Last Monday, we considered the right kind of foundation to lay as parents. It’s a foundation of a godly culture for our homes, one in which the environment for our child’s development is spiritual and enriching. It’s also a foundation that establishes parental authority over our homes, so that the child understands where the rules come from and who has final say. It’s also a foundation that provides for the needs of our homes, because no matter how much they may grumble, complain, and disobey, it remains our responsibility to put food on our children’s plates, and clothes on their backs.

What comes next?

The fact of the matter is this: You, as a parent, will grow and learn with your child. Those early years, where all you had to worry about was feeding and changing diapers, will eventually be replaced with balancing after-school band practices, nurturing a newfound love of t-ball, and the first pre-adolescent hints of stubborn independence in your child’s mind.

Back when you were just holding a baby at 2am, half asleep and wondering if you would ever get a good night’s rest again, you might have thought to yourself that the first few years are the toughest. After all, they’re so fragile in those early years. A million things could happen to them that could hurt them! While true, it’s also the case that, in those early years, you or your spouse are holding the child close to your chest a good 70% of the time.

Once they start walking, your first instinct will be to hold out your hand to help them along. For a time, they’ll gladly take it. Eventually, they stop wrapping their hand around your index finger and will take off running on their own.

Odds are, you’re only going to have your child under your roof for a couple of decades. In that time, you’re going to nurture them from cradle to college, from a baby you could hold in one arm to an adult head and shoulders bigger than you are. The time in between will likely constitute only one-quarter of their life, but it’s the quarter that will define who they are, how they cope with sorrow, handle success, and deal with enemies.

You were that age once. Surely it’s just a matter of repeating everything you know, right? The “instruction” phase of parenting seems simple enough on paper, but, in practice, it can be maddening. Feeding a baby? They have no say in the matter: Bottle goes in, milk comes out.

Explaining to an eight-year-old why he can’t just sit there and not eat? That’s a battle of wills I’ve lost on more than a few occasions. The dark little secret about parenting is this: The older they get, the fewer things you can actually make them do. Even an eight-year-old, if he doesn’t want to eat…what can you do? You can’t actually pry open his mouth and shove a spoon of mashed potatoes in there. Oh sure, you could if you were angry enough, but you’d end up with a plate full of vomit and a crying child to contend with.

And then they become teenagers, and you really can’t make them do things. What are parents to do? He won’t clean his room. I told him to clean his room but he won’t clean his room. What do I do? I can spank him, I can ground him, I can take his luxuries away, but he still won’t clean his room!

Let’s be honest: You’re not going to walk in there, grab his hand and physically force him to pick up that candybar wrapper that’s been lying there for three months. If it’s going to get picked up, either you’re going to pick it up, or he is. Either you’re going to decide for yourself to pick it up, or he’s going to decide for himself to pick it up. There is no third option.

The goal, as a parent, is for the child to pick up the wrapper. If you can’t make him pick it up, what do you do?

This second phase is all about creating a home where the child doesn’t need to be made to pick up the wrapper. It’s about creating a home environment where your child (who will have a messy room from time to time; that’s normal) will only need to be told, “will you pick up your room please before you do anything else?” and then, as if by magic, he will say “sure,” and proceed to pick up his room.

Will it be spotless? Will it be as good a job as you could have done? No, but it will be a sincere effort. It will be a job, if not done well, then at least done with a desire to obey the command you gently gave. You didn’t shout, you didn’t demand; you just asked, and he answered.

This is not a fable. This really happens in households. It is possible for a parent to ask his child to do something and for the child to do it. What sorcery is this? It’s what happens when a child lives in an environment where the culture has been established, where authority has been settled, and where their needs are provided for. I know there are sometimes extenuating circumstances. There are some kids who have challenges that make it so that no environment will stimulate obedience. Generally speaking, however, these principles work, because they come from the Bible.

Those are principles we learn from our Father in Heaven, after all, and they’re the basis for the second phase of parenting. What does it entail? It’s about setting boundaries, so that our children appreciate what they can and can’t do. This brings the child confidence. It’s about teaching our children, both by example and by word, not only so they learn, but so they bond with their teacher (you, parent). This brings the child closeness. It’s also about treating every accomplishment, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, as an opportunity worth praising and rewarding, reinforcing in their minds a desire to do good, and removing a lot of their need to seek out alternative (harmful) stimuli. This brings the child contentment.

The book I’m working on is divided into three parts. I’ll share the final part in this miniseries next week (focusing on the third part). After that, I plan on teaching this material (in fact, co-teaching it with Shawn) as a Bible Class on Sunday mornings this summer.

Until then,

~Matthew