TLP 26: The 5th Way to Parent, Part 1 | the only parenting style that glorifies God

Being a parent is hard and it's so much easier to give in to our natural knee-jerk personality type reactions and address the situation with guaranteed-to-fail spirit devoid methods. But we've not been called to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

We've been called to share the gospel with every creature and teach them the whole of God's truth in the power and love of Christ and that includes our.

Children. Welcome to Truth. Love. Parent. Where we use God's Word to become intentional premeditated parents. Here's your host A .M. Brewster. What if there.

Were a better way to parent? Would you want to know? Would you want to know even if it contradicted your current parenting style? You see each of us bring something unique to our parenting. Call it personality or whatever you want but you're definitely you.

Yet what if our base nature, what if our personality, were flawed by sin? What if we were never taught how to parent like Christ would? Would you expect that our natural parenting style would be successful or an abysmal failure?

Let me say from the outset that we are not interested in Greek philosophies about bodily fluids and personalities. Personality discussions can offer help but they really offer little help because they don't provide answers beyond, well this is who you are and this is the best you can do as you.

Well I'm sorry we don't have time for that. We don't have time to be average parents. So I want to approach this from a very different perspective. But more on that in a minute. Last week our podcast made it to the top 10 in the Christian category on our host site.

You were a big part of that. When you listen and learn, subscribe and share, rate and review, you make it easier for us to give God's truth to as many people as possible because parents can find our podcast easier.

So thank you for your continued support and I look forward to reading some of your reviews on the show. So make sure you keep them coming. And now back to this supposed fifth way to parent. I'm very excited about this.

This is our first two-part show and I think I put more time into this this two-part show than I would normally to separate shows. It's because this topic is of absolute and utmost importance for your home today.

Because today you're gonna use at least one of the parenting styles. And four of them are guaranteed to cause harm because only one of them is actually biblical. Only one of them will work. But it's that one that our favorite personality gurus know nothing about.

And the good news is regardless of how you were born and how you learn to respond to life, you can be the fifth parent. Your natural personality and your fleshly responses don't have to tie you into a preordained parenting style where you're just destined to kind of get by.

No! Our God is a God of hope and change and each of us can be the fifth parent. All we have to do is answer three questions. Number one, who am I? Two, who is God? And three, what does that mean for me today?

So let's go ahead and get started with the first question. Who are you? Who am I? Well, with all this talk of individuals and their personalities, I'd just like to start by observing that the Bible doesn't have anything to say about your personality type.

And that's not to say you don't have one, and that's not to say there's not a lot of value in figuring out how you choose to respond to situations. I use personality questionnaires and things like that quite frequently in counseling because it helps me to get to know the person I'm dealing with.

But in the Scripture, when we're introduced to a unique personality and that personality submits itself to the Lord, that personality always changes. That change is often so dramatic that the new man no longer even resembles the old man at all.

We don't read Scripture and see a redeemed phlegmatic or a saved sanguine. We see a Christian in the body of Christ where race and sex and tribe and tongue all disappear into the unity that is the Church.

But in order to know who we are and understand our need for Christ in parenting, we need to look briefly at four very common quasi-stereotypical caricatures of parents and their sinful discipline styles, their sinful parenting styles.

It's my hope that we understand these incorrect approaches to parenting and then understand which ones we're prone to embracing so that we can answer the question, who am I? But then we get to spend the balance of our time answering the second and third questions by studying who God really wants us to be in our parenting and thereby discover how his plan can dynamically upend our parenting regardless of the personality we had when we woke up this morning.

So if you're one of those people who knows everything there is to know about personality tests and parenting style analysis, then I should probably tell you just from the get-go, because we want full transparency here, I'm a melancholic ENTJ Dalmatian pair.

All right, sorry, with all that silliness out of the way, there's one thing you really do need to understand about these first four sinful parenting styles. We need to get the concept of expectations.

Each of us has them and everything we do flows out of these often veiled perceptions of life, each of which, mind you, have a firm grasp on the helm of our minds. And it's these expectations of life that help us to either glorify God or fail in our parenting.

In March, I have the opportunity to interview Paul David Tripp for a two-part show. I hope you'll join us because we'll discuss his newest parenting book and take questions from you, our listeners. As a side note, if you'd like to submit a question for Paul, please go ahead and like our Facebook page, which I'll link in the description, and then submit your questions there.

But to the point, one of Mr. Tripp's books on marriage is called, What Did You Expect? And in the first chapter, Paul explains the following. He says, quote, I am persuaded that it is more regular than irregular for couples to get married with unrealistic expectations.

Unrealistic expectations will always lead to disappointment. And this is true in every relationship, including parenting. You see, in parenting, our expectations come in two forms. One, we have expectations for ourselves, and two, we have expectations for our children.

To understand the first four sinful parenting styles we all slip into from time to time, we need to understand how our expectations for ourselves compare to our expectations for our children. When we understand this, we'll easily discover our default parenting style and we'll be able to answer the first question, who am I?

Alright, so I hope you're excited. Let's take a look at the very first of these first four failure ways of parenting. This parent, this first one is called the dictator parent. They have high expectations for themselves, and they have equally high expectations for their children.

But I don't want you to think that by high, I mean higher than other people's expectations. No, in fact, one dictator may have comparatively low standards for himself than another dictator has for herself.

What we're trying to see here is how my expectations for myself compare to my expectations for my kids. How they compare with each other, not how they compare to other people's expectations. I understand this first style so well because it's my natural fleshly parenting style.

The dictator does have some positive attributes. You know, on the outside, this parent is hard-working. They're successful in their tasks. They get a lot done. They also have a natural desire for their children to excel and succeed in life and achieve their highest potential.

But they have negative attributes as well. You see, this overachieving parent can be very annoyed by slackers, children and spouses alike, I'll mention, and they struggle building significant relationships with people who aren't like them.

A child who doesn't want to overachieve is a foreign concept to the dictator, and this type of parent can struggle to relate in any real meaningful way. Now let's also look at their common discipline style.

Generally speaking, the dictator likes to react first. Questions are just for babies. When a child asks a foolish question, forgets, or is deliberately disobedient, the dictator, with a Sherlockian flair, instantly knows what happened, what should have happened, and what had better happen next time.

All the child needs to do is fall in line. The dictator parent is also highly accomplished in choosing and implementing punishment. Remember and make a mental note when we finally describe your default parenting style because it's gonna be helpful to know where you're starting in order to get to where God wants to take you.

So that's the dictator. Let's look at the second parenting style. I like to call it the joker. The joker has low expectations for self as compared to also having low expectations for others. The positive attributes of this parent is that most kids love this parent.

He's the cool dad, all the kids want to go to her house, they're always watching movies, they tell the best stories, and there are very few rules in this house. However, the negative attributes are this.

This general underachiever isn't really annoyed by much and often expects as little from his children as he does from himself. It doesn't really bother her that the kids laundry hasn't been done because neither has hers.

This dad doesn't mind his kids gaming all weekend because he's preoccupied with the TV. And their common discipline style, well, as long as none of the kids are murdering anyone, pretty much most behaviors are okay.

Excuses for non-existent rules are easy to come by. This parent will only punish if the child has really crossed the line like, you know, daring to be funnier than he is or something like that. Now, I've tried to make these parenting styles easy to remember.

The first pair is the dictator and the joker. A D and then a J. And the second pair is also a D and a J as well. Number three is what we call the doormat. The doormat parent has high expectations for self as compared to low expectations for the kids.

Their positive attributes are these. This parent appears to be an amazing, selfless servant. They get up early and they work late. I pack the kids lunches and they often have the most pins on Pinterest.

The house is generally spotless and they're the first to volunteer for a church workday or prepare a meal for someone. However, the negative attributes are these. This parent will kill himself for others without expecting anyone to do their part.

If she hasn't burned out yet, she's been smoldering for years. And because they're the first to volunteer and spend themselves for others, they're often taken advantage of and they end up not being able to meet all of their responsibilities.

Their common discipline style is very unique as well. When a child disobeys, this parent first looks to himself, taking all possible blame for somehow encouraging the child's behavior by not being the parent he knows he should be.

Now, before I go on, I do want to point out that we've spent an awful lot of time talking about how it really is all about us, the parents, in many ways. We do need to be looking to ourselves. However, that can be taken too far where we pretty much just erase all of the responsibility that the other person has to do what they should be doing to glorify God and just completely blaming ourselves for things that we shouldn't be blaming ourselves for.

This parent will also spend a great deal of time with friends and podcasts and articles trying to discover where she needs to grow more. And that also is good to a degree unless we're so preoccupied by it that we're not parenting because we're spending all of our time studying how to parent.

They will likely utilize punishment from time to time, and this is where we get into trouble, but they often prefer to coup the child into compliance because, again, they don't have a lot of really high expectations for the child.

They're blaming themselves for everything that goes wrong in the house. Statistically, there are fewer doormat parents, a higher percentage of jokers, and even more dictators, but the category that we see more frequently is this fourth parent, the judge.

As you can imagine, if you've been doing the math, the judge has low expectations for themselves but high expectations for others. Now, they have some positive attributes. This parent has very high expectations for his children.

She hasn't bought into the notion that kids these days are lazy and dumb. She knows they can achieve great things because look at all the things kids in the past have accomplished. However, the negative attributes are these.

Though he's extremely critical and judgmental of his kids and wife alike, overall he seems to have very low standards for himself, or she's always has an excuse for her lateness and her unpreparedness and her poor parenting, but she doesn't give an inch to kids and her husband that struggle with the same things that she does.

Their discipline style is tough because this parent, they would hand out as many punishments as the dictator, but they either don't get around to it because their own low expectations, or they frequently prefer instead to condemn and harangue the child in their minds, or to their spouse, or to their friends.

So though they rarely actually ever deal with the issue, when they talk with other moms and dads, these people will likely hear a very well-crafted discourse on the child These are the parents generally most likely to nag.

Now, I acknowledge that I may have just offended my entire audience by implying that everyone can be reduced to a two-dimensional caricature. I know that's not true because looking at these parenting styles, I can see that I am by nature a joking, judgmental, doormat dictator.

In fact, I honestly believe that I have had all of these responses to my children and my wife, but I won't apologize for pointing out that whether I manage my family like this, or you do, we're not glorifying God in our parenting.

So instead of obsessing over silly human quirks, let's just go ahead and see the amazing potential that we have to help our children become true disciples of Christ. We answer the question, who am I? And now we're gonna start answering the second question, who is God?

Only then we'll be able to bridge the gap by asking the third question, what does all this mean for my parenting today? The answer to which will ultimately be a description of this fifth parent we've been discussing.

God is many things, and I'm not going to try in the next couple minutes to explain him to everybody because I don't have him explained. He's infinite. A finite person can't do that. He has many communicable attributes and incommunicable characteristics, and we could—we're going to spend the rest of eternity completely unable to grasp his greatness.

So for our purposes today, just the next couple minutes, we just need to look at God's expectations for himself and for his children, because that's what we're looking at, right? In parenting, what expectations does the parent have for themselves, and what expectations do they have for the kids?

Well, what expectations does God have for himself, and what expectations does he have for his children? See, now I suggest this, and at this moment the dictator's getting kind of happy, while the Joker is freaking out, because they both acknowledge that God has very high standards for himself and his children.

The doormat and the judge, however, are kind of conflicted right now because at least half the time they agree someone should have high standards. But—and this is where I need to leave us today—are high standards the answer?

If that were the case, wouldn't the best parenting type be the dictator? No, I believe there's a very huge difference between God's parenting style and the other four because God's expectations are nothing like ours.

And that's where I'm gonna leave you today. I know it's a cliffhanger, it's terrible, how dare I just tell us who the fifth parent is? But I want to be able to take the time to really explain it, to delve into Scripture, to see the verses, and to understand who God is calling us as parents to be.

I've already used up over 15 minutes of our time today, and I respect your time, and so I believe that taking the rest of this study, finalizing the question about who God is, and then asking the second question, what does this mean for me today?

And then taking a look at some some role-playing examples of how these four parents—excuse me, five parents—will actually respond to different situations. In order to do it justice, we're gonna take some time in our next episode to finalize this discussion on the fifth parent.

So thank you for joining me today. I do want to tell you that we've recently had a significant jump in the likes and follows on our Facebook page. I hope you'll join us there for daily articles and quotes and practical parenting helps, all from a biblical perspective.

I'd also love to interact with you there, and you can connect with me as well at ambruster on Twitter. And as always, please be sure to rate and review this podcast. Just take a handful of seconds to help more people find us and hear how God's Word applies to their parenting.

And if you or someone you know needs a fellow believer to bear their parenting burden, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at counselor at evermindministries .com. Thank you for making God's Word important today, and I look forward to finalizing this discussion.

With you next time. Truth. Love. Parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.