God's Way Works

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Disciplining Children

The Most Frightening Thing I’ve Ever Heard as a Parent

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I’ve heard some very frightening things as a parent. I’ve heard about statistics for teenage pregnancies, teenage drug-use, child molestation. I’ve seen shows about children being kidnapped. I’ve heard stories about children being hurt. But none of this even comes close to the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard as a parent.

Nope. One statement takes the cake. John Maxwell said it. I can’t remember what book or lesson it was in. I just know he’s the one I heard it from and I know it has stuck with me for a long time. It is really having a big impact on me today because yesterday Marita and I had to get onto all of our kids regarding how they were treating each other. I was listening to us as we especially tried to explain to Tessa how the way she acts influences others. When we were saying that, this one frightening statement hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I’m sure it won’t scare some of you the way it frightens me, but I want to put it out there for you to think upon and grow wise.

Are you ready?

“We teach what we know, we reproduce what we are.”

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! I wish I could run and hide. Here’s what I’ve taken from it. Before I can even remotely try to fix my kids, I’ve got to work on me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know I still have to step up and teach my kids what I know. But before I arrogantly wonder how on earth kids that behave like this came from me, I should spend a little more time looking at me honestly.

4 More Keys to Lay a Foundation So Your Kids Will Know What To Do When They Mess Up

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OOOPS! Two weeks ago I started a two part article on laying a foundation so our kids will know what to do when they messed up and totally forgot to post part 2 last Tuesday for the Springboard for Your Family. Sorry about that. I hope all of you who showed up last Tuesday for this second part will forgive me and accept today’s posting in penance.

4 More Keys to Lay a Foundation So Your Kids Will Know What To Do When They Mess Up

We’ve already learned that we aren’t going to raise the next Jesus. Our kids will not be perfect. If we keep training them in perfection, we are only going to increase their toxic shame when they come face to face with how imperfect they are. Instead, we need to lay a foundation for what to do when they realize how imperfect they are.

In the last installment of this series, we learned…

  1. Be emotionally, mentally, spiritually healthy yourself.
  2. Don’t discipline out of embarrassment.
  3. Share your own mistakes with your kids.
  4. Say you’re sorry and seek forgiveness when your mistakes were with your kids.

Here are 4 more keys.

5. Don’t lecture and browbeat.

I’m writing this point for me more than for you. This is my discipline method of choice when I’m just running in natural mode. My kids do something wrong and out comes the lecturer. I don’t know how many times Marita has had to say, “You just don’t know how you sound when you talk like that.”

This form of discipline says I’m going to harshly talk my way into your heart and browbeat you into submission on everything I say about this. It will brook no disagreements. It will allow no responses. It will simply keep hammering away at you until you are whimpering out a “Yes Sir.”

I’m certainly convinced that when I get into that mode, my point is correct. The problem is I’ve never gotten anyone to agree with me when I take that approach, especially not my children. Rather, what I do with each harsh statement, with each shaming name, with each verbal barrage is teach my kids to take their medicine and get to the “Yes Sir” so they can escape. They haven’t learned anything. They haven’t agreed. They haven’t change. I’ve simply vented my spleen on them, made them feel small, and sent them on their way.

There is certainly time for talking. But lecturing and browbeating doesn’t work very often. It may produce a momentary submission, but it doesn’t help the child know how to really deal with sin.

6. Let them know God can overcome sin when they can’t.

I remember one time with Tessa that I so wish I could take back. She was in trouble for mistreating her brother and she said, “I try, Dad, I really do. I just can’t seem to help myself.” Back then, in my spiritual immaturity, I said, “You can do it. You just don’t really want to. You need to try harder.” The problem was at the time I was telling myself that exact same thing about the sins I was trying to overcome and it wasn’t working for me. Why would I expect it to work for her? Sadly, this is the approach Christians take all too often with everything.

Since then I’ve learned that I can’t overcome my sins on my own (cf. Romans 7:14-25). But God can. If I’ll just turn my life over to Him completely, Jesus Christ will conquer my sins through me. That is the message I needed to convey and am now trying to convey to my kids. Tessa is absolutely right. She can’t overcome the sin that she has honed to a “nature of wrath.” But God can. God has promised to free her from that sin if she’ll simply turn her life over to Him every day. 

Don’t simply tell your kids to try harder. Don’t simply tell them to choose better. Tell them to turn to God to overcome. Let them know God’s plan for forgiveness and victory over sin. 

7. When they actually talk, let them do so without fear of reprisal.

I certainly struggle with this. I do believe that even when people admit what they did was wrong, sometimes there still needs to be disciplinary measures taken. 

However, at the same time, our kids need to know they can come let us know what they did when they sinned. Trust me, if our kids think the only response they’ll get when they admit their sin to us is a lecture and a spanking, they are not likely to let us know what they did-even if they are scared, penitent, remorseful. They’ll either internalize it or they’ll go to their peers. As we said in part 1, they won’t get good help from their peers.

Our children need to know that we know they’ll make mistakes and when they come to us with penitence, we’ll forgive them and help them overcome. 

Allow me to share one approach that has worked for us on occasion. When one of our children penitently admits to doing something wrong, we thank them for their honesty. Then we talk through why they sinned. We talk about the natural consequences of the sin. If this was a violation of a rule for which we believe discipline is necessary we then talk with them about what they think is a fair discipline considering what they did and where they are mentally and emotionally with the sin. I’ve been amazed how maturely our children handle the discipline even in these situations.

8. Always reaffirm your love for your children.

I don’t care what your children did or what kind of disciplinary measures you have had to take. Always reaffirm your love for your child. This is not a codependent spluttering apology because you are afraid your child won’t love you because of the discipline. If that is what you are doing, refer back to point one in the first article. 

Your children need to know you love them. They don’t just need to hear that when they’ve done good things. They need to hear that all the time. They need to know you are proud of them all the time. They need to know you are glad they are in the family all the time.

When they say things that have shocked you, let them know you love them. When they have embarrassed you, let them know you love them. When they mess up big, let them know you love them. When they are behaving properly, let them know you love them.

Do not do this in an aren’t-you-lucky-I’m-so-loving way. Just let them know that you love them.

I certainly don’t think there is a fail-proof way to parent. All too often I get caught up in my own crazy making of wondering how my kids are going to turn out. Some days I think they’ll be wonderful. Other days I think I’m ruining them. However, I’m convinced they won’t be perfect. When they aren’t, they need to know they can come to me and find the help and support they need to overcome.

4 Keys to Lay a Foundation So Your Kids Will Know What to Do When They Mess Up

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Last Tuesday, we learned there was only one Jesus and our kids aren’t Him. Every single one of our kids is going to grow up to sin, just like us. We won’t stop that. We need to quit making the attempt because it only puts undue pressure on us and our kids. Don’t read that to say we should quit trying to influence our kids for good. I’m simply saying we should quit trying to train our kids to be perfect and instead lay a foundation with them to know what to do when they are not.

I’d like to share 8 keys I believe will help you lay that foundation. By the way, these aren’t the 8 things we do in our home and wish you would do. These are things I’m trying to work on so I can be better in my home. I hope they help you. I’ll give the first four today and next Tuesday we’ll finish up with the others.

1. Be emotionally, spiritually, mentally healthy yourself.

If you’ve got emotional, mental, or spiritual imbalance, you’ll pass that on to your kids. If I’m compulsive about what others think, I’m going to inappropriately discipline my children when I think they make others look down on me. If I’ve filled with pride, I’m going to incorrectly discipline my children when they make me look bad. If I have codependency issues, I won’t discipline my kids properly when they need, fearing that they’ll abandon me. Of course, then when they push me over the edge, I’ll go over the top and they might just abandon me.

Before I even try to discipline my children, I need to be working on cleaning up my side of the street, working on my issues.

2. Don’t discipline your children out of embarrassment.

I’ve heard people say repeatedly you should never discipline your children when you’re angry. I’m not sure I agree. I think when children rebel, it should cause a healthy anger. I don’t think you have to wait until you are no longer angry to provide an appropriate discipline. I think it is possible if you have a healthy anger to still discipline them appropriately. Surely, if your anger has you out of control, wait until you can see clearly to administer discipline.

However, you should never discipline because you are embarrassed. We need to remember that discipline is intended to help our children grow to maturity. It is not a chance for us to vent our embarrassment. Like that time when Ryan was 4 or 5 and saw a man who had some deformity. He said, loudly, “Mom, that man has a hole in his head.” An embarrassed parent might yank the child up from by his arm, take him to the car, and whip him and he never even know what he’s being disciplined for. Granted, in that situation we all know he didn’t do anything wrong. He was just curious and curiosity is not wrong.

Even when the child does do something wrong, more often than not overboard discipline comes from embarrassment. After all, we want everyone to think we are the best parents ever. They’ll only think that if our kids never, ever do anything wrong. Therefore, our discipline is often from a point of embarrassment and not from a point of helping them learn and grow. Junior says a cuss word and we are suddenly worried the whole world thinks we are rotten parents. We give them a spanking that they’ll never forget. Or perhaps little 8-year-old Suzy wet her pants in front of some other parents. Or maybe little Bobby back talks a teacher.

Before you discipline ask yourself, “Am I doing this because I’m embarrassed? Or am I doing this because this is what will help my child grow?”

3. Share your own mistakes with your children.

We are so afraid to let our kids know we were anything less than perfect. We fear if we let them know all the wrong things we did it will be giving them tacit permission to do them too. That really isn’t the case. Oh, I’m sure some children will pull that defensive maneuver when they are trying to get out of some discipline. However, the benefits far outweigh that little difficulty.

The benefits are when your children know you weren’t perfect, they are much more likely to talk to you when they’ve messed up. If they think you were perfect, they’ll think you can’t possibly understand why they made a mistake. They won’t come to you for help. They won’t come to you for forgiveness. Instead, they’ll turn to others. They’ll turn to peers. Be assured, they are not likely to get great advice for overcoming mistakes from their peers.

Not to mention, when your children think you are perfect, that just increased their toxic shame all the more. When they know you messed up, they’ll be able to see that mistakes are normal and can be overcome. They can grow up to be a decent person even though they committed some sin. They can go to heaven even though they screwed up royally.

I don’t know how many times I’ve spent 10 or 15 minutes letting my kids have it for something they did or didn’t do or some way they have acted only to remember at the close of it that I did the exact same thing as a child. I don’t know how many lectures I’ve given my son about being lazy. When I’m done, I remember, “Oh yeah, I got those same lectures. They didn’t help me very much. Wonder why I think they’ll help him.” The whole thing would probably be better if I let him know I understand how he feels, share with him the consequences, and then work with him to come up with an action plan to overcome.

4. Say you’re sorry and seek forgiveness when you’ve wronged your kids.

Tied in with sharing your mistakes with your kids is telling your children you’re sorry when your mistake was against them. Ask them to forgive you. Yes, you heard me. When you’ve wronged your children you need to ask their forgiveness.

Why? First, because you need their forgiveness. Second, because a rift has come in the relationship and they need to go through the process of forgiving you so that rift can heal. Third, because your children need to see you set the example about how to act when you’ve made a mistake or committed a sin. When they see this example, they learn that they can come to you in just the same way, saying they are sorry, and seeking forgiveness. Further, they’ll learn they can do that with God.

Here’s the heart of the matter, you think you can hide your wrong from your children, but you can’t. Your children will see you at your worst and they are smart enough to know when you’ve done wrong. If you carry on a pretense like you haven’t done wrong, they’ll only see hypocrisy. The usual response is not for kids to grow up and decide not to be hypocrites by always sharing their wrongs and overcoming them. No, usually their response is not to be a hypocrite by just not caring about what is right or wrong.

The best way to overcome this is to display what being a growing person is really all about. It is not about being perfect. It is about recognizing and repenting of our sins.

If you work on these four keys, you are well on your way to laying a foundation to prepare your children for how to deal with their own mistakes and sins. Trust me, that will be way better than leaving them shamed and broken because they realize they aren’t perfect.

Make sure you come back next week for four more keys to preparing your children to deal with their mistakes and sins.

Why We Should Always Ask Questions First and Discipline Later

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A friend of mine tells a story on himself that I have to share with you. I won’t include any names in order to protect the innocent (and guilty). I’m just glad every once in a while I get to use someone else as an example instead of always having to use me.

Anyway, this good brother had taught his children not to take the Lord’s name in vain…ever. He had even taught against the popular euphemisms for the Lord’s name. He wanted his family to always accord the Lord the very highest respect. 

How embarrassed and shocked he was when at a picnic he heard his young son hollering almost at the top of his lungs, “Oh my God!” The crime had been committed. The witnesses were everywhere. Punishment must be administered. He yanked up his son and paddled him on the spot. A moment later his wife approached and said, “Hon, he was singing the new song I taught him. You know the part that says ‘Oh my God, I trust in thee.'” As my friend shared the story, I could tell, he still felt small for that one. I felt small for him. I uttered a little prayer of thanksgiving that I’m not the only dad who blows it sometimes.

But the reason God let’s us make mistakes is to learn from them. Certainly, we dads have every responsibility to discipline our children. A good time to practice discipline is when God is disrespected. However, the extreme nature of this story demonstrates a point we need always remember. Even when it seems obvious that our children have done something wrong, we need to get the facts first. Even when it seems absolutely clear our children have violated the rules and crossed the boundaries, we need to press the pause button, calm down, and find out the complete story. 

We must not react out of embarrassment, anger, wrath, pride, or any other emotion that prompts hasty discipline. If after investigation, we learn our children have indeed crossed the boundary, then we should discipline them for their good (Hebrews 12:9-10). It will still have its value. Discipline doesn’t have to be absolutely immediate for it to be effective. We can take time to investigate and make sure the discipline is warranted.

When we press the pause button, we will certainly avoid unnecessary guilt for messing up. Fortunately, our children are resilient and forgiving. When we apologize and ask for forgiveness, they are usually quick to give it. But, it certainly makes us feel better if we get a handle on the situation first.

Help Your Kids Stay Off Drugs Pt 2–Teach Them to Trust

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We continue our series on the three unhealthy family rules, by which too many families live.

Rule #1: Don’t Feel

Rule #2: Don’t Trust

Rule #3: Don’t Talk

Last week, we pointed out living by these rules are some of the biggest causes of addictions as we grow up. These are the reasons that some people can go through detox, endure the withdrawal period, seem to be clean, come home and go right back to their addiction. It’s more than physical. Because they learned they weren’t supposed to feel, learned not to trust and learned not to talk, they have nowhere to turn to deal with the feelings coming up, so they medicate them.

We learned about how we can teach our children not to feel in part 1. In just the same way, we must teach our children to trust. Relationships are built on trust. Without trust, you can’t have vulnerability. Without vulnerability, you can’t have emotional, mental or spiritual intimacy. Without emotional, mental or spiritual intimacy you can’t have a good relationship.

Of course, some are saying, “You have to be careful teaching your kids to trust people. They can really get hurt.” See, you learned this lesson while growing up too.

“Oh no, I’ve never taught my children not to trust me or not to trust anyone.” Good, I hope that’s the case. I know for me, I’ve violated this rule too many times and I’ve seen it violated.

Let me share 8 ways we teach our children not to trust.

1. Gossip

Not gossiping about our kids. Gossiping about other people in front of our kids. Kids aren’t stupid. They can see when we treat others well to their faces and then talk about all their flaws, faults and problems behind their backs. What do we think they learn from that? They can only surmise we do the same to them. All those nice things we say to their faces won’t mean squat because they’re sure we must be talking badly about them behind their backs. 

Additionally, since most of their relationships are going to be fundamentally based on what they learn from us, they’ll think everyone must do that. Everyone must gossip. Everyone must say nice things to their faces but bad things behind their backs. It will be hard for anyone to break through that wall and gain their trust.

We must watch what we say to and about others. Our kids are learning to trust or not.

2. Belittling

This ties in with the Don’t Feel rule. Have you ever laughed at your child when they shared that something hurt them or bothered them? That is so easy to do. Their problems are so small. To us they seem insignificant and humorous. In the big scheme of things they may not matter that much. But they matter that much to them. If we belittle them by laughing at them when they open up to share their feelings, they learn not to trust us with their feelings.

Or what about this practical example. One of our children confides in us that she kind of likes a certain boy. Then every time we see that boy we needle the child. “Oh look, there’s so and so.” Or even worse, “Hey so and so, look who’s here.” What have we told our daughter? “I can’t be trusted with your feelings about boys. Don’t share anything with me, I’ll only hurt or embarrass you with it.”

3. Mocking

When emotions come out, they can be…well…emotional. In our culture, truly expressing emotions is not the norm (which will lead us directly into the Don’t Talk rule that will come next week), therefore when they come out we might mock them. 

“Big boys don’t cry.” “Quit being such a sensitive girl.” Or worse, we might even mock their crying and then laugh at them. With little children their attempts to express their anger can easily come off seeming a little silly. The last thing we want to do is make fun of their expressions of anger. To add insult to injury, how often do we store up the story of our child’s emotions to share with our spouses when they get home. We tell the story and share a good laugh at the child’s expense. 

All our kids learn from this is we can’t be trusted with their feelings.

4. Betraying confidences

Sometimes we can feel our kids’ secrets are not nearly as important as ours. Who really cares if we tell our friends about our son’s girl troubles or about our daughter’s fears when she had her first menstrual cycle? It’s not like these are issues of national security. We know no one will look down on them. Those really aren’t big deals. 

Once again, it is to our kids. We need to remember how we felt when we were kids. Sharing these kinds of secrets was big stuff. We were laying our heart on the line. We were making ourselves extremely vulnerable. I know that as we got older and started dealing with bigger things we came to believe those issues weren’t so big. But back then they were huge. Even though one day our kids will also come to realize those things were not that big, the feeling of betrayal will linger even when they can’t remember why. They’ll learn not to trust others.

5. Broken promises

How do we feel when someone tells us they will do something and then they don’t? For our kids it is ten times worse when their own parent makes a promise and then breaks it. Our children don’t have the mental capacity or experience to understand about our work and other responsibilities. They just know we promised and we didn’t follow through. 

The first thing this means is we need to be careful what we promise and commit to. If we’re loose with making promises and commitments we can’t keep, our kids will lose trust. Keep in mind, you don’t have to say, “I promise” for a child to think we’ve promised. If we say we’re going to do something, we had better do it. Otherwise, our kids learn people can’t be trusted to do what they say.

Certainly, there are times when promises get broken and we couldn’t help it. In these cases, we must validate and affirm our child’s feelings of sadness, anger, betrayal. Don’t berate them for their feelings. Remember how you feel when someone brakes a promise to you. Then apologize and make an amends. Don’t offer excuses and justifications. Make amends and ask for forgiveness. But don’t let this become a habit. I believe our children are resilient. But I also believe they are smart. They can see when you just have a habit of lying but then trying to make nice to get out of it.

6. Overreaction to mistakes

I am certainly a believer in corporal punishment. I believe there is a time to use the rod of discipline. However, if we hold our kids to adult standards and then overreact with discipline because they acted like kids, they’ll learn to fear, not trust us. I believe our children have a sense of justice. They can learn early on that misbehavior warrants appropriate discipline. My wife and I have had great conversations with our kids in which we agreed together about disciplinary measures for certain issues of disobedience and rebellion.

Sadly, some of us don’t react with appropriate discipline. We overreact because we’re angry, inconvenienced, frustrated, embarrassed. In these cases, our children learn we can’t be trusted with their mistakes. If we yell, scream and belittle because our child accidentally spilled his milk, telling him accidents wouldn’t happen if he just paid more attention, we shouldn’t be surprised when our child doesn’t want to come talk to us when he’s older and has made some really big mistakes. How many prodigals don’t make the trip home because they learned early on they couldn’t trust their parents with their mistakes.

7. Don’t believe them

I know this is tough. Our kids don’t have a highly developed sense of morality. They haven’t figured out the morality of telling truth and lies. So sometimes they will lie out of self-preservation. They’re not actively choosing to be immoral, they’re just kids. That being the case, we sometimes run on the default belief that our kids aren’t telling the truth. Perhaps we are afraid that others will think we’re being soft with our kids. 

I recall one time when an adult called to tell me about how my daughter was picking on her grandson. The truth of the matter was the boys had been picking on the girls first and the girls were just retaliating out of a sense of self-defense. What would have happened if I had ignored my daughter’s explanation and assumed she was lying? I would have taught her that I don’t trust her. I would haver taught her that I don’t trust people. If I don’t trust people, why should she?

8. Don’t trust them

Too many parents codependently follow their kids around checking up on them to make sure they did what they said, did it the right way, did it the parents’ way. They don’t trust their kids to do what’s right and it is betrayed in the way they deal with them. Every conversation is a cross-examination about whereabouts, who are you withs and what are you doings.

Look, I know it’s tough. We are concerned for our kids. However, what we need to work on is modeling right behavior, teaching right behavior, preparing them to face temptations and then trusting them to do the right thing. This is increasingly true the older our children get and should be a way of life for us once they are grown and out of our house. 

Here’s the key, if we’ve let them learn it is okay to feel and then to trust, when they make mistakes, they’ll know. They’ll feel guilty and they’ll talk to us about it. Then we have opportunity to let them learn positively from their mistakes. Taking the other approach is a vicious cycle. When we show our children we don’t trust, they won’t trust us. They’ll do wrong things but be afraid to talk to us about it. Then they’ll just sit in their shame and guilt. Having no healthy release for these feelings, they’ll look to medicate them by pursuing those same mistakes that got them here in the first place. The less we trust them, the less they trust us, the more mistakes they make, the more they look rebellious, the less we trust them…

 

Yes, it is true. Sooner or later, when we teach our children to trust, they’ll get burned by someone. However, if we’ve lived in such a way that they can trust us, they’ll talk to us about it and we can help them through it in a healthy way.

If you really want to keep your kids away from addictions, let them feel and be trustable. As I said last week, there is no fool proof formula. However, when you follow this, you’ll give your kids a leg up against addiction. Additionally, you’ll give them a leg up for serenity and peace in their marriage, relationships and life.

Help Your Kids Stay Off Drugs, Let Them Feel

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Most families learn and live by three major but unhealthy rules. 

1. Don’t Feel.

2. Don’t Trust

3. Don’t Talk

We’ll talk about the others over the next few weeks; today the first one is on my mind. I have been tested on this two times in as many days. 

Test #1

Over the weekend, Ryan cut his upper lip. It formed an unattractive scab underneath his nose. In fact, to be honest, it kind of stood out like a sore thumb. On Monday morning, I walked into his room and he had put a band-aid on. But he was also covering his mouth and saying, “I don’t want to go to school today.” The whole reason is he was embarrassed by the bandage and the cut. For an instant, my old sin enslaved self started to rear up. I reached for the band-aid to yank it off and harshly rebuke him saying, “You don’t need that stupid band-aid, take it off.” Fortunately, none of that happened. I caught myself and I stopped myself. Instead, I hugged him. Told him it was okay to be embarrassed but that he couldn’t stay home from school just because he had a cut lip. He was going to have to work through it. I also told him I didn’t think he needed the band-aid, but he was having none of that.

I was proud of him when just before he left to go wait on the driveway for the bus, I noticed the band-aid was off and he was happy.

Test #2

Last night, the weather report was that we were going to get snow. Ethan is only 9. He assumed the weather report had to be true. He wanted to stay up since he wasn’t going to school today. I had to explain to him the weather is wrong sometimes and we needed to go ahead and act like school was on schedule. Sadly, when Ethan’s alarm went off this morning. He looked outside and there was no snow. 

As I was getting ready, I thought I heard some strange noises coming from the boys’ bedroom. I walked in and Ethan was lying face down on the bed crying. The old sin-enslaved me started to rear up again. For an instant, I wanted to say, “Quit your whining and acting like a cry baby. We don’t always get what we want. Now buck up and finish getting ready for school.” Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, I called him to me and gave him a hug. I let him know it was okay to be sad because he didn’t get the snow he wanted. However, even though he was sad, the next right thing was to get ready for school. Of course, I explained that we don’t always get what we want and it’s okay to be sad about that. However, we still have to keep our responsibilities. He laid back down for a few minutes and then finished getting ready.

The Springboard

Sadly, because the feelings of our children are often inconvenient (trust me, I don’t pass this test every time), we often act like their feelings are inappropriate or invalid. Even more sadly, when we do this, the message our kids get is not, “Buck up and move on,” but rather, “You are not valid.” Certainly, I know we should not be governed strictly by our feelings and emotions. However, we should be free to feel them.

Consider Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry and do not sin…” First, you need to know the phrase “be angry” is passive. That is, it is not talking about someone who is just angry. Rather, it is talking about someone who has been caused to be angry. But the anger is not wrong. They are allowed to feel the anger. Of course, when they are angered, they still have responsibilities. They cannot allow their anger to lead them to sin. But, they are allowed to feel the anger.

This is a guide for me for all emotions. My kids are allowed to be angry. They are allowed to be happy. They are allowed to be sad. They are allowed to be embarrassed. They are allowed to feel lonely, guilty, ashamed or afraid. They are allowed to feel frustrated. My job is not to squelch or strike these emotions out of their life. My job is to help them deal with them in a healthy way. My job is to help them avoid sin when they are feeling these emotions. 

Why the Title About Drugs?

I didn’t just put the title in to pique your interest. What we are discussing here is actually the heart of addictions–whether substance or process addictions. You see, the number one cause for addiction is not simply experimentation (though I don’t advise experimentation). The number one cause for addiction is having to deal with feelings I have become convinced are not valid. The anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, etc. will be there even if we try to beat it out of our kids (You know, “Stop crying or I’ll give you a reason…”). 

If we allow our kids to feel and use those as opportunities to teach them how to respond appropriately to feelings, they’ll be healthy. On the other hand, if we don’t let them feel, they’ll need to start doing something with those feelings. They’ll need to medicate them. Drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, television, internet, video games, food, they can all become addictive. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is no fail proof way to keep your kids from any of those things. But the number one key to give them a leg up and a push in the right direction is don’t give them a reason to medicate their feelings. Let them feel, affirm them in their feelings, guide them in their feelings, teach them how to deal with those feelings.

Of course, you cant’ give what you don’t have. If you’re constantly medicating your own feelings, get help or you’ll just perpetuate the cycle with your kids.