Disobedience is a like a weed. It’s like the wild morning glory that torments me all summer long. I pull a vine out of a bed of flowers, only to find it sneaking back again two days later. Besides poisoning it, the only way to actually beat it is to dig down into the soil and carefully pull out all of its long, ropey root. The root is the real […]
Read More →There were no older women in our church when I was a young mother. So I looked for my older women in the bookstore. I brought home Edith Schaeffer to hold my hand as I learned how to make a house into a home. She taught me about family, about prayer, and about teaching our children God’s law. When she met her Savior face-to-face a couple years ago, I still […]
Read More →We’ve been looking at obedience for the past month or so. Daniel has explored: Why we are tempted to allow our children to disobey, Why learning to obey is good for our children, What obedience actually is, and some practical ways to teach our children to obey. We’ve also looked at some reasons for our children to obey cheerfully and some ways to encourage cheerful obedience. Today we’re going to […]
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We aren’t born knowing how to handle conflict. It’s not something we grow into either, like learning to walk or talk. I never could have imagined some of the things I’ve had to say to my preschoolers: “Don’t you know you can’t just take his toy because you want it?” “Do you really think hitting your sister is going to make her do what you want?” “If he’s yelling and […]
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We can’t change our children’s hearts and make them cheerful about obeying us, but we can certainly encourage cheerful obedience, and we can help our children see why they can obey with joy. We’ll talk about teaching older children to respect parental authority (as Daniel promised last week) in a future post, but for today let’s look at the attitude behind true obedience. We’ll look at 3 reasons for cheerful obedience, and 4 ways to encourage cheerful […]
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Last week we considered what obedience looks like, and how our own example is an integral part of teaching our children. Today I want to look more closely at some tactics for teaching young children to obey. My children are still young (ages 1, 3, 4, and 6), and I’m thoroughly convinced that these early years are the prime time to be teaching obedience. (Next week, you’ll hear from my […]
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We recently considered why it’s easy to let our children disobey, and why teaching obedience is important. You all raised so many good questions that we’ve decided to spend several more posts working through the practical elements of teaching our children to obey. Today I want to define what I mean by obedience and then consider the first “strategy” for teaching our children to obey. In upcoming posts, Mama and […]
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Last week, we looked at some ways we can easily allow our children to disobey. This sparked some good questions, which will be addressed in next week’s post. Before we talk about teaching obedience, it’s important to consider why obedience is so important. Here, as in many aspects of Christian parenting, we should look to the example of our Heavenly Father. Why does God ask us to obey Him? How […]
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No parent wants disobedient children. But it’s surprisingly easy to let our children get away with disobedience. It’s easy to allow outward obedience accompanied by whining, complaining, or grumpy looks. It’s easy to allow a child to correct us, debate with us, or tell us how she will obey on her own terms. It’s easy to resort to cajoling, reasoning, manipulating, distracting or bribing. It’s easy to issue threats, give […]
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We’ve talked about why we need to take our children to the cross when we discipline them. We’ve talked about how our children may respond if we fail to give them the hope that is ours through Christ’s death on the cross. Now how do we raise children who are secure in God’s love? How can we help them rest in Christ’s saving work on the cross, secure in His love, even […]
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