I thought I had fool-proofed everything. Before we left the school, we ran through a check to make sure that my son had confirmed the school software and put the homework assignment in his backpack. Then we made sure he completed it at home. We did another double check in the morning to make sure the assignment was in the backpack. When I dropped him off at school, I made sure he showed me he had it in the correct folder as he left the car.
So why, upon picking him up later that day, did I see the assignment listed as “missing” in his grade for the class?
When I asked him what happened, he simply said “I lost it and I don’t know where it is.” How could it have been lost? I practically gift-wrapped it for you! All you had to do was to take it out of the backpack and hand it to the teacher. In my frustration, I said something to that effect and then thought to myself “how could this have possibly been messed up? This is the kind of painstaking checklist pilots go through before departure, and yet we still crashed.”
If you have been there as a parent, this article is for you. You may not have gone to those lengths to ensure academic success, or you may have gone even further. But all of us want our kids to succeed and will move heaven and earth to make it happen. It can be frustrating to know that no matter how hard we try, we can’t mistake-proof the process.
I had to sit back and reflect on what I had become as a parent. For me, that situation was a reckoning to see the diminishing returns of control. We need the gospel to guide our understanding of academics. Thanks to the gospel, we are freed from the need to perform. In Christ, we are already justified, everything has been paid for, and we don’t need good report cards to make God love us or our children more. He already does, more than we can imagine.
Given this reality, we can freely live our lives in response to this grace. We were created in God’s image to give him glory. He restored us through his son for that very purpose. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says that whether you eat or drink of whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I had to wonder if I was leading my child into a deeper knowledge of God’s glory or controlling him for my own safety. Here are three ways to discern when we are leading our kids and when we are controlling them:
Know What’s Behind the Grade
We are supposed, as the verse says, to do everything for the glory of God. This the real reason our kids go to school, so it’s important to remember what lessons we really want our kids to learn in academics. They don’t attend school merely to have straight As, but to understand how to work in such a way that God is glorified in the process.
The first thing God did after creating Adam was to have him work the garden (Gen. 2:15). One way to bring glory to God is through the work he has given us, and our kids’ work is school. Parents who lead their children, rather than controlling them, point them to worshipping the God who gave them their skills, talents, and knowledge. We can teach them that the rhythms of work and rest are God’s idea. We can instill in our children an understanding that education allows us to see more of the God who made us.
On the other hand, when we try to control their kids , we are focused more on our own security. We want to ensure a path to success that doesn’t force us to face our fears and insecurities, whether it be fear of failure, fear of shame, or fear of loss. The quest for control appears noble at first: we want our children to succeed, to surpass our accomplishments, and we want them to be shielded from failure that we may have experienced in our childhood. Our fear s can subtly shift our focus away from God onto ourselves. We begin to lose trust in God to take care of our children, so we believe that we must, and our children can become unfortunate victims of this shift.
Embrace Failure
Nothing threatens our sense of safety more than failure. Failure can breed shame and the fear of losing something we value, like status or achievement. Some of us feel shame when we compare our academically average child to the children of our peers who excel at academics. Other parents fear criticism from the grandparents. Fear of failure can make us shift into control mode. We will do everything possible to make sure that they don’t experience the sting of failure again. Some even resort to doing their kids’ homework or badgering their teachers for grade adjustments.
But if we pause, we need to remember that there are so many lessons to be learned in failure. Failure is a great teacher of God’s grace. t is there that we learn that God doesn’t abandon us, that he truly loves us, and his aim is always redemption. Our children are bombarded with messages from social media influencers, schools, and the culture that your worth is determined by your grade-point average, your income, your social media followers and friends. Cancel culture has led us to believe that if you don’t measure up, you’re discarded. Failure can be a great way to introduce them to a God who will never leave them and can redeem them no matter what they have done.
Remember That Your Kids are God’s Kids
There’s nothing wrong with setting up processes to guide our kids in the right direction. After all, parents are instructed to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov. 22:6), to bring our children up “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Parents are responsible to set up processes by which our kids can be held accountable, but at the end of the day our kids are ultimately in God’s hands. Only he can change their hearts.
When we as parents become consumed by control, we either forget this truth or refuse to recognize it. We want to control the result as well as the process. But the parent who leads their child realizes that all they can do is to show the way towards the God who made them by teaching the gospel and allow the Holy Spirit to do the rest. Failures like poor test grades, a refusal to obey, or a compromise in purity can be difficult to stomach, but parents can rest knowing that the God who made their children is also the God who can change them.
As with any area of life, our kids need to know that God’s grace through the good news of the gospel is the ultimate vehicle by which kids are conformed into his image. Taking the phone away for getting a “C” on a test or giving a forceful 30-minute lecture about never being able to find a job after a substandard report card won’t produce that result. The goal isn’t report card perfection, it’s being conformed into the image of Jesus and having a deep intimate knowledge of his majesty and love for us. Only an understanding that the God of the universe loved our children enough to send his Son to die for them can produce that kind of lasting change. Parents who learn to lead their children to God rather than control them come to understand this truth and leave room for the Holy Spirit to work in their lives.
For a resource that will help you guide your child through performance anxiety, we’d like to suggest a 31-day Rooted devotional, Anxiety: Finding a Better Story.
