We’ve all seen it. You’re in the checkout line at the grocery store when you hear a child arguing with his mother in the line ahead of you. He wants some candy, a toy, a drink, or who knows what? His mother doesn’t want him to have it, so she begins with a flat “No.” He balks, stomps his foot, whines. Mom redirects, “Look at this nice cereal Mommy is buying for you.” His whines become wails. Mom ignores. He falls to his knees, wailing louder now. Mom quickly drops to his level and begins to speak sweetly in an attempt to reason with him, “Honey, this is not the way we behave in public; you are causing quite a scene. Get up, now.” He throws himself face-down and begins thrashing his arms and legs, wailing all the while. Mom rises, grabs the item her child wants off the shelf and thrusts it into his hands. If she acknowledges you at all, she likely says, “He usually doesn’t act like this; he’s just hungry (or tired, sleepy, out of his routine, having a bad day, mourning the loss of a stuffed animal, et cetera).”
What is really happening is probably very complex, laden with multiple variables that would take a while to sort through. One thing is likely, though, this child has not often received correction at home, or if he has, it has been correction to an arbitrary and ever-changing standard which his parents are quick to cede at the slightest resistance.
But what do I even mean by correction? In Christian communities one sometimes hears at least the mention of correcting children. Often, however, even devoutly Christian parents are not completely clear what the term correction means. This is the case, at least partially, because the practice of correcting children has been exchanged during the past fifty years for parenting tactics such as “redirecting,” “distracting,” “removing,” and “ignoring,” all of which we have seen demonstrated in some grocery-store-line drama. For our purposes here, correcting a child is the act of helping him put off any thought or deed the Bible refers to as sinful or foolish and to put on thoughts and deeds the Bible refers to as righteous or wise.
Good parenting takes lots of tools, not a one-size-fits-all approach. Children are different from each other, so parenting a particular child will require the parent to understand, not only the frame of children in general, but also the unique frame of that particular child. That being said, every tool in the parenting toolbox that does not deal with the root of the problem is merely behavior modification, the equivalent of an aspirin prescribed to a patient who is fighting stage four liver cancer. Biblical correction, on the other hand, deals with the root of all problems: sin.
In a world obsessed with the importance of self, the idea of correction is just offensive. Rather than desire a standard outside of ourselves to be measured against and corrected to, our desire is for the world to affirm us in any behavior that we think expresses our all-important self. Our obsession with self is clearly on display in the all-consuming social media, which is thriving exactly because our own sin nature, manifested in selfishness, craves an outlet. The devil has sold us on the lie that our ideas and opinions are so important that everyone is on pins and needles, waiting for us to share them. Anyone who disagrees or critiques is simply blocked.
We carry this idolatry of self over into our parenting, except it isn’t our self we idolize, it is our child’s self. We are loathe to say or do anything that turns him from pursuing his own path, going his own way, figuring life out on his own. Then, we ordain this way of parenting by referring to it in spiritual, and sometimes even biblical language: “I don’t want to squash his creativity,” or “I don’t want to crush his spirit,” or, “I want to let him be who God made him to be,” and even, “He can’t help it; God made him that way.” While a nugget of truth exists in all these expressions, they are dangerous mantras to build a parenting foundation upon. Rather, we ought to set aside self—our own and our child’s—and see what God wants for our children. Here’s a hint: it’s the same thing he wants for you and me, and it can be found in the Bible.
Next week, we’ll dig a little deeper into this idea of biblical correction.
