TLP 290: Parenting Angry Children, Part 4 | how to help our kids with their malice

Truth.Love.Parent.

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

God always has two responses to sin. A, there is always a consequence, and B, there is always a call to repentance.

00:15

Welcome to Truth, Love, Parent, where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

00:24

Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. I'm glad you're back with us for part four of our Parenting Angry Children series.

00:30

Today, we begin a slow and methodical look at how to parent our children through their anger. I say slow and methodical because I have absolutely no expectation for how long this will take or how many episodes it will encompass.

00:42

Angry children are a scary and proliferate problem. Podcasts have a tendency to deal with deep issues in a short period of time or be way too long to really be practically helpful, and I desperately want to be helpful.

00:55

But before we do that, please let me take a moment to thank Ryan and Kim for making this episode possible. Without their assistance, we may not have gotten to the place where we could even be discussing angry children at this point.

01:05

So thank you guys for helping. We are a listener -supported ministry, so please click on the five ways to support

01:11

TLP link in the description of this episode to learn more about who we are and how you can help. Okay, we've discussed why our kids get mad and six ways that anger manifests itself.

01:22

Now it's time to reverse engineer the problem. Each of the manifestations of anger are like the layers of an onion.

01:29

You can imagine that it's easier to help a child with bitterness than it is to work with a malicious child because malice is a conglomeration of bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander all mixed together and fermented.

01:40

Not only that, but bitterness is the core issue, while the other manifestations are things through which we have to work on our way to dealing with the core issue.

01:49

When we're dealing with our kids, we may find that each layer of the onion needs to be removed and addressed individually, or you may need to address multiple layers at once.

01:57

So we're going to approach this discussion in three ways. Number one, we're going to work backward through the list from malice to bitterness.

02:04

Whereas a bitter child will likely only need the help offered on that one episode, a malicious child will probably need you to utilize ideas from all of the episodes.

02:14

Number two, we're going to only focus on one layer of the onion at a time. At the end, I do hope to discuss some helpful tips for deciding whether you should approach the issue one layer at a time or multiple.

02:25

And number three, we're going to frame this discussion according to the parent's five jobs. If you've never heard that series,

02:30

I highly recommend you listen to it. It's not only going to help you with this study, it will apply to everything God's called you to do as a parent.

02:38

But before we dive into malice, let's review. Malice, slander, clamor, anger, wrath, and bitterness are the fruit of a darkened mind, a mind that knows and believes what

02:48

God has to say about conflict management is going to act accordingly. Therefore, someone who engages in sinful forms of anger are revealing that they think their way is better than God's.

02:58

That kind of thinking is futile. Now let's take this and compare it to a parent's five jobs.

03:04

God desires for us to be his ambassadors and in so doing, utilize his word to teach, interpret, counsel, and train our kids.

03:11

Every single one of those jobs is about influencing how our children think. And the whole problem with your children's anger is their thinking.

03:20

Too often, we parents are looking for the right fruits without taking the time to do the hard, hard work of cultivating the roots.

03:27

According to our Mirror's Christianity series, an absolute must -listen, by the way, the root represents what our children believe about what they know.

03:34

This is all stuff that happens in the mind, and the mind is synonymous with the heart and the spirit. Parenting is not about managing behavior as much as it is about shepherding hearts, teaching minds, and cultivating worldviews.

03:47

Of course, behavior always submits to belief, so in the end, behavior will be influenced but never in the absence of heart change.

03:55

So, what do you do if your child is malicious? Let's start by defining what malicious behavior really is.

04:03

Is a murderer malicious? Of course they are, but that doesn't mean that everyone who's malicious has or is going to kill someone.

04:10

Here's the key. It's all about intention. A malicious child is someone who wants to hurt the thing or person whom they perceive as the source of their discomfort.

04:20

Now, right away, we're reminded that the main problem is a thinking problem. They're angry because they're thinking incorrectly.

04:27

If they understood their present discomfort biblically, they would realize that God is sovereignly allowing the testing and trials of their lives for the purpose of helping them be drawn to God and conform to the image of His Son.

04:37

That testing produces steadfastness and maturity. That's something about which we shouldn't be angry. That's something about which we should rejoice.

04:45

So clearly, our malicious child doesn't understand how life works. They're living in a dark and futile world, alienated from truth, and they respond by desiring or actually physically attacking the perceived source of their discomfort.

04:58

Does your child throw his toy when it doesn't work? Does she kick the bike or car or science project that isn't performing well?

05:06

Does your son get into fights? Does your daughter pinch and slap and bite? Have your kids ever broken anything because they wanted to hurt someone's feelings or make life difficult on them?

05:16

Have your kids ever vandalized something out of anger? Does your toddler push you or try to pull away from you when you correct them?

05:23

All of these are examples of a malicious heart. Remember, malice doesn't mind breaking rules and laws in order to hurt the perceived source of their discomfort.

05:33

That's the whole point. I know that middle school and teenage violence is clearly a problem, but I'm constantly amazed by parents who seem to tolerate their toddler's violent physicality.

05:44

I get that their pushes and slaps and kicks and tantrums don't hurt or cause that much damage. I understand that when they throw their toys, nothing gets broken.

05:52

And I understand the culture's tendency to stereotype young children and say things like they're in a phase or that's how the terrible twos act or boys will be boys.

06:01

But my friends, the problem is that the child wants to hurt something. Think about that.

06:07

They want to overpower you. They want to scare you. They want to enact violence. They are being malicious and too many parents don't see it for what it is.

06:15

And what's worse, they practically ignore it because the child is so small that they can be handled with no bruising or bloodshed.

06:22

But left unchecked, that same attitude in the toddler becomes a brawler, a vandal and a murderer as they get older.

06:30

The year 2019 is the 50th anniversary of Charles Manson's murder of Sharon Tate.

06:36

As distasteful as it may sound, I research things like that because I'm always trying to get a better understanding of the kind of child who becomes a terrible adult.

06:45

And you know what? Believe it or not, Charles Manson didn't start as a delusional psychopath murderer with a messiah complex.

06:51

He started as a delusional, angry, violent child with a messiah complex. But as terrible as that may sound, we all have delusional messiah complexes when we believe that our way is better than God's way.

07:05

As a child, Manson was described simply as a liar who always blamed others for anything he did that was wrong.

07:11

It was also said that he was so determined to be the center of attention that he'd deliberately misbehave while the grown -ups were around.

07:17

His older cousin Joanne remarked that you could whip him all day and he'd still do whatever he wanted. Take that description by itself and you can probably think of many children that portrays.

07:27

Maybe even your own. And though I know how absolutely terrible it is to imagine a small child one day becoming the monster

07:33

Charles Manson became, we have to be honest with ourselves. Your toddler may very well be malicious.

07:40

If that's the case, what do you do? What can you do differently than Charles Manson's guardians did?

07:47

Well, when it comes to ambassador parenting, our first and constant goal should be to introduce our children to God in such a way that they fall in love with Him and choose to follow

07:54

Him. That decision is theirs to make, but we have to be the ones driving them back to the cross. This is expressly important in any discussion concerning habitual sin because there is no hope for real, lasting, genuine, deep heart change without the power of the

08:09

Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean we don't parent our unsaved kids because they don't have the Holy Spirit.

08:14

It should simply impress upon us more and more how absolutely necessary it is that our kids know God and submit to Him.

08:21

Young angry children are, more often than not, unsaved. And I've found that older angry children have frequently put on a shell of Christianity that manages to fool everyone around them when they're not angry.

08:32

This is why we, as the fifth parent, must continue to have high biblical expectations for their lives and our own.

08:39

Only then can hard hearts, rocky hearts, and thorny hearts be exposed for what they are—spiritually dead.

08:45

This is evangelism parenting at its finest. But we don't really have time to rehash all of this previous content.

08:52

Suffice it to say, our kids need to be confronted by truth in such a way that they choose to reject it or accept it.

08:58

It should never be so nebulous or nonexistent that they can flail through life imagining that it's up to them to figure it out.

09:05

So let's leave the discussion as to whether or not your child is born again, how to determine that and what to do if they are or aren't, and focus on addressing the malice in such a way that it accomplishes the purpose of presenting the gospel truth with which our kids—saved or unsaved—will have to interact.

09:21

And then we can let the Holy Spirit do the rest. 1. The best way to parent a malicious child is when they're not angry.

09:29

Now, it's true that angry children foment under the hood even when there's little to incite them. You may wonder if your child even sleeps angry.

09:37

In situations like that, try to create an atmosphere that lowers the stress and tension to such a degree that you can broach the topic.

09:44

You want to be able to talk about what they want to hurt and why they want to hurt it. Of course, this becomes ever more difficult when you, your rules, and your correction are the perceived source of their discomfort.

09:54

Now, if that's the case, I'd say you absolutely need to involve a third party. Get a pastor, a friend, a counselor involved.

10:02

In fact, it's very possible that for four out of the five manifestations of anger we're going to study, if you are the target, you will definitely have to get someone else involved.

10:12

Otherwise, you're likely doing little more than exacerbating the problem. Now, again, I'm not suggesting that you don't deal with your kid when they're mad.

10:19

I'm simply making the observation that you may approach heart change faster if the kid isn't already fuming.

10:25

And I want to reiterate the importance of getting Christ -honoring third parties involved if your child is malicious towards you.

10:31

They will use you as an excuse for ignoring you if they've decided that you are the one they need to hurt. Number two, malicious children must be protected from themselves, and so must others.

10:43

People who derive satisfaction from hurting other people are a danger to themselves as much as they are to other people.

10:50

If you know your kid is a mean streak and you get the hint that they're upset about something, you need to be proactive to help them not go down that path.

10:58

Listen, I know how scary it can be, and I understand how we can be convinced in our fear that everything will be okay if we just let them settle down a bit.

11:06

But if your seven -year -old has a habit of hitting people who make fun of them, and you know your mouthy nephew is coming over for a visit, you would be a fool not to proactively start dealing with the issue before it's an issue.

11:19

And I can't really take too much time role -playing what this sounds like because each and every example I give is going to require a different approach, especially when you consider that each individual and relationship and authority structure is going to add its own mix of trouble.

11:32

So remember, these are general principles with which to start. We'll get more specific later. And if you're already saying to yourself that you can't confront your kid, even if he's currently in a good mood, because, you know, he'll explode, or there's no way you can proactively parent her because she hates to be told what to do, your only recourse is to get someone else involved.

11:54

This is the point that many parents reach out to a place like Victory Academy, but wouldn't it be great to deal with the issues before you reach that point?

12:02

If your child is becoming angry, and you know it could lead to shoving and biting and throwing and punching or even planning for a future way to hurt the perceived source of their discomfort, you must intervene, especially if it's going to become dangerously violent.

12:15

Now depending on the age of your child, this may even mean preparing yourself that you may have to call the police. It is completely appropriate to call the authorities if your child is big enough to actually cause you or someone else great harm, and they put a violent hand on you.

12:30

I know how calloused that may sound, but physical violence must not be tolerated.

12:38

I can't say this strongly enough, Christians should never aid and abet violence.

12:43

God hates violence. I've dealt with too many physical and sexual abuse cases to have patience for parents who don't want to call the police on their little boy or girl.

12:53

I get it, I understand the turmoil, but violence was one of the main reasons God destroyed the earth with a flood.

13:00

Proverbs 19 .26 says, He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach.

13:07

And Psalm 11 .5 says, The Lord hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

13:13

These are powerful words. Of course, the parents who don't want to call the police often end up having to do it anyway.

13:21

The only difference is that instead of having beaten up a kid at school or a sibling, he turned his aggression toward the parent, and that's when their charity ran out.

13:30

That's really noble of them. Please protect your child from himself and other people from him by removing him or the other people from the situation.

13:39

Of course, like I said before, being proactive is a far better choice. Deal with it before you have to deal with it.

13:45

Number three, when addressing the malicious behavior, be biblical, not pragmatic.

13:51

If we're going to teach and reprove biblically, then the content of our parenting must be from the Bible. Parenting pragmatically is using threats like, you're going to end up in jail if you don't change, or no one will ever want to play with you if you don't stop hitting, or stop throwing a tantrum or you're not going to get candy.

14:08

Those things may be true, but all they do is fuel the child's self -worship. No child inherently doesn't want friends, but what good is it if the child stops hitting simply to satisfy himself?

14:19

He's still squarely on the throne of his life. And when the next decision needs to be made concerning how he's going to treat people, he'll again turn to himself for the answer.

14:28

We have a short series called Speed Parenting, which goes into a lot more detail about the temptation and destructive nature of pragmatic parenting.

14:36

So what is a biblical way to approach it? There are so many.

14:42

Your child needs to be taken through why he does what he does. We need to biblically show the fruit of his life and help him see from what root it grows and then present him with the biblical truth necessary to address that root.

14:53

Speed Parenting episodes deal with this as well. This is not really the place to list out all the biblical passages that could be used with your malicious child, and it may not even help that much because I don't know your specific child and her unique issues, and so therefore

15:06

I may not even mention the best place to start. But I will say that we are blessed to live in a day and age where we don't only have

15:13

God's Word, we also have free, completely searchable online Bibles in any version you want.

15:18

We have Google that can reveal amazing resources that are chock -full of Bible passages for angry kids.

15:24

I have a fantastic tool I can't wait to share with you that approaches things like this from a less topical direction, but instead a more theological direction.

15:32

If you contact me directly at counselor at truthloveparent .com, I'll be more than happy to share that tool with you even before I unveil it on the show.

15:39

And you can always reach out to us, of course, at counselor at truthloveparent .com if you legitimately have no idea where to start.

15:45

We would love to help. However, let me go ahead and get you started on those internet searches, okay?

15:52

If your malicious child seems tender enough to consider what God has to say about how they handle conflict, I would focus on passages that address the consequences of violent living and the passages that teach us how we need to treat our enemies.

16:04

All right, thank you for your patience today. I love you guys and I really appreciate your desire to learn. I never want to take too much of your time, but I also want to make sure

16:12

I give you enough to be helpful. 1. The best way to parent a malicious child is when they are not angry.

16:20

2. Malicious children must be protected from themselves and somos athers. 3.

16:25

When addressing the malicious behavior, be biblical, not pragmatic. And 4. Malicious children need to experience the consequences of their malice.

16:35

This is another generalism that will take different forms depending on the parent, the child, and the malice, but it must not be avoided.

16:42

Episode 265 is called Immediate Consequences, and it unpacks Ecclesiastes 8, 10 -13, which ends with this, 5.

16:50

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

16:58

6. It's possible your child's anger has reached the point of malice because his slander and clamor and anger and wrath and bitterness weren't addressed the way they should have been.

17:07

Maybe not, but it's possible. We need to address the issue as soon and as biblically as possible if there is going to be any hope that our malicious child may repent.

17:17

Consequences have to be part of that. They're a vital part of the interpretation stage of parenting. When we interpret the situation for our kids, we show them from God's Word how we're to view the issue.

17:29

And God always has two responses to sin. A. There is always a consequence. And B. There is always a call to repentance.

17:36

I wish I could tell you exactly what consequences work all of the time with everyone, but that's not the reality

17:42

God created. There's no one -size -fits -all approach to parenting. However, we do know that the primary consequences happen every time we sin.

17:50

We hurt God, we hurt those around us, and we hurt ourselves by making it easier to sin next time. It's the secondary consequences that are up for application.

17:58

And this is true for how we parent. There is no specific formula. Generally, we can say that we have to be intentional, premeditated, disciple -making ambassador parents who teach and interpret and counsel and train using

18:09

God's Word. But what passages we use and how we use them, coupled with a unique recipe of consequences and discipleship, is where the

18:16

Spirit must lead and where we have to absolutely drench our parenting in prayer and fasting, begging

18:22

God for wisdom to glorify Him in our parenting. Just remember, too, there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

18:28

You do not have to do it alone. You don't have to come to all of the conclusions on your own. We know that God, though, is a

18:34

God of consequences. The universalists who think that God will capriciously pardon everyone just because He's nice don't know their

18:41

Bibles. There are temporal and eternal consequences for our choices, and we must model that reality to our kids.

18:49

But getting advice and trying new things are not a problem. The problem is that the violent, malicious child is the one who scares us enough to not want to get in their way.

18:58

You may need allies, or you may not, but you do need to parent as God would, and that is going to involve consequences.

19:05

Now, I knew this was going to go long, but we have to ask this question. What if they repent?

19:12

Well, so far we've talked about teaching them what is right when they're not already angry and reproving them when they are.

19:18

Part of that reproof, or interpretation as I like to call it, is going to involve consequences. But what about the counseling and training stages of parenting?

19:26

Well, we can only enter those stages if our child shows a desire to want to change. It's then that we can bridge the interpretation and counseling stages by leading them to apologize and repent of their sin.

19:37

We talk about this in great detail in our two -part Teach Your Children to Apologize series in the following episode called

19:43

Forgiving Your Children. The point I want to make is that we should always be parenting toward repentance, but we shouldn't pretend they've repented when they haven't.

19:52

Saying they're sorry or showing remorse is not repentance. Repentance is a moving away from the former sinful actions and moving toward righteous replacements.

20:01

We'll talk about those righteous replacements later in the series, but we should also expect, of course, that no one is going to do this perfectly, so we have to balance our expectations.

20:10

A legitimate expectation is that there will at least be an apology and baby steps to change. It's then that we can engage in counseling our children out of their malicious tendencies and teach them to replace hurting others with serving others.

20:24

Now, this is not the end, okay? This is not the answer to how to fix all of the problems with our malicious kids.

20:30

You doing these four steps we outlined earlier is likely not going to change your child. Those tips are not going to guarantee anything.

20:39

In fact, left to themselves, these principles aren't too much different than the secular notions for dealing with violent children.

20:46

Everyone knows it's better to deal with a violent person when they're not angry. It's common knowledge that a violent person is their own worst enemy, pragmatism never solves anything, and history is replete with examples that consistent consequences are very valuable for reforming an individual, but that in and of themselves, consequences don't really change a person.

21:05

So what was the point of the last 21 minutes? Remember, this is a layer.

21:12

A violent child should be approached differently than kids with other manifestations of anger. These four points are biblical and necessary, but they're only four pieces of a much larger puzzle.

21:23

We're going to build this puzzle over the next episodes and draw everything together into a plan to address the pressure in your home.

21:30

We'd love it if a malicious child submitted to God after you parented them in these four ways, but likely there will have to be more.

21:37

There is help, but we must go about it wisely. You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a house fire.

21:44

So on our next episode, we're going to talk about how to parent a slanderous child, which will include information we need to help a malicious child.

21:51

So to that end, I'll see you next time. Truth. Love. Parents.

21:57

Is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional, premeditated parent.

22:05

Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.