Transcript
Ben Fallon: Recently we’ve received a few questions from parents who, in their own words, are at the end of their rope. Here are two scenarios. The first: "I've been working with occupational therapists, behavioral specialists, and social workers to help my eight-year-old daughter regulate her emotions and nobody can figure her out. Her outbursts are unpredictable and she turns to hitting, biting, scratching, and now she's cursing at her friends in the neighborhood. She can't attend school in a regular class setting because it's too much for her, and oftentimes there's safety concerns. She's yanked my hair, called me names, and completely refuses to listen when I try to discipline and even runs out the front door. It's exhausting and I don't know how to help her. I'm praying every night and day filling my mind with good news in Scripture. I've anointed my house, had deliverance, and many people praying over her."
That's the first situation, and here's the second. "We've hit a wall with our six-year-old son. He's very energetic, rambunctious, and all boy. We've set rules, disciplined, implemented consequences, and everything we've tried we're met with a smirk, careless attitude, or just indifference. I know Proverbs says that folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and we're trying to determine the difference between direct defiant behavior and just foolish boy behavior, but we feel at a total complete loss. We've reached out to our pastor and others seeking advice, and we're just told to be faithful. Discipline doesn't change the heart. He's young and just being a boy, but it's reaching levels where what he's doing is so dangerous that he can hurt himself or others, and we're trying to get through to him before something severe happens."
Paul, do you have any additional things that these parents can try? They have both asked and said any advice would be appreciated.
Paul Tripp: There is so much to be said about this that it would probably take two hours, and I want to do justice to this concern because it's a very, very hard thing for a parent. It's very, very hard when you think you are doing all the things that God says to do, and they're not bearing the fruit that you would like them to bear. So, I want to generalize this first, like I usually do, and then speak with a little more specificity.
Parenting is hard. It's very hard, and there is a reason that it's hard because we give birth or bring into our families, by adoption or whatever, self-oriented, little self-sovereigns! No child comes into the world loving authority. No child comes into the world loving wisdom. No child comes into the world loving obedience. No child comes into the world loving correction, no child! All of these things cut against the desires of their little fallen hearts. Children want to be self-ruling; they want to think that they know more than they actually know, they want to be free to make their own choices without parental interference. And they will find ways of fighting you, every child does that, and there's an explanation to this in Scripture.
It’s 2 Corinthians 5:15, it says that Jesus came so that “those who live might no longer live for themselves.” Paul is saying that the DNA of sin is self-orientation, selfishness. Our natural instinct, coming into the world, is the same as every natural instinct of every child coming then, to want our own way in our own time. So, God put parents on earth to rescue a child from himself with the hope that as you do that over and over and over again, he will eventually see his need for help or her need for help, not just your help, but for God's help to become more willingly submissive and obedient, even when you're not watching.
And this requires massive change! Not first in this child's behavior, but in the fundamental thoughts and desires of his heart. It’s a kind of change, I just think I talk about this every time we do these “Ask Paul Tripp’s,” Now, we can't make happen. So, what do you do? I want to give you two, four, six, eight words that capture what I think you ought to do, and every one of them is important. First, “Humility.” Just own your inability, just own that you don't have the independent power to do something that is going to immediately turn an “out-of-control-child” into a “controlled-child.” And if anybody tells you they have that immediate ability, run, because they don't have it either!
I mean, that the bookstores are filled, the websites are filled, with people who tell you they have the key to turn an “out-of-control-child” into a “controlled-child.” And like my Theology professor would say, “When you try to trick him into thinking you knew something that you didn't know, he had a stamp that said, “It's baloney, no matter how thin you slice it!” It's just not true. And so, I have to humbly embrace my inability. It's so frustrating because I don't have that independent power to create what I'd like to create.
That means, “Be patient.” Patience is not passivity; patience is active. That means, just do again and again, the good things that God has called you to do. Don't stop doing the good things that God calls you to do. He doesn't tell you that if you do that for two weeks, “Bingo, it's going to happen!”
Patience requires “Faithfulness.” I get up every morning and I'm committed again to faithfully do what I did the day before. I'm going to be faithful. Now, what happens often to parents is they just jump from methodology to methodology to methodology, hoping that there'd be some kind of magic out there somewhere. And that makes inconsistency for the child, confusion for the child, every day they get a different parent–it never works! Be faithful.
Fourth thing, no matter how out of control your child is, treat that little human being with “Love” because love is the most powerful weapon in the universe. The minute you get down and you get dirty, and you treat that child as unkindly as they treated you, you're not part of what God is going to do in the heart of the child; you're in the way of it.
Give “Grace!” Grace is not again being permissive. If wrong were not wrong, there would be no need for grace. Grace recognizes wrong, but it doesn't deal with it with harshness or anger or abuse or horrible words that should never be spoken and a child should never hear. Grace means, “I'm always asking, ‘What is God trying to do in the heart and life of this child, and how can I be part of it?’” Grace is hard. We know grace is hard because grace took Jesus’ death, grace requires sacrifice.
I've mentioned this when I talked about faithfulness, but I want to mention it clearly. “Consistency,” don't keep changing the rules. That makes for a chaotic experience for the child. Be consistent even if the consistent things that God calls you do don't seem like they're working, be consistent! That's the most secure place for a child. The place where the child has the greatest possibility of learning is when you're consistent.
Seventh word is “Instruction.” To the best of your ability, couple discipline with instruction, teach, speak into the heart of that child. Give the child the gospel of sin and redemption again and again. Take that child to Jesus again and again, instruction, instruction, instruction! That's the passage in Ephesians 6, at the beginning of the chapter that says, “Bring them (your child) up in the discipline (nurture) and instruction of the Lord,” in “nurture and training of the Lord” and “don't provoke that child to anger.”–instruction.
Last word, I think is terribly important, “Community.” You're not supposed to do this by yourself. And if you don't understand what's going on inside of your child, if it seems like It's not just the ordinary disobedience, rebellion; get help! Find wise, trained helpers, people that will help you and respect your faith, that can help you to understand what is going on in the heart of this little person. Good parenting needs a community around it. It really is true; “It does take a village,” and don't be embarrassed–get help, run to your church, get recommendations of people who have been through the same thing, and learn things that you may not know and understand things that you may not understand as you try to be used of God to bring your child from where they are to where they're going to be.
I want to say one other thing; I should have added this as my ninth word, “Marshall people who are praying for you; you need ‘Prayer.’” Ask people to pray first thing in the morning so when you get up, you're surrounded by people who are praying for you because you need prayer, this is hard. And it's very easy as a parent to just wake up in the morning with dread wondering, “What kind of hell am I going to deal with today?” Humility, patience, faithfulness, love, grace, consistency, instruction, community, and prayer!
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