Pick Your Battles
When should we address our children’s shortcomings? Do we have to point out all of their mistakes? How much should we overlook? It is easy to fall into either extreme of nitpicking our children or being too hands off. When we must make corrections they should be heavy on grace, humility about our own shortcomings, praise for our child’s positive characteristics, and light on lecturing. Here are some additional principles to help guide us.
Clean Street: First take the beam out of your own eye (Matthew 7:3). We parents should continually be in self-evaluation, sharing our own shortcomings and our growth process with our children. In this way, we model how to handle imperfections and safeguard against hypocritically correcting others while ignoring our own mistakes. My children know that I am a liar in recovery. When I fall short, I share it with them and ask for their prayer support and encouragement. This helps establish an environment in which we can be imperfect, loved, and accepted.
Spiritual or Ethical Concern: As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15). If our children’s words or actions break our faith standards they should be addressed with a lot of grace and concise truth. A small example is when my children say “Oh my God” in an offhanded way. It merits my gentle correction. I want them to reverence God’s name. A bigger example would be when they are deliberately disobedient. One recently knowingly snuck screen use without completing chores first. The first violation might result in a warning, and further infractions in consequences.
Legal Concerns: If our children’s actions might result in a legal consequence, we parents should address and correct. However, we might also allow the legal process to take place. Stealing from a store should be brought to management, allowing that authority to mete out a consequence. In a more extreme example of children caught up in addictive behavior or DUI resulting in arrest, I have heard later statements of gratitude from those left in jail overnight rather than being bailed out by parents. “I needed the wakeup call.”
Real World Consequences: Because we have to correct our children so often, I recommend that we look for instances when we can let the natural results or other authority figures do the teaching for us. We might allow our children to turn in late assignments and suffer a lower grade. We can let teachers and coaches mentor them to a certain extent without our interference.
Matter of Taste: If our children’s choices are just a difference in taste, I advise that we allow them to choose against our preference. For example if hairstyle, clothing or music is not immodest or immoral these may be areas where we can allow for a difference of opinion.
We must cautiously and prayerfully choose which shortcomings to address because we run the risk of embittering our children or of under-training them. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them], but bring them up [tenderly, with lovingkindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4 Amplified Version).
Check: We should ask our family, “How does it affect you when I correct you? Do you think I do it too much or too infrequently?” Their answer is colored by their experience and bias, but it is still worth asking them. We can offer help for minor life management imperfections if we are willing to accept our children's “no.”
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