In our impatient cultural moment, we can cook instant oatmeal, order fast food, and download apps with high speed WiFi, but parenting is one area where we can’t take shortcuts. Raising children takes time and patience. Parents who attempt to cheat the system suffer the consequences. They may try to spend their way out of conflicts, thinking, “if I buy my kid what she wants, she will be happier.” They may outsource their child’s spiritual development, thinking, “the church will teach him right from wrong.” But there is no shortcut to raising mature, godly children. Parents have to get their hands dirty, be patient, and rely on the Lord.
It may sound like a hard pill to swallow but if your child seems immature, hope is not lost. We as Christian parents want our children to know the Lord, to be spiritually mature, and to have emotional maturity as they interact with others. But how easy is it as parents to throw up our hands in frustration when our child forgets their homework for the 100th time, talks out of turn, or worse, turns to the party scene of drugs and alcohol. We so easily complain to our friends about how our kids seem slow to mature and idolize those who appear to have perfect children. Sometimes parents may resort to entertaining any number of worst-case scenarios: forgetting homework will lead to homelessness and lifelong unemployment, or talking out of turn will lead to fights and jail time.
Thankfully there is a better way than just giving our child another long lecture on poor decision making. Here are three strategies to help point us in the right direction.
Adopt a New Mindset
As parents we often tend to see the current version of our kids as the permanent one. If they are rebellious, they will always be rebellious, if they are absent-minded, they will always be absent-minded, if they don’t like church, they never will. This causes us to have a lack of faith in what God can do and forget that Jesus said, “with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.”
What if instead we see the potential for change in our kids? Many parents believe this in theory, but take matters into their own hands when trying to shape their child. They get frustrated that their own efforts aren’t working (and I can be no different). We often tend to parent our children based on what we believed worked for our parents, on what we see our friends do, or on the anecdotal evidence of a parenting guru. Our kids are unique creations of God Almighty and he knows best about what makes our children tick. If we rely on his wisdom instead of our own, we just might find that he knows our children better than we do.
One way to rely on his wisdom is to consider how he has worked in the lives of many of our Bible heroes. When we meditate on how Moses was afraid yet led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, how Peter went from closet Christian to bold witness, and how God has changed the lives of others around us, it can give us a renewed sense of faith that the Lord can work the same in our children. Maturity may not happen on the world’s timetable, which expects that kids should be picture-perfect products by age 18, but in the span of eternity, is that what really matters?
Avoid Comparison
One of the big pitfalls of impatient parenting is the comparison trap. Nothing will stir up our anxieties like seeing another child of similar age excel in an area where we believe our child is deficient. We compare our kids to friends’ kids: “Johnny and Susan’s daughter already has perfect table manners and mine still forgets to wash her hands,” to family members’ kids: “my nieces and nephews have straight As and my son has average grades,” and even among our own kids: “why can’t you be more like your sister or your brother?” When our children’s deficiencies become exposed, our envy causes us to panic, and we attempt to microwave our kids into public perfection. The result leaves us humiliated and our children discouraged. No one wins.
A friend once told me to avoid comparing my inside to someone’s outside. We are painfully aware of our children’s shortcomings because we face them every day. But in public, we only see a curated version of someone else’s child because their parents carefully filter the information they share. Social media only exaggerates this comparison trap. Parents share highlights that accentuate the strengths of their family. We took a cross-country trip this past summer and took a lot of pictures, many of which we shared on social media, but not one of the photos involved the problems we had navigating the septic tank on the RV. It is a dangerous move to compare what you know about your child with what someone else wants you know to know about theirs.
Instead of comparing our children to other kids, let’s consider them in relation to Christlikeness and God’s timing. After all, Colossians 3:9-10 says that we are being formed into the image of Christ. In the midst of a very difficult trial, David says to God, “my times are in your hands” (Ps. 31:15). We have to remember that God’s desire for our kids is that they become more like Christ, not like our friends’ kids. God has his own timetable, which is often longer than our own, but he offers us his strength and wisdom through the Holy Spirit. We are but instruments in his hands. Only though his strength and wisdom can our kids be formed into his image.
Act in Faith
Our children’s flaws can spark visceral reactions in us as parents because we personalize them. We fear that our children’s flaws are products of our mismanagement. We always want to try to diagnose and find an easy cause for every problem that exists in our children. If they are lazy it’s because of that time we didn’t force them to do their homework. If they are sassy, it’s because we allowed them to play with that friend, or because our spouse wasn’t on the same page regarding discipline. These can all be real contributors to the dysfunction in our children, but an overemphasis on these causes can lead us to believe that we are the god of our own world. I have met plenty of parents who appeared to do everything right who have adult children who are unbelievers, and many solid Christians who grew up with unbelieving parents. Raising Christian kids doesn’t fit into a formula.
The sovereignty of God is often hard to accept, but for parents it can be an encouragement. God has given us this season of parenting as a trust. It is our job to steward our children in faith and leave the results to him. We should teach God’s Word to our kids and be an example, but only he can change their hearts. According to Jeremiah 18:6, we are but clay in the potter’s hand. If you feel that your child is behind the curve or that you have had a less than stellar parenting record so far, this is actually encouraging news because it frees you from the burden of control. We can instead rely on the infinite wisdom of a holy God rather than on our own limited experience in parenting.
Check out our current Rooted Parent Podcast season: Parenting, Technology, and the Truth for more gospel-centered parenting resources.
