This article was birthed out of a discussion with Bob and Betty Wright along with their daughter Christy. I was asking them for their thoughts concerning a pattern I had been seeing amongst parents with older children. I had been working with three sets of parents who were struggling with the issue of children who don’t accept their convictions as scriptural but see them as preferences. I remembered a young man who onces told me that if he had the chance to influence fathers, he would want to tell them not to view their sons or daughters as rebels when they question a parents convictions or preferences. The son or daughter is simply trying to discover for him or herself the convictions they should have based on the Word so they can take ownership of them. As I have meditated on this concept I have come to believe that convictions come in a variety of ways.

4 Ways Convictions Can be Developed

1. We study the Word and develop a conviction based on God’s Spirit convicting us of the truth.
2. The simple person observes the reproofs of the foolish who scorn God’s Word and learn from the failures of others. They take mental notes and begin to develop beliefs about the cause and effects of sin.
3. The simple become foolish and act on their own natural inclinations and fail but take the time to evaluate their experience, cry out for wisdom and understanding and learn from it. They develop convictions to keep them from falling again.
4. A person is discipled by a more experienced mentor such as a parent. They engage in many complex conversations regarding the truths, testimonies, statues, and commands of God’s Word. A disciple begins to see that the stories of scripture are for their benefit, so they can learn and avoid the pitfalls of sin. They choose to receive the Word of God with meekness, which is able to save their souls and allow their minds to he renewed.

I hope to write more articles on this concept since so many of us parents struggle with how to pass on our convictions and even some of our preferences to the next generation.

The following article is written by Bob Wright based on our discussion and his years of experience as a dorm parent overseas and as a public school teacher for 42 years.

Parents Who Are Mystified by Older Children

Having been a dorm parent for 6 years with high school boys in a boarding school, I’ve had the opportunity to talk at length with young men who have been at various places in their relationship with the Lord and with their parents.

I was also a teacher of high school kids for 42 years and I noticed some pretty similar themes between young people and their parents.

1. Sometimes young people say some pretty awful things about their parents to see what their response will be.
2. Sometimes there is turmoil in their own minds as to what they should think and don’t know how to determine what’s right so they will say things in the worst way to see how you will answer the question on their heart.
3. They may ask a question or make a statement that is intended to shock you to see if you can be trusted with what is really bothering them.
4. Many times young people are not sure what they think and they are beginning to formulate many things on their own and will say what comes to mind in order to:
   • Test their thinking out on you.
   • See if they can shock you.
   • Get a response from you that will settle the question in their own mind on the issue.

I have found that if I react to their statement and attack them for thinking such things, I will miss out on a golden opportunity to impact their thinking on that issue and they will conclude that I am not a safe person to discuss matters of the heart with. There are times when you will make a bigger impact if you will be vulnerable and confess how God dealt with you on that issue or even that you still do not know what the answer is – maybe you could both investigate together what God has to say on that subject.

Sometimes parents are worried about what others will think of their children if they say things that do not match up with what the “family standard” is. It may be that the performance standard for the family is so rigidly applied that the young person feels hemmed in on every side and has no room for the different way he or she views life.

Flexibility and allowance for differences in expression could go a long way in giving the young person time to sort through his new found thinking processes. Helping him see the consequences of the line of thinking he may be going down and even sharing with him some of the thoughts you had when you were his age would be of some help. Time to let him see the negative response he gets from others and loving him at the same time often successfully deals with avoiding open rebellion.

As a parent whenever I heard my son or daughter express some negative thing about “going to church” or to some spiritual exercise like “family devotions”, I first went to the Lord and asked Him if there was something I was doing that brought on this response to something I dearly loved to do. Was I being inconsistent in my walk with the Lord? If so, I confessed it to the Lord and to my children and asked their forgiveness. If it were not something I needed to address, I would ask the Lord if there was something in the church, Sunday school class, or family devotions that was a legitimate concern that needed to be addressed. I found that my children sometimes had legitimate concerns, which needed to be expressed and heard.

h4. A real life example

In my last year of teaching I had a 16 year old boy who was very immature and acted like a overactive child. He was often disruptive and punched kids during class, and made inappropriate remarks. I had to discipline him more than any student in many a year. Mark was “always” in the middle of any trouble in the class.

One day two boys, who were seniors and on the basketball team, were sitting near Mark (a 16 year old) and did something disruptive when I was looking another way and I whirled around and said, “Mark, move over to this seat away from everyone else.” He cried out, “I didn’t do it and you’re always picking on me.” (By that time I had a pretty long history with having to correct his behavior.) I just quietly maintained my position and said, “Mark, I’m giving you one more chance to do as I said.” He got up and muttered something about how unfair I was and sat in a different desk from the one I indicated and plopped down with great fanfare.

I gently said, “Mark, I said you were to sit in this chair and you sat in that one.” He retorted, “I’m not moving.” My response was, “Then you must move out into the hall and stay there until I come out to talk with you.”

He stalked out saying some more uncomplimentary things on his way out. Later the two boys that were sitting near him originally told me that it was not Mark that had made the original disruption and that they were the ones who had done it.

I dealt with them by having them asking Mark and me to forgive them for their disruptive behavior and for letting Mark take the blame for them.

Then I had a talk with Mark and the principal about Mark’s whole response as being so out of control that it became a different issue. When he finally saw it, he apologized to me in front of the class for his reaction to my false accusation. I also apologized to Mark in front of the class for falsely accusing him.

I told that story in an adult Sunday school class I was teaching a few weeks later and an elderly man in his 80’s came to me after class and said with tears in his eyes, “That story of Mark spoke more to me than any Sunday school lesson I’ve heard in all my life. You see, I had an experience in school when I was 15 and was falsely accused by the teacher. I had loved school until that day and was a straight “A” student. I was sent to the principal and told to confess “my disruption” and sat in his office for the rest of the term. The principal realized I had not probably done it but supported the teacher. I never got another “A” in school after that and it has been such a disappointment to me all these years. But now I see that I could have forgiven them and I’ve asked God to go with me back to that time and heal my soul of that bitterness that has affected all of my dealings with other people since then. I am so grateful for God using that story to awaken I me my need for His healing.”

So many parents have unresolved issues in their own lives that have a great affect on their responses to their own children. Sometimes our children do or say things that trigger a strong reaction and we don’t know what caused that response. That may be a clue that we made a vow, or determination way back when we were young that we would never…(fill in the blank – like: do such and such, be unfair to our child, forgive my father, or mother for what they did, tell my father what’s in my heart again.) That unresolved determination needs to be dealt with before we can be free from responding negatively to our own children or wife, or other relationships.

Ask God to show you what hurts, or vows, or determinations you have made in your past. Just ask Him to help you go back to incidents that you remember in your childhood that every time you think of them you wish they had never happened, or they are incidents you wonder why you keep remembering them. Ask God to show you why you keep remembering them and how they affect your current relationships. Then ask Him to go back with you in your thinking but this time be with you in the whole situation and heal you of that negative response to that situation.

He has said He has come to set us free and often our past is what we need freedom from.

Then you will be free to love your children even when they say the most shocking things. You won’t have to react – you can talk about their “opinions” in an objective way. And most of all you can love them because God has showered His love on you.

Posted by Chris Hogan on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 17:55 PM