We’re working with the idea that our vision of God shapes our vision for parenting. As parents, God design is that we we ‘model’ Him to our children so that as they learn to relate to us, they learn to relate to God; and as they grow into their own maturing relationship with God, they are given a ‘head-start’ by their experience of their parents (i.e. us). Let’s continue to see how that works out in practise. But as we do so, we need to recognise that we are working these things out in the context of a society that is structured in a way that can often undermine the relationships within a nuclear family, and so we are likely to feel some tension. Many (though not all) families have found the restrictions we are living with due to ‘Lockdown’ quite stressful to negotiate - in part because we are simply not used to such a focus on family life. We are used to being out of the house for long periods of the day - at work, at school, at after school clubs, pursuing other interests. We are used to having ‘me-time’ and chunks of the day when we aren’t in each other’s company. For us, that is ‘normal’, and the fact those patterns of life have been so disrupted for so long, has thrust us into situations we aren’t practised in.

Functionally, there is also the danger that - because of the above - we ‘implicitly delegate’ aspects of parenting to agencies outside of the home, which means that we are in unfamliar territory when our children are at home for such a sustained period of time. It isn’t uncommon for teachers (for example) to raise concerns about implicit assumptions that they are responsbile for chidlren’s charcter and patterns of behaviour as well as for their education. These are intricate questions that require careful consideratoin, but if we see teachers as having greater authority and responsibility to shape a child’s character then the parents, we may well find we have lost balance somewhere.

So, we’re going to spend a couple of posts looking at the vexed question of training and discipline, before we turn to the question of the devotional life of the family - although by now we should be anticipating that these are two sides of the same coin! How we structure famliy life will either resonate with, or create dissonance with, what we are teaching our children about what it means to be in relationship with Jesus.

We looked briefly last time at the question of whether we should be intentional and proactive in training our children at all. As we saw, there are several popular models of parenting which suggest we shouldn’t be. And we’ve seen why we must demur. But even then the questions come thick and fast: How? What for? How do we make sure we aren’t just instilling hypocritical patterns of behaviour? How does grace fit in? Many of the details will need to be worked out within the context of a family home, but let’s at least see if we can nail down some principles.

At the risk of sounding repititious, we base our model of training and disicpline on the model of training and discipline we see modelled by God in the Scriptures. This should immediately allay any fears of instilling a ‘victorian’ vision of discipline, or of bringing anything that is harsh, abusive or oppressive into the lives of our family. Discipline is a means to growth and freedom. Occasionally you see or hear of situations where the Bible has been distorted and manipulated into saying something it doesn’t, and used as a foil for severity, cruelty, brutality, and abuse. I would hope it goes without saying that this is as far from the Bible’s teaching as it is possible to envisage.

And let’s deal with some other misconceptions while we’re at it. Discipline is not just about getting our kids to do what we want. We should be anticipating that this isn’t going to be an arbitrary, or random, still less a capricious thing. Neither should it be considered as an entirely negative thing. Training and disicpline will have built into it not merely sanction, but also structures that recognise and reward growth and maturity, and that celebrate and encourage attitudes and behaviour that resonate with God’s heart for His children.

If we set the question in the context of passages such as Heb.12:4-13, we see the question come into focus in a much richer context. God is a loving Father who caringly and consistently disciplines His children, so that they can experience deeper intimacy with Him, and greater freedom from that which proves destructive in life. It might be worth highlighting the fact that so many Christians seem to struggle to reconcile love and discipline in their relationship with God, and the spiritual angst this often gives rise to. We have a chance to help our children navigate this well, and to understand more intuitively that discipline is in fact the expression of love, not something in tension with it (Prov.13:24, ‘…the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them’). It is in fact a blessing to be lovingly trained to live well (Ps.94:12). In the Bible, failure to take this seriously is seen as neglect, and we are warned is likely to cause problems later in life (not to mention make life more difficult in the family here and now!). In short, we are teaching our children how to be loved. The goal of our discipline is to to teach our children how to live under their heavenly Father’s loving authority; it is to prepare them to relate to a God who will discipline them… 

This has two immedaite implications:

First, I am not at liberty to decide what to discipline over. This isn’t about a parent getting to turn themselves into an idol, shaping their world as they like. Still less is it a selfish vanity project, the object of which is that I become the envy of other parents because of how ‘well-behaved’ my chidren are. It isn’t a power-trip. And it isn’t about creating an environment where I get to do more of what I want, or where I get to shape the dynamics of family life in favour of my own comfort or interests. Quite the opposite. Building this into famliy life is often more costly for parents. There are much easier ways to parent! Underpinning all this is an assumption that we have a clear grasp on the the Bibles teaching about issues like wisdom and righteousness, holiness and the dynamics of discipleship. We need to ensure that we are consistently building discipline around the Bible’s standards and concerns. We don’t get to sit back and think: What kind of kids do I / we want? The question is: What kind of kids does the Lord want? Though obviously, ideally the two overlap, and we want the kind of kids the Lord wants; and the things God disciplines His children about shape and define the things we discipline our kids about. If we develop a different set of priorities then not only is that sinful parenting, but we are also storing up confusion for our children later in their own spiritual lives.

Here’s an example: imagine the not uncommon scenario of two children bickering over a toy. Equally uncommon is the instinctive reaction many parents assume to be legitimate: Who had it first? Whilst this gives us an easy and straight line through the presenting issues, there is (in light of our meditations) an obvious question: Where in the Bible does it say that whoever ‘had it first’ is absovled of responsiblity? … or that whoever had it first has a more legitimate claim? just posing those two questions exposes how far we may be operating outside Biblical standards and ethics. There are in fact a matrix of issues at play here that raise opportunities to teach and train in questions of sharing, generosity, covetousness, selfishness. These are exposed as we reflect on parenting from a Biblical perspective, (a perspective which includes celebration and affirmation, correction and disicpline, however that looks in your home), and things begin to look very different to commonly received wisdom.

And they look a lot more exhausting. Which is itself part of the issue.

Secondly, my responsbility as a parent is to teach my children to respond well to loving, considered, appropriate correction and discipline, so that they will learn how to relate well to their Heavenly Father (e.g. remember our previous post’s hesitations about allowing ‘delayed’, or resentful and reluctant obedience). This takes us into the heart of the life of the Trinity, and gives us a glimpse of how deep the vision of ‘parent’ goes. One of the most beautiful insights into the life of God is the Son’s perfect trust and joyful submission to the will and wisdom of His Father. This is something we want to grow in ourselves, and as we do so, we will model this to our children; as well as train and encourage them in their own growth in Christlikeness. This also frames the question of obedience as a spiritual issue.

I cannot separate the question of my own being disciplined (and my response to that) from that of my disciplining my children (and their response to that). There needs to be a resonance between these two dynamics. This is both a powerful teaching tool and a resource. Not only are we modelling something for our children, and in so doing idenitfying with them (we - parent and child - are both under authority); not only are we providing a framework in which our children can understand their experiences of discipline; but it also gives us tremendous insight into their experience of discipline, and their struggles with it. Why do they struggle to respond well to obedience? For the same reasons I do. This equips us to think through how we shape and train our children far more effectively.

There is one outstanding question in all this… how can we be sure we aren’t breeding hypocrites? It’s an interesting question that reveals as much about our understanding of authentic humanity as it does our concerns for integrity. We’ll look at it in our next post.