Parenting Your Kids

We all know what bad parenting looks like: Kids who backtalk, can't sleep, nap, eat veggies, clean up their room, take responsibility or orders.

But many of us don’t know what good parenting looks like:
1. Take Responsibility for Their Actions
2. Be Independent of their Parents
3. Be Dependent on God

Parents often get stuck on issues like home schooling vs. public school or spanking or no spanking. But these are not the main issues. They are only side bars. There is a lot of noise out there. What do you listen to? This morning I want to keep it simple and focus on the main things.

Let’s take a look at what God’s Word says:

Texts:

Be Firm
Pr 13:24 - He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Pr 23:14 - Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.
Pr 22:15 - Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
Pr 23:13 - Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.
Tit 1:6 - An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
1Ti 3:4 - He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.

Be Gentle
Eph. 6:1-4 -Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Col 3:21 - Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

Teach your children
Duet. 6:6-9 -These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Ps 78:5,6 - He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.

Model righteousness
Pr 14:26 - He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.
Pr 20:7 - The righteous man leads a blameless life; blessed are his children after him.
Proverbs 22:6 - Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Application Points

1. Take Responsibility for Their Actions

a. Cause and Effect: sleeping, dropping things, chores, money; we teach, "You drop it you loose it."

b. Consistent Boundaries: drawing the line between right and wrong;
not important where, but consistent

c. Character is King: choosing to do the right thing even when it’s the hard thing. Budgeting, paying taxes and tithing, work ethic, exercise and eating.

2. Be Independent of their Parents
Play Now Pay Latter: chores, rules and discipline. Kid who never leaves home. Great example in Nature: Birds flying for first time.

3. Be Dependent on God

a. Consistent Modeling: do what you do, not what you say
Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.
They must learn to come to God first. You will not always be there. Ex: Dad and church planting.

b. Consistent Prayer: you are not alone.
Seeing mom and dad pray for me.

Recap:
1. Take Responsibility for their actions
2. Be Independent of their parents
3. Be Dependent on God