Godly Parenting and Getting It Right

We have looked at four parenting styles, the DICTATORIAL, the ENMESHED, the INDULGENT, and the DETACHED.  Each of these styles was stated at their extremes, with focus on the child’s behavior to the max (dictatorial), too much focus on both the behavior and the thoughts and feelings of the child (enmeshed), with focus on the child’s thoughts and feelings to the neglect of attention to their behavior (indulgent), and the complete lack of focus on behavior or thoughts and feelings (detached).

But of course, there are degrees all along the spectrum (or the axis).  As you look at your personal parenting style (or your style of leadership in any one-up, top-down, authority position), ask yourself what your tendency is.  You might also think in terms of whether you have one parenting style with one or more of your children and a different style with another child or children.

For some reason I had an overly indulgent parenting style with my youngest.  Birth order often affects the way parents relate to their children.  The firstborn often elicits a more dictatorial style, the middle child a more detached style, and the baby of the family a more indulgent style.  Parents are not usually a one-style fits all type of parent. 

Another factor in the parenting style we use is the style our spouse is using.  If one parent is detached from his or her children, the other parent will often feel a need to adopt a more enmeshed style (my child needs me because I am the only one really parenting them).  It is common in divorced families for one spouse to take a more indulgent style as a way of getting a child’s affection as over against the other parent. It becomes a kind of competition.  Any parent who takes too selfish a parenting style often moves the other parent to take an opposing style.

But neither of these styles is a godly style, even if not taken to the extreme.  Parenting, like all leadership, is for the benefit of the child (or the one led), not for the benefit of the parent or leader.  Godly leadership/parenting gives appropriate attention to both the child’s behavior and the child’s thoughts and feelings.  We might direct our attention to the center of the axis so that we are not out of bounds on either focus.

Children need an appropriate attention to their behavior and their thoughts and feelings.  The Scriptures teach that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Proverbs 22:15).  This does not mean that all discipline of a child needs to be spanking.  But it does mean that a child’s natural tendency is not to right behavior or right thoughts and feelings.  The child, like all humans, is desperately trying to get his needs met by himself.  He creates his strategy for how to get love and security.  He does this by means that are not always healthy or right.

The child might learn that lying gets him what he needs.  Or he might learn that being funny gets him love.  These tactics become his strategy.  But he needs to learn is that lying is destructive to others and ultimately to himself.  It needs to hurt more to lie than to tell the truth.  He needs to learn that always being funny is not a path to genuine emotional intimacy, which we all need.  There are times to be serious.

If we discipline, however, by only addressing the behavior, or only addressing the thoughts and feelings, we come up short in training our children.  Our kids need both aspects of that training.  I know two parents who had a disagreement over their daughter’s school clothing.  The mother bought shoes for her daughter that she later did not want her daughter to wear to school.  This dictatorial style was motivated by how the mother felt she would be viewed by others as a mother.  The daughter put those shoes on one morning for school and the father saw this, knew the mother was uncomfortable with the daughter wearing them to school, but wanting to be cool in his daughter’s eyes (indulgent) approved her wearing them.

What was needed was parenting for the child’s sake.  What were the child’s thoughts and feelings about wearing those shoes to school?  The mother needed to give attention to this aspect.  The father needed to support the mother and uphold her demand that the daughter not wear those shoes to school, not seek to get his needs met by indulging.  But the parents needed to come together and expose what each of them were experiencing in their own thoughts and feelings and discuss what their daughter really needed.

Recognizing what style you are operating in will help you realize what selfish motives are at play in your leadership and the direction you need to go in properly bringing up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.