Strict or Permissive Parenting? | Outside Eden

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:10

Welcome to Outside Eden, two sinners discovering grace together. And boy, do we need it tonight because this is like take five after dinner.

00:18

We are the Moffitts. I'm John. This is Judith. We've been married for 20 years. And this podcast is originally for our church,

00:25

Grace Reformed Church. So if you're one of our members there, we love you. I hope this is beneficial for you. But if you're listening to this and you're not part of our church, we're going through a book.

00:34

Just tell them about the book that we're going through. It's called For the Love of Discipline, When the Gospel Meets Tantrums and Timeouts by Sarah Wallace.

00:41

And we are on our sixth episode. This is the fifth chapter. We're going to be going over chapter five.

00:48

We're not going to tell you much about what's in the book and encourage you to buy it. But we want to give our thoughts and additional maybe encouragements from it.

00:56

This is one that's pretty near and dear to my heart, man, for 20 years of parenting. How do you know when you have not gone far enough in your discipline and you were too lenient and when you crossed the line and were too harsh, like the punishment or the discipline didn't match the crime, the disobedience.

01:17

So we're going to talk a little bit about what that is and then what is too much, what is too little.

01:22

And then the battlefield is really and how to keep it balanced and what keeps us balanced and what keeps us balanced.

01:28

That's absolutely right. So I enjoyed this chapter. I'm going to go ahead and start up front, Judith. I was convicted.

01:35

Yeah. We'll get to that probably till later in the end. But yeah, I'll say it now.

01:41

So hopefully you'll listen to it later because I think every parent is guilty of this. I have often used, well, you got to pick your battles.

01:48

And at first I didn't like what she was saying. And then towards the end, I was like, oh, man, she's right. Yeah. It made me think about how when our kids talk back to us or challenge us at that point, we don't get to pick that battle because they just picked it.

02:02

We can't let certain things go. I feel like don't pick your battles. I feel like the closest we can get to that and it being

02:09

OK is when you make an unreasonable request of your kids or rule, like you didn't have to pick that battle.

02:18

And she went into that and was some great examples in the book. We'll let you read those. So I think this is a healthy exercise,

02:27

Judith, where we in our parenting, you and I have both sat down and we'll get done in after a moment of discipline where we're in each other's presence and we'll go to each other and say, do you think that was too harsh?

02:38

Do you think that was, you know, not enough? Or, you know, I'll just I'll go ahead and be vulnerable here.

02:43

There are times where you've come to me and you're like, well, I don't know. That might have been too much. And in my mind, I'm like, nope, they deserve that.

02:51

But she talks about that, too. She talks about how what plays into that difference in personalities, how you were raised and you were raised a little bit more, well, especially because you're a boy.

03:00

And so your dad at times could be a little bit more upfront with you. And yeah, so all those things play into it.

03:07

Personalities and past and all of that. Well, and how what I learned was I could be direct with one of my children and that same directness would crush me too much or not enough.

03:18

Right. Depending on who it was. And so personality and circumstance situations, like if a child is tired or if it's early in the morning, late at night, whatever it is.

03:29

So but anyways, my first encouragement, this is not a part of the book, but so I'm going to add this in. You need to listen to your spouse because most likely their personalities and experiences are different.

03:41

You and I were both raised in a God -fearing home and our parents loved each other and loved us. But there was a little bit difference on how things were handled.

03:49

And we've had to talk about that where you you have adjusted in certain areas of your thinking.

03:55

And so did I. We had to over the years because we realized even though our parents loved us and they did their best, doesn't mean it was always right.

04:04

And the point is you have to be on the same page regardless. You guys have to come to under. We also had to come to an understanding where we agreed with where lines were going to be drawn and how to deal, you know, how strict or how lenient to be.

04:19

Yeah. And it's important to get on those pages because the kids will tell by your face like mom's on board, but dad isn't, you know, and I was anyways.

04:29

Yeah. So this is it's healthy and you really even though you may not agree out of the respect of your of your partner.

04:37

Oh, that's modern culture affecting me out of respect for your spouse. You may not fully agree with it, but if that's what their request is and you can go along with it, then the children need to know that you guys are are unified in that.

04:50

And it's going to create a safe place for them in their obedience where they're not like, well, it's clear that mom's on my side and dad isn't, you know, you've got good cat by good cop, bad cop.

05:00

And I feel like we've done a really good job of fighting that. Like I'm not the one that always says no. And you're not the one that always says yes.

05:07

I've even come to you before and say, can you be the one who talks into this this time? Because I feel like I'm always the one. Yeah.

05:13

Also, I thought it was interesting to just the times we live in right now because of social media, particularly, which can be very helpful, but even more than social media, like blogs, even, you know, 10 years ago, just everyone has their own opinion about it.

05:30

And so culturally, we kind of go through these waves of like, oh, this is how you should parent. And I'm talking very specifically like Christian culture, even like this is how you should parent.

05:38

Oh, no, no, no. This is how you should parent. And it's not ever like, oh, maybe you should do it this way.

05:44

It it often feels like if you don't do this way, you're damaging your kids. And I just like pointing out and she pointed this pointed this out, too, is that our kids are so different.

05:57

We know them so well and our personalities are all unique. And so we really can't be looking at what culture is doing or even what other people at church are doing.

06:06

I mean, we can ask for godly advice, but I mean, I remember one time

06:11

I was I was with a friend and she she was visiting. I hadn't seen her in a really long time. And here are my kids.

06:17

She hadn't seen a long time. They were little. And I thought I was being too strict. You know, I'm trying to give us time to talk, you know, with kids running around.

06:26

I thought I was trying to be I was being too strict. And later on, she commented how lenient I am.

06:32

And then I was like, oh, maybe she thinks I'm too lenient. Like, you know, I know we can all get dragged into that. So I like how when we're and she talks about this in the book in more specifics.

06:41

But when we are going and using the gospel and Christ example of how he cares and fathers us, it it makes it a little a little clearer in where the line should be drawn, regardless of what other people think about how we're doing it.

07:00

Yeah. So she spends a lot of time in the book and we referenced this earlier, but it is parenting style.

07:07

So you have the the drill sergeant that you're going to say you're going to do everything I say the moment

07:13

I say it. And then you have the lenient parent who, you know, they don't want to suffocate their children.

07:19

Right. Give them give them freedom to try and figure things out on their own. And in each has their justification and each judges the other.

07:28

You know, and it's easy to do that based upon we'll see my kids.

07:33

My kid is acting the right way. Therefore, my way is the right way. Well, I have seen kids obey for wrong reasons.

07:39

Yeah. And so just because they're doing the right action doesn't mean that it's the right kind of parenting that got them there. Right. It has to be more than outward behavior, because sometimes they're just obeying to get through and at the cost of them not ever really sharing their feelings about things, which is risky.

07:56

And then when they get older, they will either they'll they'll either rebel as they get older or they'll hide it and then it'll come out later after they leave the home.

08:06

And we don't want either of those. So we're not looking for behavior modification. That is what's so great about this book is that it connects us back to the gospel and it helps us understand that discipline is a is a is a fruit of love.

08:17

Right. She's shepherding hearts, training minds and cultivating a loving relationship with our kids that points them to Christ.

08:25

That's right. Yeah. So, yeah, I love this quote, too. The goal isn't to make him stop or whatever at whatever the cost.

08:33

The goal is to address his heart again and again, no matter how long it takes. And that is really what we're getting at at the heart of the matter.

08:41

So we're going to begin with Judith. We've kind of talked about you have the the lenient parent and the strict parent.

08:47

So we'll start with where she began, which is too much. How do we know we've gone too far? Right. Well, I think you kind of touched on it in that point.

08:56

A lot of times when we go too far, it's because we're overreacting again, just like we've talked about in the last couple of chapters.

09:03

It always comes up because we want something done right now at any cost and obedience at any cost skips the heart.

09:11

And it's going to have the opposite effect of shepherding their heart. That's really good.

09:17

Well, and I've been here, too, because it does come out of embarrassment where, you know, he isn't doing the thing that everyone else can see.

09:26

They're not they're not being respectful. Or, you know, in our children, we've just taught them to acknowledge adults when they walk into a room or look at them in the eye.

09:33

And well, our youngest, he just thought his way of acknowledging people was to stand up and kick him in the shin or hit them in the backside, which were like, how?

09:43

Where did you learn this? Yeah. Just when you think your fourth one will be easy. No, the personality comes out.

09:49

Or the excuse of I'm shy. He learned that one quick. I'm I'm I'm just shy. I'm just shy.

09:56

And there were times where I felt like I pressed down on that and it was too much. I didn't. I was more concerned about this person feeling respected and this person receiving the honor that they deserve than I was about why my child didn't think it was necessary to do that and why he would go against it.

10:14

So sitting down and say, hey, why are you doing this or why is this happening? Or when this when I'm asking you to shake an adult's hand or look him in the eye, why are you not wanting to do that?

10:23

And to me, it didn't matter whether they wanted to or not. They were going to do it. And that's where, you know, what are the consequences are?

10:32

I don't know what the consequences were. It's been so long. I can't think about it. But I do know that the intentions, which is,

10:39

I think, really at the heart of what she's getting at is that the intentions are this is reactionary and you're looking for a correct response immediately.

10:47

Out of a desire to control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I need to control my children, which is true.

10:53

We do. We need to teach our children to obey, but we teach them to obey from the heart, not out of fear or out of really bribery, which we talked about last time.

11:02

Right. And when we're addressing the heart again, like we talked about on the last episode, it's a proactive thing. So we address it again and again, no matter how long it takes, which is the really tricky part about shepherding their hearts versus focusing on outward behavior, because it takes so, so long and you begin to wonder, is this even working?

11:24

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing that, you know, Juth and I, we even have to encourage each other, like, hey, this is a reminder.

11:31

Remember where our children were? Look what they are now. Look how much they've improved. And this doesn't happen overnight, you know, as we struggle with our own sins.

11:39

It's like we have an imbalanced perspective about our children. It's like our children are not allowed to have struggles, but we are.

11:48

Right, right. Well, and too, she addresses this, and this is something we've talked about, disobedience versus childishness.

11:56

That's right. That takes us stopping and gathering some facts first. We're stopping and thinking about our specific child, our unique child, and asking ourselves some questions.

12:08

That's right. Yeah. And I think, you know, I feel like the way in which we kind of helped with that was, or if a child does something the first time, that might be them exploring the boundaries of life.

12:21

And in some ways I'm okay with that. But when it's a direct, all right, and we would do this, we would have them acknowledge by like nodding their head or repeating it back to us, like, hey,

12:30

I will not hit or I will not throw this. You know, do you understand? And we made sure they acknowledge us, because if they did it again, we know we're moving from foolish childishness to direct disobedience.

12:42

And then now we can deal with the heart issue versus, all right, look, you know, we, unfortunately we have one of our children who's just clumsy and she just like falls and breaks things.

12:54

Knocks things over all the time. And I don't think it's because she's being lazy or careless. It's just part of who she is.

12:59

And she's had to work on it and think about it. And it plays into other areas of your life. So any other thoughts about,

13:05

I don't want to belabor this point, but being too, it's too much, too strict. We have a child coming out right now saying, are you talking about me?

13:12

No. We're not ratting you out. We're saying no names.

13:18

Love you. We're just talking about how much we love you. All right, moving on. Too little. This one is interesting,

13:25

Judith, because being Christians, we want to throw the grace card out and say, well,

13:31

I just want to show them grace. Like my heavenly father shows us grace. And I'm like, amen.

13:39

Yes, absolutely. But my heavenly father in the grace that he gives me also says that he disciplines me because he loves me.

13:50

Right. Which is very important to understand that we will not be condemned and punished for our sins.

13:57

That is true. And to be frank, we as parents aren't to condemn or punish our children either.

14:02

Right. This is kind of going back to, I think it was chapter two or chapter three.

14:08

I can't remember specifically right now. But I can feel that heart behind what she's saying.

14:15

But the danger behind it doesn't mean we just kind of like, oh, I know what you did is wrong. So I'm going to give you grace.

14:22

That's technically not the biblical perspective. I know, I think you've got some stuff you want to. Oh, no,

14:27

I just, I like how she points out again, because she talked about this. Like you said earlier, we're not fighting against them.

14:35

We're fighting alongside them. That's right. So I know sometimes when we're being lenient and we think we're doing it for their good, we have to remember that discipline is for their good.

14:45

That's right. When we don't discipline, we're not giving them a correct view of their savior.

14:52

And also we're kind of skipping over the fact that they need a savior. Mm hmm. Yes. She has a great point in there in that Christ does not present grace to us without any cost.

15:06

Grace always costs somebody, right? So for instance, let's say, you know, one of our children's hypothetically may have scratched up one of our cars, hypothetically.

15:18

And he's driving home or she, it could have been, you know, we have two drivers. So it could have been she or he.

15:24

Anyways, and they were worried like, oh, dad is going to be so angry. And the co -pilot next to them says, what are you talking about?

15:31

This is our dad you're talking about. And it was a gut reaction of thinking I really messed up.

15:37

He's going to be angry. And I wasn't angry. But it was a teaching moment because I asked him or her, were you on your phone?

15:46

No. Were you messing with the radio? No. Were you joking around? No. So you made a legitimate blunder as a new driver.

15:54

I said, okay. So you learned that you got to take your corners wider. Yes. Okay. Well, there's no reason to be angry.

16:00

This is part of learning. But so I did show grace, but at that moment, he didn't need to be disciplined or she didn't need to be disciplined.

16:10

They needed to have actually a moment where they sat back and say, you know what? Life is frail and weak.

16:15

Now, if he was being foolish or was on his phone, that's a whole nother description.

16:25

But the grace, you know who it cost? It cost us. We ended up having to pay to fix that.

16:31

And that's her point. The gospel is about grace, but God can give us grace because he punished his son.

16:39

Like the cost has to be on somebody. It can't just go undone. Someone's got to pay the penalty for it.

16:44

And that penalty was Christ. And so when we are showing our kids grace, that's what we're pointing them to is that, hey, someone has to pay for what you've done.

16:53

And she even says, grace does not equal no consequences. That's right. Yeah. That's a really good, really great statement.

17:02

Okay. So this is a paragraph in here. I don't read very many of them, but I'm gonna go ahead and read this one because I thought it was so helpful.

17:09

If we continue with the analogy of a battle. So, all right, let me set this up. When you think about giving your children grace or the idea of let's pick or we're going to pick and choose.

17:21

Well, I'm going to say this to the end. Let's finish up the grace thing because I'm kind of getting onto a different analogy. When we're thinking about being lenient towards our children, we definitely need to be lenient when we can see that they weren't trying to do something wrong or it was, they made the wrong decision, but it wasn't out of spite or anger or disobedience.

17:41

It was just being young like this. You just, you know what? I stayed up too late. I ate too much.

17:47

I shouldn't, I didn't eat, you know, whatever it is. They just made the wrong decision. We want to crack down on them.

17:53

And that's where it's like, all right, if you're going to show them leniency or grace, that's where you're going to do it, especially as they start getting older.

18:01

But when we're thinking about when they are, so this is where the analogy of a battlefield comes in and this is how she helps explain it.

18:08

And I really loved it. We are fighting for the hearts of our children because they are born in a war.

18:18

Their hearts are already at disobedience to God. That's how it naturally comes out.

18:24

And so we have to teach them the law. Hey, this is what God requires and you have failed that.

18:30

Now listen, what God gives in his requirement, he gives the gospel by punishing Christ instead of you so that we can repent of our sins and receive the grace that he has.

18:40

And that's part of the war. We are part of, we are in this battle with them, exposing them their sin and then showing them the grace of God and then helping them understand this as part of discipline, how they have to then change the way that they act and live in response and in light of this.

18:57

So going back to the opening of the podcast, what we don't understand is that every disobedience is the battlefield, right?

19:06

And so when I say we have to pick and choose our battles, what I'm saying is I'm going to leave my children defenseless and help them figure this out on their own with no weapons and no hope because I particularly don't want to battle that particular problem at that moment.

19:21

So now they're vulnerable and they have to deal with it themselves, which that really crushed me thinking of every time my children disobey, they entered into the battlefield.

19:32

I don't get to choose whether I'm going to fight or not, whether the enemy is worth fighting against or not.

19:40

Right. Cause like she says, sin is always a battle worth fighting. Yeah. Yeah.

19:45

It's almost like, you know, I've got an intruder coming in and like, oh, this one only has a knife. It'll be fine when the, when it comes in with a gun, then

19:51

I'll choose that. That's the one I'll choose to fight. Right. It's like, no, if an intruder is in my home, there's an intruder in my home.

19:58

There's an intruder in your child's heart. Right. And we have to help them safely remove it and do so with the gospel, which means we can't just say, oh, there's grace for that.

20:09

Right. There is grace for that, but it has to deal with the actual problem and the penalty of it. Right.

20:15

Cause I mean, God is our gracious father, yet he requires obedience. And if we don't require obedience of our children, we're showing them that it's okay.

20:23

God doesn't either, which isn't true. Well, it also removes who God is.

20:28

Right. He loves us. He's merciful. He's gracious. So merciful meaning he doesn't punish this according to our sin gracious, which means he loves and blesses us not according to our performance because a grace is a gift.

20:42

You can't earn it. And then because of that, because of how beautiful and holy and wonderful he is, this is what first John says we love because he first loved us.

20:52

That's the battle we're in teaching our children to see the love of God and the holiness of God, and then teaching them how there's joy in obedience.

21:01

There's joy in actually laying your life down for other people, which listen, we had dinner tonight and there was multiple opportunities and multiple battlefields that we took on.

21:10

And I was even laughing because you and I both read this chapter earlier today and I'm looking at our dinner and I'm like, if people only knew we're not doing this podcast because our home is like perfect.

21:19

Right. We're doing this podcast because we're, we're just like you, we're in the battle as well. Well, did you have any other thoughts about too much, too little or the battlefield?

21:29

Oh, I just, I just thought it was funny because, you know, sometimes we're lenient because yes, we're trying to show grace.

21:35

But from my personal experience, sometimes we're lenient because we're tired and we don't feel like doing it.

21:40

And like you said, every single time they disobey. Yeah. So just remembering,

21:46

I mean, I remember so many times where my kids I'd be watching them and they'd look at me and they know what they weren't allowed to do and they would do it anyway.

21:53

And now then I'd, I'd say to my friend who I was sitting with trying to have conversation with or whatever. And I'd say, literally say to them, and now

22:01

I have to go take care of that because I saw it and because they saw me see it and they can't win that battle because every, everyone matters.

22:15

Well, and, and to your point, I mean, the visualization for me has been so helpful because it's not them winning the battle.

22:21

It's not us against them. It's, it's, it's holiness and God's glory and gospel against evil and the enemy because bound up in the heart is rebellion.

22:33

And our job is to expose the rebellion and help them trust in a power greater than their flesh.

22:38

Because what they're saying is my flesh wants this and you're giving them truth. This is,

22:44

I just preached about this on Sunday, but Romans Paul says that the same power that rose

22:50

Jesus from the grave is the same power that rests in us. And so he says, you either trust in that power, which is the power of the spirit, or you trust in your flesh.

22:57

The whole Christian life is either you give into the flesh or you give into the spirit. Our job as parents is to point out how dangerous the flesh is, right?

23:06

It, it is lustful. It is angry. It is lazy. And it only wants to hurt others.

23:12

And we don't want to tell them stop doing that because they can't, we can't, we can't even our flesh is too weak.

23:18

We can't stop our flesh. So what power does Paul say is divine? He says, it's the gospel.

23:23

So we are constantly helping our children see the gospel and letting that be their motivation. Even when they're little guys, even when they're little, you can give them gospel hopes and truths.

23:34

Don't always just say God can see what you're doing. And then he didn't, he's an angry God say, God saw what you're doing and he still loves you and he still cares for it.

23:42

And he wants better for you. And that is a big difference between how we can wrongly discipline and how

23:48

God doesn't, he never disciplines out of anger. So that's another good example.

23:54

We always can keep working on, but I feel like she sums up in this, this one quote I'm about to read.

23:59

I feel like everything we've been trying to say is she sums it up really well. She says, every time we lovingly discipline our kids, we put another sign on the roadmap that points them to God.

24:09

When we don't discipline the way is unclear. Well, hopefully it was convinced you to go read the chapter, read the book, and we pray that you're encouraged.

24:22

We're 20 years of parenting and we're still learning and still growing. That's because we have evil broken hearts that are still learning the gospel.

24:32

And hopefully this encouraging you. My encouragement to you is keep your faith in Christ, not your parenting, but your hope in God's truth, not your marriage.

24:43

And you might just be able to lead your family to the hope of God.

24:50

All right. Do you have anything else? No, that's it. Okay. Well, thanks for listening to our rambling and bambling.

24:56

And you know, that's a word. There you go. We bambled tonight. All right. Lord willing, we'll have another episode for you soon.