Posts Tagged ‘our picture of God’
A blog post from Donald Miller, Children don’t learn that they matter from the Bible. They learn it from you.
The idea we matter is more important to learn in childhood than in any other stage. And they learn from adults, from whether or not they get off the phone, make eye contact, get mad too quickly, love them enough to stay married to their mom, love them enough to protect them from danger, even from themselves. The message God wants to communicate to children is entrusted to you, to the way you look at them or celebrate them when they walk into a room. If they get that message, the Bible will confirm it for the rest of their lives. And if they don’t, they’ll struggle to believe the overwhelming obviousness of God’s love.
Some thoughts on behavior modification from the Hippie Housewife:
Thanks to Skinner, this behaviour modification model has become prevalent in our society over the past hundred years. Children raised under this model will often swing one of two ways, either becoming “good little girls and boys”, people-pleasers, and performance-oriented on the one side; or bitter, angry, and rebellious on the other.
Behaviour modification fails to teach inner discipline, instills wrong motives in our children’s hearts, and stunts the development of wise decision making and autonomy. For Christians, it presents a distorted view of God to our children and hinders their ability to obey from a place of love and devotion. For all these reasons and more, we cannot in good conscience use the behaviour modification model of punishment and rewards, threats and praise, negative attention and positive attention.
Parenting with grace and true discipline is not easy. It requires a great deal of time, effort, patience, relationship, and most of all prayer. It is firm but not unyielding, flexible but not permissive. It teaches a child how to think, not merely what to think, with a focus on the heart rather than outward appearance. It recognises the unique nature of each child and honours them as God’s creation. It models for our children the same love and grace that God mercifully extends to us.
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
1 John 4:18
How you see God and how you think He sees you is the one of the most influential factors in how you parent your children.
This video shows how some people have been taught to view Jesus, but of course it isn’t true!
“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” Zephaniah 3:17
Facebook
RSS