you. If the child is not in agreement to pull with you, it is vain to try to harness him to your rules. The occasional rebuke must be the exception to a constant sharing of positive experiences. When rebuke and chastisement are strung along on a thread of long silences, punctuated by beads of unpleasantries, it will only strangle the relationship, not beautify the child's soul."
-Debi Pearl (quote courtesy of a friend; thanks, Jennifer!)
Me here, adding a qualification: The goal of causing your child to live for your smile is a temporary one that must give way in them to a desire to live for God's smile. With that qualification, I LOVE this thought. Applying it to my life, it's like Piper says-- only belief in God's superior pleasures gives us the power to free our hearts from the lure of sin's false pleasures. No one sins out of duty. Fight pleasure with pleasure. Truth for me and for my kids.
Amen
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