{mosimage}By Marie Depree
If there is one area today where we are having major challenges, it’s in our relationship with our children. Whether they are school age, teens, or young adults, stress, friction and— in some cases—rebellion exists within the confines of the relationship.
As parents, we face different levels of rebellion in our children, starting as young as pre-school. Never before have we heard so much in the news about children threatening and verbally abusing their parents. There is also the continuous growing evidence of physical violence between parents and children. What do we do to prevent our households from becoming victim to these kinds of problems?
We must begin instilling God’s Word in our children while they are young. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Teach a child to choose the right path, and when he is older he will remain upon it.” As parents, we must show faith, strength and unity to our children by being examples before them in our lifestyles. Fathers and mothers must present a united front concerning discipline and morals. They must establish standards and adhere firmly to them.
The devil’s tactic is always to ‘divide and conquer’. He knows there’s strength in numbers; so we need more anointing and more power to resist and overcome the things he uses to try to destroy the family. “We can do all things through Christ that strengthens us.” (Philippians 4:13)
Presenting a United Front
There are definite rules and structuring we need to have in place for our children. From elementary age to teenagers, they need to have set boundaries for respecting us and our homes. Definite consequences should occur for disobeying those boundaries.
Stand together as parents in your decisions regarding discipline. Don’t allow your children (especially teens) to use one parent against the other. Have a system for dealing with certain requests and issues, so that precedence is established. One parent shouldn’t be labeled the ‘easy one’ whom your children know will give in quicker or say ‘yes’ most often.
Children learn very early in life how to manipulate to get their own way. They will ask you something when you are in a hurry or at the last minute to get a quick ‘yes’. On such occasions, parents don’t take the time to check out all the details. This is why you need to establish ground rules for requests to attend big events; such requests should be brought up in a family meeting with plenty of time to check all the who, what, when, where and how!
Building Their Character
As parents, we must try to build good character in our children; we must teach them to ‘earn’ some things instead of giving it just for their asking. Allow them to earn their own finances by doing extra jobs around the house. If we continually give our children what they want just because we can, then they will expect this manner from all things in life.
Our children will appreciate the value of a dollar ‘more’ when they’ve worked for it!
Extra jobs shouldn’t be confused with character-building responsibilities or chores, such as taking out trash, washing, cleaning the bathroom, or washing dishes. These things young people should do as their share of helping to take care of themselves and the home in which they also live. Responsibilities should be assigned to them and regularly completed in a timely fashion. These should be non-negotiable, and certain consequences (privileges taken or grounding) enforced if they are not done without sufficient reason.
When children show accountability of their responsibilities, they prove they can be trusted even when away from their parents.
Establishing Trust
Children have so much to contend with nowadays—peer pressure at school, television influence, and the desire to emulate those they’ve chosen to be their role models. The pressures of drugs, sex and violence consistently confront them.
We can’t prevent them from growing up, so how do we help ourselves as attentive and concerned parents? We need to know who, what, when and where from them. Parents must ‘set-up’ and ‘enforce’ specific rules for their children and then hold them accountable for following them.
IMPORTANT RULES FOR TEENS
1. Set reasonable curfew times for them to be home. Hold them responsible for telephoning you of changes, delays, or problems in a timely fashion.
2. Meet their friends and their friends’ parents before allowing them to go on outings with them.
3. Expect the friends not to smoke or drink and if they do, they should respect your home. If they drink, then parents will be supporting underage drinking in your home.
4. Expect them not to be involved with drugs or promiscuity or with others who do these things.
5. Provide an ‘open door’ policy so they can feel free to talk with you about major decisions prior to making them on their own.
6. Make them responsible for their own accountability and have consequences if they show continued irresponsibility.
This is how they’ll maintain their current privileges and gain more— by obeying the rules ‘as they are’ and not continually trying to challenge the boundaries.
When we ‘stay close’ to our children, we receive guidance from the Holy Spirit: we are given a spirit of discernment to know when we can or can’t trust certain situations for them.
Most importantly, we must remember to keep our children always lifted up in our prayers. James 5:16 says “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous one, has great power and brings wonderful results.”
We must have faith in God’s Word that says ‘we can have’ and believe it for our children. When we believe God beyond any doubt, He is moved and finds pleasure in blessing us with our hearts’ desires.
‘Invest the seed of God’s Word and your time in the heart-soil of your children for a harvest of their souls.’
Marie DePree acknowledged the call of evangelist in 1979. Marie is an established conference speaker and teacher, credentialed through World International Association of Clergy in 2001. She is married, mother of 3 and member of Dupree Memorial COGIC, Ft. Wayne, IN. She is also a Member of the Ministry Staff, Praise Leader/Choir member, and teacher of both Youth Ministry & Sunday School and Assistant Producer for the Media Ministry Broadcast. She is the visionary and founder of the Women of God ministry in Fort Wayne, a ministry that focuses on meeting the needs of God’s servants and His people.
Marie is also the writer and creator for the on-line daily devotional, Word Strategy. Editor/Publisher of ‘Spirit-Touch’ Online Christian Magazine which began in 2003. She is currently completing two books, ‘The Seasons of a Chosen Warrior’ and ‘The Strategy for Empowerment Daily Devotional’.
For the Lord replied to me, “for you will go to all that I send you to and whatever I tell you, you will say’ Jeremiah 1:7