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Part Three: The Preteen and Teen Years

moving your child from obedience to responsibility

We’ve reviewed getting back to the basics in our own lives as parents as well as what obedience looks like in the early years and how to move toward transferring ownership so that our children will become characterized by being responsible.  Now let’s look more closely at how this plays out during the middle and teen years. One critical point for parents to remember during this time is to not provide all the answers to questions you’ve answered before. I’ve often joked about this being the season when, as a mom, you turn the tables on the “Why Mommy?” from those pre-school/elementary school years to “Why is it right, Son, or what do you think?” When your middle schooler/high schooler challenges or asks “Why do we have to? No one else does!”, don’t be afraid to respond with something like, “I really think your Dad & I have explained this before, so before repeating it again, I really would like to know your thoughts about why we as a family don’t do such and such or why as your parents we are not permitting you to do such and such. We can either talk about it now, or if you’d like to think about it for a bit and find out what God has written about such an activity, you can share your thoughts and findings with me later.” With a middle-schooler, you may instead take the time to search the Scriptures together for an answer.  And while this takes extra time, you are adding to his moral warehouse by providing the ‘why’ from Scripture about how his parents came to a particular conclusion. (for more on transition from authority to influence during the middle years see this resource.) It’s also important for parents with children in this age group to have dialogue with their youth about their personal relationship with Jesus – not just at “Bible time” but during regular conversations, when you are walking by the way, driving to and from school, and/or listening to an interesting message. After church, ask your youth, “What did today’s message mean to you?” Encourage active listening when he is in church and encourage him that there will be something that the pastor will share today that the Holy Spirit will use to speak to his heart so he should be listening for that. Please avoid the mindset that says, “Kids won’t get anything out of the message, it’s geared to adults.” Even for young children there is a silent learning taking place, so please do not underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to work in the heart and mind of each child. Another part of leading by relational influence with your child is communicating the worldview your family lives by.  This is something that a child of 9 or 10 can begin to understand. We live in a world of moral relativism, yet serve and love a God of moral absolutes.  As parents who are Christ followers, it is critically important that you know why we believe what we believe. Moral adherence in a Christian home is dependent upon three factors: moral knowledge, moral reason, and parental example.  It may be helpful as a ‘couch time’ activity or even a date night discussion, to ponder how you, as a couple, would answer the following questions:

• What does God’s moral law say?  This is moral knowledge.
• What does God’s moral law mean?  This is moral reason.
• How valid is the moral law in our lives?  Are we insisting our children follow something that we don’t practice ourselves?  This speaks to the importance of parental example.  You can’t say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Unfortunately, that was how many of the previous generation, even in the church, were raised.  It wasn’t a good idea then and it’s even worse now. Our lives must reflect what we teach our children; more is caught than taught.  What are our children catching when they watch our lives?

Finally, remember that during this middle years’ transition, the waters run deep. While your child is transitioning from childhood to young adulthood both in thinking and physically, there is still a little girl or a little boy inside that desires to be nurtured. Yes, we want them to become responsible and take ownership of so many things, but it is a transition and will happen over the course of time. Your blossoming daughter still needs to be held and that boy who could have cared less about a bath or shower and sometimes still isn’t sure about the need, he too still needs hugs from Dad & Mom. Lastly, consider 2 Peter 1:1-8  “… I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Anne Marie Ezzo serves with her husband in ministering to families around the world through Growing Families International. For the past 30+ years her passion has been, and continues to be, to encourage wives and moms to practically understand what it means to “love your husband and children”. 

Part Two: The Early Years

moving your child from obedience to responsibility

The Middle Years transition (8-12 years) is probably one of the most difficult transitions parents have to make. You’ve worked diligently to appropriately use your authority as a parent to instruct your child about the importance of following instructions, exercising self-control, and other life skills and virtues. Finally, just as everyone is comfortable, it’s time for the next phase of parenting to begin: using your relational influence, rather than your authority, to encourage and provoke your child to love and good works. While a “Yes, Mom/Dad” is still important, now it should be coming from the heart that understands why the parents have asked for a verbal response. Making sure a child understands the ‘why’ behind instructions will help the 8-year-old as well as the teen accept responsibility for their own ‘monkeys’. (For more on the ‘monkey’ teaching, see this resource.)

Let’s review what parenting looks like in the early years.  For health and safety reasons, parents begin training in obedience. At first, you will receive compliance.  As your child grows in understanding of what is expected of him, compliance moves to obedience. The motivation to obey in the beginning is the avoidance of negative consequences – your child discovers that doing what Mommy or Daddy asks has more pleasant consequences than not doing what he is told.

Somewhere in those early years you will also read to your children about God and share the Bible verse “Children, obey your parents”. (Col. 3:20)  This verse adds more meaning to the word “obey” and the phrase “Yes, Mommy”.  Your child will learn that God is important. He or she will realize: our friends talk about God, we fold our hands and close our eyes and talk to God, and He is very important to my parents. At some point your little one will start to ask questions about God.  Some may express their opinion that obedience isn’t their favorite thing to do. This is a prime opportunity to ask them questions about who they think God is and why He wants us to obey. Also, parents can explain that even mommies and daddies obey God, because we have learned that God loves us so much. Parents can give a simple gospel message to your child. “What Mommy has learned is that I obey or submit to God because I love Him so much and know that He wants to protect me from hurting myself.” You can ask your 4- or 5-year-old, “Why do Mommy & Daddy want you to play in the backyard, staying away from the street?” A child should be able to answer a bit more than “because if I don’t, I’ll get a consequence”.  If that’s what he does say, you can agree but add “Because we want to protect you from any cars that might be on the road from hurting you and that you might not see. So when you obey our instructions to stay out of the road, you are protected from being hurt by a car.” Or use whatever illustration your child will relate to. All this is building ‘line upon line’, providing the ‘why’ we do what we do.

If only training your child to be responsible stayed simple like staying out to the road!  But it doesn’t.  All of this early training, however, is laying the foundation for building your relational influence.  Your child will have a pool of experiences to draw from as he moves into the middle years and beyond.

As your child learns to accept the boundaries of the backyard and then the driveway with his little bike, you will eventually allow him the freedom to ride on the road with you while you walk alongside. It’s important that when you open the funnel to allow these privileges/freedoms, you share the ‘why’ with your child. (for more on the funnel, see this resource.)  You can even phrase the provision of the freedom in a question format to see if your child is actually grasping the progression of restraint to freedom.  For example, “Mommy is going to give you the freedom to ride your bike while I push the baby in the stroller. Do you know why I can allow you to do this?” Depending on his answer, you can affirm, “Yes, because you have demonstrated responsibility in being careful about staying in the yard/driveway while you are playing outside, so now you can have the freedom to use your bike on the road when you are with Mommy.” You might even follow up with, “Do you think you can take your bike on the road if Mommy is not with you?” Again, whatever the answer, you can take it from there, continuing to reinforce the concept that with responsibility comes freedom.

A word of caution here, be careful not to take back those responsibility ‘monkeys’ once they’ve been passed on. If you are feeling frustrated and/or are reminding your children constantly, ask the Lord to show you if you are inadvertently picking up monkeys because you are concerned your son or daughter will not remember or won’t do the right thing. If necessary, go back and review the Monkey Teaching.

         In part three of this blog, we’ll look at the transition from authority to influence during the preteen and teen years.

Anne Marie Ezzo serves with her husband in ministering to families around the world through Growing Families International. For the past 30+ years her passion has been, and continues to be, to encourage wives and moms to practically understand what it means to “love your husband and children”. 

 

If You’re Going to Throw a Fit, Make it a Bene-“fit”

 

Have you ever felt held hostage by your child? It can happen anywhere: in our homes, malls, and grocery stores. When children throw temper tantrums it can feel like they’re holding their parents hostage to their emotional state. The child may also feel held hostage by emotions they do not yet have the skills to express healthily. This is when we, as parents, must forge ahead and turn that fit into a benefit. And the benefit is not only for the parent but for the child, too.

There are several ways a parent can respond to a tantrum to turn the fit into a benefit.  First, the parent should consider what the cause of the tantrum is:

• Temper tantrums require an audience. A child may use an emotional outburst to gain attention or to retaliate after disappointment.  The best way to respond to this kind of fit and turn it into a benefit is to remove the child from the audience. If it happens at home, make sure the child is in a safe place, like a bedroom, playpen, or crib. The benefit of removing the child from his audience is that his tantrum will most likely die down quickly. During the tantrum, the child may throw toys or create a mess.  If this happens, the child should be required to clean up his mess (age-appropriately) after he has regained self-control. Tantrums thrown at the grocery store, or any other store, are also usually seeking an audience. The parent may have to face the inconvenience of leaving her groceries or other merchandise behind, but the benefit of your wise response is two-fold – peace and quiet for those around you and the child learns that a tantrum is not an appropriate way to express strong emotions, even at a store.

 

• It is also important to bear in mind that a non-verbal child may be using a tantrum to communicate fear, frustration, disappointment, or a miriad of other emotions for which they do not yet have words. Even a child who has words in a moment of peace may not have the skills yet to access them when overcome with sadness or frustration.

 

• Is your child exhausted? Her fit might be more of an emotional meltdown due to fatigue.  The parent’s response to this one is simple – your child needs a nap.  Just like the above scenario, if you remove the child and she falls asleep in her room, crib, playpen, or car seat then the tantrum was probably due to a lack of sleep and the benefit to the child and to the parent is a much needed nap.  Your child will awaken happier, with more self-control, and better able to handle her emotions.

 

• Tantrums can also be brought on by frustration. The child wants to accomplish a task but lacks the ability to do it the way he wants to, so he becomes frustrated.  A parent should respond to this type of fit by telling her child to “use his words” or ask for help.  The child benefits from this parental response because he is learning to gain self-control as he communicates his struggles to his parent.  A child may also become frustrated if the parent failed to provide pre-activity instruction/warnings.  Pre-activity encouragement enhances communication between parent and child. Giving verbal reminders, using positive words to give instructions, and asking dialogue questions about behavioral expectations reduce frustration levels.  In addition, giving a five minute warning, where appropriate, before changing activities can help a child to transition peacefully and experience less disappointment with an unexpected change. To benefit both parent and child, use pre-activity encouragement and you will avoid much frustration.

 

• A tantrum may sometimes also be caused by just plain selfishness. These types of outbursts may occur at the store when a child sees something she wants. When her parent says no, her feelings of disappointment could result in an emotional outburst. Tantrums should never be rewarded just to keep the child quiet. To turn this fit into an opportunity for connection and growth, the parent can make a trip to the car. Consider the valuable opportunity in this moment to connect with the child in a moment of sadness. It is ok to validate the feeling of disappointment without encouraging the uncontrollable behavior. Whatever discipline the parent has decided is appropriate for the situation can occur after connection has been made and when the child has regained self-control. Once this process is complete and peace is restored to both parent and child, they can try to return to the store. T

 

The next time you are faced with a child having a fit, I hope these five tips will help you to turn it into a benefit. In training up a child, engaging their heart even in inconvenient moments such as tantrums will always yield so much more fruit.

 

Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

 

 

Cynthia Schrock was born in Ohio but grew up on the mission field with her parents in Quito, Ecuador. She married her wonderful husband Eric in 1990. They have two adult children: Ashley and Matthew. In 2016 Cynthia completed a 13 year long journey of homeschooling. Eric and Cynthia have been involved in marriage and parenting ministry over 20 years. Cynthia is a Contact Mom, helping moms with solutions in their daily parenting struggles.  She has also authored a book on celebrating others called The Ultimate Gift of a Birthday.