022 – Pitfalls of Easy Parenting

Posted On January 5, 2022

Easy parenting, or perhaps more precisely “selfish parenting”, is a very subtle yet seductive danger to our children. It is remarkably tempting, when our children need training of various kinds, to put it aside because it would be too hard, time consuming, or inconvenient. Yet the danger to our children from a habit of this kind is far greater than we expect.

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Begin Transcript:

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to the Preacher Dad podcast. I am the Preacher Dad. You’re right. Good guess. I’m coming to you on my way, home from work and, Mr. Producer, take the sound down. Thank you so much. I am coming to you on my way home from work, and I just got a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head.

“A lot to get to today…”

And, I am a “Rush Baby”. And if you don’t know what that means it means that I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and listened quite a lot throughout my life and, you know, he was amazing and quite good. And if you ever listened to him consistently you knew that.

If you listened to him just a little bit and you listened to the lies people told about him, or the misconstrued, out of context stuff, you might not really know the truth, but he was amazing. And he would often, before his show would get started, he would say, “ah we got a lot to get to today and just want to set the table, but I’m not sure we’re going to get to it all I’m telling you.”

I know what that feels like at least to some degree, because I was sitting here thinking about what to share with you, my handful of faithful listeners, and there’s a lot, there’s a lot of things that I could say. And, you know, I mean, this is the first podcast of 2022 for us here at the Preacher Dad.com. By the way, if you want to check out my blog, you go to PreacherDad.com. PreacherDad.com. You can check out a lot of cool stuff there and maybe get to know me a little better.

You could subscribe to my newsletter the Preacher Dad Post. (A production in progress.) but yeah, PreacherDad.com. Check us out there.

Easy Parenting is easy to do:

But today I decided that I would refer to parenting best practices. Or maybe I want to speak to an issue that I find in my own life, and that is easy parenting. Easy parenting is easy to do. You could also call it lazy parenting.

And I find myself doing it. What does that mean? Why are you talking about preacher? Lazy parenting is when you ought to discipline the child and deal with the problem, but it takes a lot of work. So instead you just give them what they are whining about.. Or you, you give in to the child’s demands because it’s so much work and so hard to give them the discipline that they need, whatever style of discipline you might employ, or, you know, our children are different ages sometimes.

So you know, different disciplines at different times, but the point is that discipline is hard. It’s not easy. And it’s even harder because you know, you don’t want to inflict, suffering upon your children, whether that’s sending them to their room or, you know, withholding that treat that they want your heart is to give them all the wonderful things that make their heart happy. But the fact of the matter is that children actually need discipline.

They just don’t realize that they need it. They need training and guidance. They need wisdom. And you know, it is important that we, that we discipline our children, that we are not… I’m using discipline in a very broad sense. I’m not just talking about corporal punishment I’m talking about

Guidance, training, training in general, to discipline them is to insist upon a means of a type of behavior, which is beneficial to their life and provide consequences for failure to behave in that way. So our children need that. They need that structure. When they have structure in their life, they’re much more secure and much more happy.

They feel loved. A child left to himself, the Bible says, brings his mother to shame. If he’s left to himself and beyond that, they don’t feel loved a child left to his own devices, just giving him if he wants, never provided any correction or structured his life feels like what you don’t really care about me because you’re not willing to say no.

Hard Work is Hard Work

Or there has to be times when we tell our children no., but that is hard work. It’s definitely irritating to put up with the tantrums or or in my life, many times, it’s the, the time necessary. I’m a busy guy. I’ve got a lot of things pressing on me that I need to be doing. Man, when my child is misbehaving, it’s much easier and faster to just give them what they want or to do it myself.

But even, even though it’s the longer road, it’s usually the better road to go ahead and provide that training. Go ahead and provide that discipline. Go ahead and give them an opportunity to, you know, work on the project that I’m working or allow this task to be done slower so that my children can learn.

That’s the kind of parenting that I believe the Lord would have us to do. And it says that a parent that disciplines his child shows him love. That foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Even if… now I believe that is talking about physical discipline.

But even if you believe that it’s not talk about physical discipline, it is talking about correction and the rod was something that was unpleasant. There are times when I have to insist that my children do something they do not want to do. But I know that it is good for them in the long run. We have to start playing the long game as parents.

We can’t play the short game. Well, what that means is you might be able to instead of just, well,

If we keep on losing battles, eventually we’ll lose the war. We got to think about our long-term strategy, not just our short term desires. You see parents just like all, all of us, whether you’re a parent or not, you struggle with selfishness; with a me focused idea. And many parents struggle with me centered parenting. The child brings me happiness. I want a child. So I’m, I have a child to make me feel better and, you know, I let the child do whatever they want to do. And until I, I want them to fulfill me, I want them to do something that makes me happy.

This is where you have dads who try to live vicariously through their children, through sports or other types of competitions. Maybe the dad didn’t get as far as he wanted to be so, you know, To push it, push it, push his child to accomplish things that they never really are that interested in doing.

But dad pushes him anyway because he enjoys it. He wants it. Or mom’s too. I’m not saying it’s just dads that do that. Moms live vicariously through their children. We have got to be more others focused or unselfish in our parenting. We have to do what’s best for that child, even if that means that for a while, the child hates me.

Point them to the Savior

I know that what I’m insisting upon is for their benefit. I am not called to be my child’s best friend. I am called, by God, to be my child’s parent; to direct and guide him unto Christ. That is not always pleasant. It’s not always fun. Okay. It’s the reason we come to Christ at all, or the first place is because we have realized our need of a savior.

We’ve realized how wretched we are. And that’s why the Bible says that the law of God is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The law of God reveals our wretchedness. It shows us how horrible we are. And yet at the same time, the Bible also teaches us how valuable we are to God. So in the midst of my wretched, sinful wickedness, I am still valuable to God.

He died on the cross while I was still a sinner, but the law reveals to me my wretchedness. It shows me how bad I am and how hopeless I am. The Bible gives us no hope apart from Jesus Christ. So what happens when we come to Christ is that we come to him in humility. We come to him realizing our need. We come to him realizing I can’t do it on my own.

I’ve got to humble myself and come to him and it’s uncomfortable to admit that it does not feel nice when the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sins it doesn’t feel good. It’s not, it’s not pleasant. It’s unpleasant. It’s hard. It’s difficult. And to repent of. It’s one of the hardest things to do. And really honestly, we can’t even repent of our sins.

Apart from the grace of God, God’s grace is poured out upon us and gives us the ability to respond to his calling. So really my job in my child’s life, my primary responsibility is to point them to Jesus by showing them how wretched they are or. To help them to see how much they need a savior. I, it’s not my job to make them feel good all the time.

Eternal Value, Separate of Performance

Now, now, I’m not saying that we should be harsh or mean to our children, that we shouldn’t encourage them and built them up and strengthened their sense of self-worth. But we should give them a sense of self-worth that is based upon the value that Jesus Christ puts upon their life. It is not based upon their performance.

That’s where parents falter and fail many times is they teach their children that if you behave good, you are valuable. And if you behave badly, you are not valuable. And that is wrong. It is wrong to teach our children that if they sin that they’re not worth as much because they are worth just as much, whether they sin or not, the reason being that because Jesus died for everybody on the cross and paid the ultimate price.

Even for sinners even before we were good or quote unquote righteous. So anyway, I’m getting into a lot of doctrine, a lot of theology here, but my main point, my main point to you today, wherever you are, whatever state you find yourself is that God is a God disciplines and trades and guides his children.

He pulls them, he pulls them unto himself through sometimes uncomfortable things. And as parents, we need to be…NEED, need, need, need, with the capital “N”, we need to be unselfish. And be willing to do what is necessary for our children, so that they might grow strong in the Lord so that they might have character and wisdom.

And if that means that they don’t like me for a while, or they’re unhappy or uncomfortable, I’m sorry. But it’s not my job to be your friend. It’s my job to point you to Jesus, who is the best friend of all, and we can be friends for sure. But I’m your parent first and foremost.

Well, anyway, that’s my my heart today. My lesson for today is to have unselfish parenting and be willing to do the things that are best for our children. Even if that means I have to suffer, or it takes me a little bit longer or, it’s something that I don’t want to do. It’s unpleasant, maybe it’s for the best. All right. Well, that’s all for today.

I’ve got to go and invest in my family now. So I hope that you’ll go invest in your family and remember that Jesus loved you as much as anyone could love you before you were “worthy”. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. All right, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. God bless you. We’ll talk again soon. Bye bye!