november: discipling our children
Micah 6:8 (King James Version)
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Concept: One of the most complicated parts of parenting is discipline. We feel judged about how we discipline our children, we question our decisions and practices, we can feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of literature and podcasts on the subject, and consistency is, for most of us, challenging.
So what if we reframe it? What happens if the goal is to disciple our children? To help them grow in the way of Jesus, with Micah 6:8 and Matthew 22:37-39 at the center? We’ll explore this idea this month.
So what if we reframe it? What happens if the goal is to disciple our children? To help them grow in the way of Jesus, with Micah 6:8 and Matthew 22:37-39 at the center? We’ll explore this idea this month.
Read It: Micah 6:8 and Matthew 22:37-39
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Pray It
This is a prayer for the parent - but say it out loud, in front of your children! There’s power in them knowing that you are doing your best to follow God in the way you interact with them.
“God, give me wisdom and patience to help your child grow in love and kindness and Christ-likeness. Amen.”
This is a prayer for the parent - but say it out loud, in front of your children! There’s power in them knowing that you are doing your best to follow God in the way you interact with them.
“God, give me wisdom and patience to help your child grow in love and kindness and Christ-likeness. Amen.”
Do It:
- Parental Unpacking: Think about how you were disciplined and discipled as a child. Notice how that formed you. Decide what you would like to carry into your parenting and what you will intentionally not continue. This is not about criticizing your parents’ choices, but about finding your own way! Here are some questions to get the reflections flowing:
- What kinds of consequences and incentives do you remember having as a child? How did those impact you?
- Did your parents use spanking or other forms of physical punishment? Many Gen X and Baby Boomer parents did, because it was a commonly accepted form of discipline. Physical punishment is now widely regarded by researchers as ineffectual and in fact harmful to children. If you’re making a different choice than your parents on this, spend some time thinking about how to articulate that decision.
- What memories do you have of your parents guiding your behavior and choices? Some of these may not look like “discipline” - they may be conversations, routines, and spiritual practices, to name a few.
- What are some beliefs you have about guidance and discipline?
- Discipling: Give your family some scriptural framework for guiding behavior and choices. Choose from these verses - or do one at a time. Put them up in your house, memorize them as a household, learn them. Point to them to guide your interactions and choices with each other. For example, when one child yells at the other for something unintentional, ask (yourself and the yelling child) how we might respond with mercy/loving kindness. Or how we might best love the other as we love ourselves. When a consequence is needed, think about how a consequence might help the child grow as a disciple and follow the instructions of this scripture. In other words, living by these verses so that we all grow into spiritual maturity (discipleship) is the goal!
- Matthew 22:37-39
- Discipling Goals: Love God, love yourself, love your neighbor. Jesus says all the instructions hinge on this! In other words, all the rules, all the choices we make, come back to love for God, neighbor and self.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
- Discipling Goals: This verse has some helpful specific ideas for what love for God, self and others can look like. Our family memorized this, and we gave everyone permission to call each other on it when we weren’t showing love. We parents got called on being impatient quite a few times!
- Micah 6:8
- Discipling Goals: Act justly, show loving kindness, walk humbly (have some perspective on what’s important and move toward discovering that we are not the center of the universe).
- Clarifying Priorities: Think through your discipling goals. When this is framed in discipleship (instead of behavioral norms), what is important to your household? This is about ways of being and habits, not just about consequences.
- It is often easiest to do focused work on one thing at a time, so determine how you will prioritize your goals - and which are building blocks for others. For example, when our children were little, we decided that decent table manners were important for showing respect to others. Eventually this included things like chewing with mouths closed, but we started with ending the meal with thanking the cook, because that felt like the first step.
- Clarity of expectations is important with children. Decide what those expectations are, and clearly communicate them - including a brief explanation of why. “Brushing your teeth is part of loving yourself and caring for your body.” “You may not call your little brother dumb. That does not show love or respect for him.”
Explore it: A Note from Tami
To newborns, they ARE the center of the universe, aware only of their own experiences and sensations. This egocentric behavior is an essential survival mechanism for babies, who cry to have their needs met. Young children continue having difficulty understanding perspectives other than their own, assuming that others see, think and feel the same way they do. According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, being egocentric is a normal characteristic of young children who are in the preoperational stage of development. Piaget described a young child’s egocentrism not as selfishness (a willful lack of consideration of others), but as an unconscious lack of differentiation between the self and the world. (Photo by Stephen Pedersen on Unsplash)
Thankfully, we aren’t helpless and unable to impact their skills. Children don’t just learn and grow all on their own. Our interactions and guidance make a huge difference. According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, we adults who are “more knowledgeable” play a key role in helping them gain more advanced skills and understandings.
Our responsibility is to understand and honor what they are normally experiencing while also nurturing their developing abilities to understand and relate well with others. We don’t want them to become stuck; we want to help them mature beyond this egocentrism so that they become people who “act justly, show loving kindness, and walk humbly.” That is challenging to do when you think you are the center of the universe!
We can help them become more aware of others and develop and express empathy.
Here are a couple of resources if you care to delve more into Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories. (Yes, I was a child development professor and I get pretty excited about this topic.)
To newborns, they ARE the center of the universe, aware only of their own experiences and sensations. This egocentric behavior is an essential survival mechanism for babies, who cry to have their needs met. Young children continue having difficulty understanding perspectives other than their own, assuming that others see, think and feel the same way they do. According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, being egocentric is a normal characteristic of young children who are in the preoperational stage of development. Piaget described a young child’s egocentrism not as selfishness (a willful lack of consideration of others), but as an unconscious lack of differentiation between the self and the world. (Photo by Stephen Pedersen on Unsplash)
Thankfully, we aren’t helpless and unable to impact their skills. Children don’t just learn and grow all on their own. Our interactions and guidance make a huge difference. According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, we adults who are “more knowledgeable” play a key role in helping them gain more advanced skills and understandings.
Our responsibility is to understand and honor what they are normally experiencing while also nurturing their developing abilities to understand and relate well with others. We don’t want them to become stuck; we want to help them mature beyond this egocentrism so that they become people who “act justly, show loving kindness, and walk humbly.” That is challenging to do when you think you are the center of the universe!
We can help them become more aware of others and develop and express empathy.
Here are a couple of resources if you care to delve more into Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories. (Yes, I was a child development professor and I get pretty excited about this topic.)
