Recovering Biblical Parenting from Secularism's Grasp

SECULAR TEACHING

BIBLICAL TEACHING

There is no real vision of parenting. They think parenting comes natural. There is no good or bad parenting, they think, it just happens. Parents do not have any special responsibility of instruction. They can live their own lives apart from their children.

Biblical Vision

Parents are intricately involved in the training of their children. They teach, provide and guide their children into a good, godly and loving life style.

Happiness, financial security, safety, self-esteem, success and other values dictate the way they train their children.

Biblical Core Values

Biblical values like love, faith, forgiveness, and joy dictate how parents train their children. Instruction on Christ's life and death is regularly communicated and lived out before their children.

Man is resistant to change another because they are taught that a person will do better without any interference from his parents. Some go so far to instruct us that parental instruction interferes with the best interests of the children.

Human Nature is Corrupt

Man has a corrupt nature from birth that steers his life away from obedience to God. Man needs to be instructed, loved and chastised to be brought into conformity with God's law which was revealed for man's good.

The permissive crowd refuses to respect authority and rejects any attempt by others to train their children to respect them. Their children despise them. Grandparents try to love these very naughty children. Children are treated as an equal to the parent in authority.

Respect for Authority

Respect for authority is taught as the parents obey the Lord and then enforce the need for their children to obey and honor them. Children are not treated as an equal to the parent in authority; they do not have a vote. They are to obey their parents.

The parents try to use words to convince children to do what they think they should do. The results are always dismal. Tension and built up hatred exists between the parent and the child.

Physical Chastisement

Physical action is needed to help the child to properly accept the directives of the parents. Early on in life discipline is used so that later in life the right attitude of respect resides in the heart of the child.

The parent has lots of expectations but no way to help the child to reach them. The parents are very frustrated.

Satisfaction

The parent knows how to train their expectations into their children so that they are polite and kind people.

Children are desired and yet often get in the way of the goals of the parents. Children are supplementary and limited so that they can live more comfortably and predictably. Many believe limiting the number of children helps conserve the world's resources.

Increasing Children

The parents anticipate God's blessing for their family by giving them many children as He has promised. They live by faith in God who will provide for their children as well as the world's resources.

The husband and wife are confused to why he or she should do what the other person could easily do. A lot of extra tension causes tension between the parents and creates insecurity in the children.

Clear Understanding of Sex Roles

The husband and wife's clear understanding of their places in the family help bring clarity to the child as to his or her place.

The parents want to get along peaceably with their children but because of the amount of unresolved conflict, there is an actual war.

Resolved Conflict

The parents get along fine with their children so that by teen age years, their children are among their best of friends. No enmity exists because the conflicts have been fully resolved.

The permissive parent believes that the expression of ones feelings brings healing. They are feeling oriented. In fact, saying, "You're angry" only masks the root problem.

Self-Control

The child is not taught by feelings but by the standards in God's Word. They are expected to speak kindly, humbly, and focused on the needs of others. Biblical standards are enforced on the outward until they are incorporated inside and bring about the needed self-control.