Here's a not-so-"sorta" for you. The area where passion is a must. One that's really been on my mind a lot.
How do you emulate grace for your children? How do you help them value integrity and good behavior without making it the end-all? How do you provide consistent consequences for wrong actions while still avoiding legalism?
I am amazed at how many churched young people have no concept of grace. And yet...I had a majorly convicting realization the other day.
As he usually does, Josh asked me how my day had been. "Oh, it was a bad day. He was sooo fussy and just wanted to be held all the time, and his naptimes were way too short." And then I stopped. And I realized something.
I am already parenting without grace. I am already basing my evaluation of my child on how well his performance matches up to my expectations.
Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Now if spiritual Kanani were parenting, her focus wouldn't be simply on his behavior, or even distinguishing between "good" and "bad" days.. The quality of the day would be based on my ability to attend to my baby's deepest (and not-so-deep) needs.
And one of those deepest needs is the need to know that my love of him is not based on his behavior.
But what does that look like? It doesn't seem that complicated with infants. They're not willfully defying you. When parenting infants, grace means your main concern is the reason behind the performance. Loving your baby and truly desiring to meet his needs, without getting frustrated that you're in the church lobby with an overstimulated baby AGAIN while your friend's baby happily lets mom sit through the service. After all, he didn't choose to be overstimulated.
But what does that look like when children are old enough to willfully defy you? You still have to provide consequences. You still have to help them learn how to behave.
So how do you do that?
I know there are a couple core principles:
-First, I have to extend grace to myself (and my husband!) first. If the kids see me beating myself up, they will get the idea that perfection is the goal.
-Second, I have to strive to understand why they are behaving in a particular way. Sometimes punishment might not be the most effective way to address a hurting heart.
-Third, I have to be generous with expressions of my love for them - and when I tell them why I love them, the focus should not be on performance-based criteria.
-Fourth, when punishments are necessary, they should be based on the misbehavior itself, rather than on my disappointment with them. Another reason to decide beforehand how we are going to address specific problems: so that our punishments do not reflect our emotional reaction to a child, say, misbehaving in front of an acquaintance that we wanted to impress.
But I still need help in what this looks like on a practical level. I'm serious when I say that I really want (need) feedback. How do you show your children grace without teaching them licentiousness?
I'll be very interested to see what feedback you get. I've been thinking about this same thing a lot lately, especially now that we're dealing with actual disobedience from Kaalo.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'm working on right now is not holding on to "grudges." I suppose there are a couple of steps to this - first, not being offended by his disobedience ("how can you be doing this to me?") and second, resetting as soon as the situation is resolved. I have to purposefully let it go and return to being "happy mommy." It's like I wipe Kaalo's slate clean so that I don't see each act of disobedience as another strike against him. If I let it compound, I find myself reacting far too strongly to a small incident solely because of what has happened before.
It's nice for me too. I stay much happier with life when I'm not stuck in a "punishment groove."
This is such a good and complex question! I really enjoyed this post, and Corrie's response. :) I DEFINITELY struggle with this one, especially now that my little guy knows what "no" means, and so we're disciplining for disobedience, not just correcting ignorance. A couple things I really have to work on to keep myself in the right attitude are, first of all, make sure I don't correct/discipline things that are just "inconvenient" versus dangerous or otherwise harmful. He does some things that can be tedious, messy, annoying, but he and I both stay happier if I make the distinction between what actually needs to be dealt with and what needs to be met with patience and a shrug. And two, I have to remember that oftentimes the qualities that cause the most disobedience and frustration can be the sources of greatest strength as an adult; I have a very very strong-willed and opinionated little man, and he NEVER sits still - but I know that God often uses energetic, strong-minded men to do his great work - so I have to keep my mind on the long-range man I'm raising, and not just see the baby.
ReplyDeleteAs for how to teach him to be good without being self-righteous and legalistic - that will be a learning process all its own I imagine, as he gets older. I think most of all, I want Liam to develop a desire to do the right thing not to receive love (because God and his parents love him independent of his actions), but to do the right thing because of his own love for God and for others, which displays itself in service and obedience.