Biblical wisdom for parents | Ann Benton (ISBN: 9781844743544)

As parents approach their children’s teenage years they may benefit from some reflection under three headings.

Review

Even where children have been raised under good guiding principles, a parent may find it helpful to review how effective those strategies have been. Should some adjustments be made?

Proverbs is big on pitfalls: know what they are and avoid them. So, without apology here are nine* pitfalls and with our adolescent in mind, let us ask ourselves some questions.

* Allowing anything: Have I abandoned all attempts at setting boundaries? Do I fear confrontation? Who is in charge in our house?
* Bribery: Have I resorted to negotiation to get the behaviour I want? Is behaviour set firmly in a moral framework? Are my children only motivated by material considerations?
* Child-centred: Is our house revolving around this child and his needs? Does she know how to be, and not be the centre of attention?
* Distant: Have I thought of parenting as merely providing? Do I avoid personal involvement with my child?
* Explosive: Do I boil over with anger and shout to make my point? Is it decibel level that moderates my children’s behaviour?
* Fault-finding: Am I always nit-picking? When did I last say something personally encouraging?
* Guilt: Am I trying to compensate for my own parental mistakes by buying them stuff? Do my children know how to make me feel bad and manipulate me?
* ‘Hedging’ — by which I mean attempting to control your children by narrowing the environment in which they function. Are my children learning to use independence well?
* Inconsistent: Am I only concerned about my children’s behaviour when other parents are watching? Do I make threats or promises and not deliver?

Even a short reflection on the above may reveal where you have been letting things slip. Proverbs is very real about the making of mistakes. It is saying to us that the wise person is not the one who never makes mistakes; the wise person is the one who makes a mistake and is not too proud to learn from it so as not to repeat it. This is tremendously encouraging! It is not too late to change. Proverbs 11.2.

Regrets

The parenting road is strewn with regrets. When you read the above list of questions, did you blush? I will freely own that I have many regrets about what I did or left undone with my children. I wish I’d known then what I know now.

If you have a deterministic worldview then you have no place to go at this point. The die is cast and you are to blame. Some people read Proverbs 22.6 deterministically: ‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.’

Many Christians read that and assume that, if all the correct components in the training are present, the child will emerge at the end of the parenting conveyor belt bright and shiny and just as you would want her to be. Furthermore, they look at a rebellious youngster at church and judge that the parents must be at fault. Or, when viewing their own wild child, they bitterly blame God for reneging on his promise.

But determinism is not the Bible. The book of Proverbs is consistent in teaching that there is only one right way. It is much more likely that a child will become a responsible adult if trained in the right path. But this is not a guarantee, it is just saying that, all things being equal, this is the way things tend to go.

Proverbs is also wonderfully balanced in its teaching on the sovereignty of Almighty God alongside the responsibility and accountability of humankind, his creation. Take for example Proverbs 16.1-6.

v.1. To man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue.

This verse is telling us that a proper recognition of God’s sovereignty over our future and our children’s futures will produce in us an appropriate humility.

v.2. All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

This reminds us that we are always all too ready to deceive ourselves about how right we are or have been in our behaviour or attitudes. When it comes to reviewing our own parenting, we can be very defensive about the choices we have made. It is important to remember that God is the final arbiter.

v.3. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

Verse 3 recommends that all planning be done in recognition of the fact that God can overturn it. We would be well advised to continually submit our entire life’s action, including the raising of our children, to God.

v.4. The Lord works out everything for his own ends — even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Here is a further statement of God’s control. God can use the very act of human (or teenage) rebellion and autonomy for his own purposes. We may not always understand those purposes in the short term. We may find them painful. But there is also comfort in knowing that evil will be punished.

v.5. The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: they will not go unpunished.

This underlines the serious danger of pride. It is pride that makes children (and adults) unteachable. God holds your children accountable for their response to your training as surely as he holds you responsible for that careful training.

v.6. Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil.

Verse 6 is good news for all us guilty parents. There is something to be done with guilt. Sin cannot and should not be denied or minimised, but it can be covered over. Not by us! Because of what Jesus did on the cross, believers can be and are forgiven. Their sin and guilt is covered over. It was the love and faithfulness of God that was the driving force of that death on the cross. At a much lower level, the principle of love and faithfulness will encourage the failing parent. Certainly you will make errors. But, in parenting, a solid love for your child will cover a multitude of sins. Your child will not be irreparably damaged by your mistakes as long as your child is aware throughout of your unflinching love.

So, fellow parent, do not be overcome with regret. Understand that both you and your teenager are work in progress. Don’t give up hope — the Bible gives us every reason to hope.

Relate

Discipline problems in the teenage years nearly always boil down to a failure in relationship. This is one of my favourite parenting sayings: ‘Rules without relationship lead to rebellion’.

When you have a teenager you are made very much aware that your authority is waning. If you go into your teenager’s bedroom on a Monday morning and tell him it’s time to get up and go to school and he pulls the duvet over his head, what do you do? You can pull the bedclothes off, but you can’t pull him out of bed. He is six feet tall and weighs 11 stone. You can rant and rave but you cannot make him do what he has decided not to do. That is why you must hope and intend that your authority will become influence.

It is your influence which will persuade your child to do what he doesn’t really want to. And you will have no influence over him unless he trusts you. You will have no influence unless you have a warm relationship. Teenagers are acutely sensitive to the attitudes of adults towards them. All your good advice will go unheeded if your son is unconvinced that you really, genuinely like him.

It is harder to relate to a teenager than it is to a younger child. He is less accessible to you, the parent, because:

* He has discovered the truth — you are not perfect as he once thought you were. You are off your pedestal.
* He has most of his social needs met by his peer group. He doesn’t need your input when he has theirs.
* He is very busy with other agendas — his grades, his spots, his feelings for the girl over the road — agendas with which you might not sympathise.
* He has developed his own interests in music, reading materials and leisure activities, which don’t necessarily coincide with yours.
* He is on the receiving end of many messages which are anti-parent.
* He is inclined not to like himself very much and fears that you share his opinion.
* He sometimes suspects you only communicate to disapprove.

In summary, your teenager occupies a different world. And that is his perception as well as yours. Other friends, other technologies, other issues make his statement, ‘You don’t know what it’s like…’, absolutely true. Even your concept of the role of the traditional family is one he may not recognise. After all, countless numbers of his classmates will be doing it differently. ‘What is wrong with that?’

These realisations will not all happen at once; they will be gradual. They will be largely unspoken. Because of those barriers, you have to put in extra effort to keep the relationship warm and positive, to maintain trust and the sense of belonging together.

* See my earlier book Aren’t They Lovely When They’re Asleep, published by Christian Focus.

This is a heavily edited extract from Teenagers: Biblical Wisdom for Parents by Ann Benton, published by IVP in February (£7.99, ISBN 978-1-84474-354-4), and used with permission.