Raise them Right: Biblical Wisdom for Modern Parenting – The Three R’s
Raise Them Right:
Biblical Wisdom for Modern Parenting
“The 3 R’s” - 1 Timothy 2:1-6
INTRODUCTION:
Grandma use to say “Good citizenship begins at home.” At one time, it seemed like parenting was aimed at rearing children to be good citizens, someone who would be valuable to the culture, to society.
Proverbs 22:6
GRANDMA’S THREE R’S:
Home is where character is first, and foremost, taught. Grandma believed in the three “R’s” of good parenting:
Respect - For every human being, respect for all those in legitimate authority; 1 Tim. 2:1-2. Teach good manners. Respect for others is what builds good self-image (self-esteem); it defines an emotionally happy, prosocial individual.
Responsibility - Accountability for one’s own actions; willing to carry out jobs assigned by those in authority. Involve children in household responsibilities. With preschoolers, it is helpful to teach them to take responsibility for themselves, such as cleaning up after themselves. You can share with them the “Mom” plan or you can share with them the “Jewell Plan.” The “Jewell Plan” is developed by Jewell so that she can learn responsibility to clean up after herself. What are the consequences she needs or reminders to help her clean up? If the “Jewell Plan” does not work, we’ll have to go back to the “Mom” plan a time or two.
As children get older, we can easily say, “I want to treat you with respect, but you have to be able to take responsibility yourself for things.”
Parenting responsibility is like teaching our children to swim. As children are in deep water, learning to be responsible and mature, parents sometimes start throwing “toys” to them in the form of privileges the children have not earned or cannot handle - like access to Facebook or a cell phone, going out with friends or staying up late. Children then get distracted from learning how to grow up and parents contribute to their children’s failures. We parents do not owe our children anything, any privilege, just because their friends have them. How many of you heard your mom say, “If so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you go too?” And they dug their heels in and wouldn’t break their values just because you whined. Privilege and responsibility go together.
Don’t give privileges based on age. Instead use responsibility as a guide:
Cleaning up.
Taking the initiative.
Being honest.
Responding to correction with humility.
Handling disappointment with grace.
Resourcefulness - Stick-ability - tough it out - see it through to the end. Don’t quit too early. Solve their own problems to the extent they can. Entertain themselves. Again, I don’t know how often I heard my mom say, “Son, your brother (or sister) does not exist to entertain you.” Kids need to do their own homework. Devise their own playthings.
Grandma expected children to fight their own battles, to lie in their own beds, to stew in their own juices. Numbers 32:23.
RESPECT YOURSELF:
Self-respect develops as you treat others with respect and dignity, no matter who they are. Self-respect is synonymous with a generous heart.
If you are training your children to develop self-respect, then you expect them to do the best job they can because they respect themselves - Colossians 3:24-25.
Most children believe their job description in life is to have fun. Parents’ instructions are an interruption to their activities. We hesitate to impose work requirements on our children because we’re afraid it may rob them of their childhood or hinder their emotional growth because we’ve made them unhappy. What was the first command God gave Adam and Eve?
Proverbs 14:23; 6:6.
Yes, it takes time to train our children properly to do a chore right but we’re trying to create responsible adults and that takes time.
Young children can empty the dishwasher, pick up around the house, vacuum, help fold clothes.
Elementary age children can set the table, wash the dishes, clean bathrooms, and wash floors. I distinctly remember standing on a chair and washing dishes when I was in the first grade.
Teenagers can mow the grass, make a meal, or care for a younger sibling.
Self-respect is the knowledge that you are making a positive contribution and not just from 9 to 5. We are making a positive difference every time we let a driver in front of us, open a door for someone, give a seat to an elderly person or pregnant woman or anyone else who looks like they could use a seat.
Self-respect is about developing our hearts to imitate Jesus so that the real, authentic me reflects Jesus Christ. It’s about character and a person’s character shines through not in our possessions or our status but in our manners, how we treat others, even those who do not know us, whom we might never see again.
Responsibility is also best taught in the context of relationship. Rather than seeing the garbage full and yelling, “Ana!” to get her attention. It might be better to go find her. She might be in an important discussion. She might be doing something that I could actually do with her a few minutes before I pull her away to do a chore. Firmness doesn’t have to be cold and distant. Putting your hands on your son’s shoulders, calling your daughter close to give an instruction, addressing your children by name in soft tones are all ways to show children they’re important.
There are times, of course, when children need to drop what they are doing and obey immediately. But maintaining a balance between firmness and relationship is essential. Too much focus on relationship - wanting to be friends first before being the parent - leads to arguing, resistance, and complaining. But if you constantly pull rank, you lose that closeness.
MANNERS TAKE A BACK SEAT TO SKILLS:
A man shared this story from South Africa. He said children are trained from an early age in South Africa to stand at a respectful distance from adults who are talking to one another until there is a pause in the conversation. The child is not allowed to jump into the pause! At the pause, an adult will turn to the child and ask, “Can I help you?” At that point, the child is allowed to speak. Children are trained to do that as early as 3 years old!
That teaches children to think of others first.
Parents of pre-school children should be more concerned about laying the foundations for good character than necessarily trying to jump start their academic success. Studies have consistently found, even in Obama’s Dept of Education, that preschool - Headstart - ultimately does not make any difference in a child’s education. A child who does not go to Headstart, by about the third grade - is at the same level of education or learning as a child who was pushed into schooling at an earlier age.
Children who respect adults are children who are taught to pay attention and obey adults. Children who are taught to listen to and obey parents at home will listen to and obey teachers at school and they are the ones who will do the best in school.
“Would you rather teach a class of 25 kids whose IQs are 150 and above (140 is genius level), but lack good manners? Or 25 kids whose IQs are average but are well-mannered and well-behaved?”
CHORES TAKE A BACK SEAT TO EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:
What are family activities? Taking a nature hike. Spending the afternoon at a museum. Going to Niagara Falls or Cedar Point.
A family activity is when everyone pitches in to clean the house, weed the flower bed or garden. One of the banes of modern parenting is so much after-school activities that, when combined with homework, there is hardly time for family activities. So who has to do the chores around the house? Mom and Dad do them all and frequently, it falls to Momma’s job.
Children learn to be a team-player by having a meaningful role, with meaningful responsibilities in the family. Those responsibilities can be defined by the time a child is 4 years old.
When we allow our children to consume without contributing, we are engendering an entitlement mentality - “I deserve…” Individualism and materialism are enthroned in the heart of the child.
Parents, stop thinking that a chore has to be done right the first time when children are little. As they mature and they have the capability of doing something right the first time, then make them do it right.
Chores are not associated with success and self-esteem in the minds of most modern Americans. And, of course, everyone else is doing after-school activities.
But good social skills are founded on respect for others, which is taught through manners.
Second, a person with high respect for others is going to have much, much better social skills.
Third, nothing dampens a child’s social skills more than solitary, mind-numbing electronics.
RESOURCEFULNESS:
Fighting your own battles - In the past, when a child came home complaining about a teacher, our parents would say something like, “What did you do to make the teacher mad?”
Lying in the beds you made - If a child failed to study, he / she missed the field trip.
Paddling your own canoe - If you have a science project to do, you do the bulk of the work.
Stewing in your own juices - Allowed someone to borrow the bike and it gets stolen, the child had to earn the money himself to buy a new bike.
Experiences can teach painful, but very profound lessons to children and build character. Parents do not, and generally should not, get involved with our children’s conflicts, responsibilities, or problems. The more parents get involved in our children’s problems, the more stress parents are going to have.
The more our children do what they are supposed to do, the more freedom we can allow them to have. Luke 19:17. And, the more freedom we can give our children to make right choices, the more freedom parents can have!
But, the more involved parents get in their children’s lives:
1. The more they take their children’s success personally.
2. The more Johnny believes he can’t be successful without parents’ help.
3. The more Johnny acts helpless and the more parents think they have to do.
A good rule of thumb is: Don’t do for your child what he or she can do for themselves.
Take home message: From an early age, parents should teach their children the “three R’s:” Respect, Responsibility, and Resourcefulness.
Start an evangelistic conversation: “Do you feel that your faith and spiritual values play a role in your life, your work, your marriage, your perspective on life?”