Every parent who has ever told a child to clean up the Legos or go take a bath, has heard these words, almost always delivered in a tone of voice one could call “classic whine.”
My motherish reply might sound something like this: “I don’t care whether you feel like it or not, you are to obey Mommy.”
But according to Scripture, I should care how my children feel about picking up their toys or taking a bath or doing whatever it is I tell them to do. Scripture cares a lot about how we feel about obeying, and as a parent, I should too.
God commands us not only to give, but to give cheerfully (2 Cor. 9:7). We are not just to serve the Lord faithfully, but serve him with gladness (Ps. 100:2).
I am called to teach my children not only to obey, but how to obey cheerfully. “Cheerfulness” is one of the best places to start teaching young children how to handle their feelings.
Now, when a child is two, you are often working just to get them to pick up a toy at all, much less do it cheerfully. But by the time they reach pre-school age, or even before, a child can begin to learn how to obey with a smile.
When we were little, my parents taught us to obey “immediately, completely, and cheerfully.” Sticking with those themes, we are trying to teach our children to obey “all the way, right away, and with a happy heart.”
Notice the key role “cheerfulness” plays in this triumvirate. It isn’t obedience without it.
If we allow our children to cultivate the habit of sharing grudgingly or cleaning up grumpily or holding our hand resentfully, we are teaching them (however unintentionally) that feelings don’t matter.
But if we teach them to say “yes” in a cheerful voice and obey with a smile, we are not only showing them how to obey but how they should feel about obeying. And if they do it enough times, they eventually will!
Our goal is not to churn out a generation of Eddie Haskells, hiding devious hearts behind sickeningly sweet smiles; but rather to raise a generation of “wise sons” who learn to heed our advice to “direct your heart in the way” (Prov. 23:19).
We are not trying to mask unhappy feelings but cultivate cheerful feelings.
The more that our children obey with a smile and a cheerful attitude, the more they will begin to feel that smile and feel happy to serve.
It is in these mundane, seemingly unimportant moments, when we tell our children to put away the Legos cheerfully, that we are preparing their hearts to follow the Savior with great passion and affection, to serve the Lord with gladness (Ps. 100:2).
Recently I asked my kids what they wanted to be when they grow up. I got mommy and missionary, soccer player and sports writer. Sophie said she wanted to be a hair dryer, but I’m pretty sure she meant hairdresser.
As parents we spend a lot of time shaping and molding our children into what we want them to be. We talk a lot about what they should do with their life, and we share important lessons about what not to do.
But as Christian parents we are also to train our children to feel as God created them to feel.
We often overlook this important aspect of parenting. We don’t talk much about how our children should feel when they grow up, do we?
But feelings are an important part of who God created us to be. God is an emotional being and the Bible is a passionate book. Try reading more than a few lines of Scripture without bumping into a feeling. You can’t do it.
We are called to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all our soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30).
We are told to “be wretched and mourn and weep” over sin and judgment (James 4:9).
We are exhorted to “rejoice always” and “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:16-18).
As Christian parents, we have a grander goal than managing our child’s emotional outbursts: we want our children’s feelings to explode with affection for God.
We want our children to passionately love the Savior, tenderly love others, and serve the Lord with gladness (Ps. 100:2). We want our children’s hearts to be filled with God-glorifying emotions!
But just as we teach and train, educate and instruct our children to be what we want them to be, we must also train them to feel as God has called them to feel.
We must train up our children in the way they should go (Prov. 22:6) and this means we must direct and shape their emotions (not the other way around). If we ignore this critical aspect of our child’s training, I fear we will have failed to fulfill our whole duty as parents.
Only God can take our child’s heart of stone and give her a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26), but he has given us a job to do as parents. He has called us to diligently teach our children how to love Him with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their might (Deut. 6:5-7).
As our children transition from the toddler to the elementary school years, this is a critical time to focus on their feelings. How can we do this? Ideas for training a child’s emotions in a godward direction are coming up next here at girltalk.
“Why do you tell your child a thing twenty times?” asked some one of a mother. “Because,” said she, “I find nineteen times is not enough.” Now, when a soul is to be ploughed, it may so happen that hundreds of furrows will not do it. What then? Why, plough all day till the work is done. Whether you are ministers, missionaries, teachers, or private soul-winners, never grow weary, for your work is noble, and the reward of it is infinite. The grace of God is seen in our being permitted to engage in such holy service; it is greatly magnified in sustaining us in it, and it will be pre-eminently conspicuous in enabling us to hold out till we can say, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” ~Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Since the beginning of her toddler years, my husband and I had been instructing Caly on how to be self-controlled. The older she got, the more confident we became that she understood how to exercise self-control, but the emotional outbursts continued.
Self-control had become a clear obedience issue. Caly needed consistent, loving, discipline in order to complete and strengthen her wall of self-control (Prov. 6:23, 29:17, Heb. 12:5-11).
Reasonable and kind parenting required that, for starters, we set the bar very low. To expect consistent self-control, we needed to give her a standard she could attain.
First, I simplified Caly’s life for an extended season. I pulled her out of play dates. I ran errands when she was already in bed. I kept an orderly routine. We stayed home most of the time and made Caly’s life as predictable as possible. Careful bricklaying requires a steady hand; I couldn’t build a strong wall of self-control amidst a hectic life.
Second, I sought to eliminate unnecessary temptations. For example, we didn’t insist on certain eating habits, and at times when she was especially tired or vulnerable I would create a place where she could play alone without the temptation of other children. By removing as many temptations as possible, we could focus on self-control in a few simple areas.
Then we had to discipline consistently. We can’t expect our children to learn consistent self-control from inconsistent parenting. When we disciplined—lovingly, patiently, for every infraction—we began to see change in Caly’s life, even more quickly than we expected. This time of focused training enabled us make great progress in helping her build a wall of self-control.
Over time, as Caly learned the daily habit of self-control, we were able to expand her horizons. We began to participate in more activities, go on spontaneous outings, and focus on other training issues (such as eating her peas!). Through consistent discipline, Caly acquired the ability to respond with emotional self-control to all kinds of unexpected situations.
I don’t know exactly when God chose to reveal Himself to Caly, but I expect it was around this time. In his kindness, he has given her a heart to know and follow Him and I pray those affections only grow as the years go by.
Church was over, but not Caly’s crying. She had been crying through most of the service, and despite all my efforts, she just wouldn’t stop. I snaked my way through the crowded church lobby with my emotional child, trying to look cheerful and composed.
I found my mom, handed her a crying Caly, and burst into tears.
Raising an emotional child is an emotional experience. I cried a lot in those early years of training Caly. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep or the long, exhausting days or the embarrassing situations, all of which took their toll—most of all it was the feeling of hopelessness that hung over me because all my efforts to teach Caly self-control seemed to be making little or no difference at all.
I was trying so hard to be faithful. Why didn’t there seem to be much progress? Shouldn’t it be working by now?
Caly did eventually learn self-control. But it took much longer than I expected. And then much longer after that.
My mom encouraged me to persevere. She reassured me that my efforts would yield results someday. I had to believe God’s Word that as I was faithful to parent, God would be faithful to bring the fruit.
J.C. Ryle comments on Proverbs 22:6, “Train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it”:
“It speaks of a certain time when good training shall especially bear fruit,—‘when a child is old.’ Surely there is comfort in this…It is not God’s way to give everything at once. ‘Afterward’ is the time when he often chooses to work, both in the things of nature and in the things of grace…And ‘afterward’ is the time to which parents must look forward if they see not success at once,—you must sow in hope and plant in hope.”
Sow in hope. Plant in hope. Parent in hope that God will bring the harvest. This is the key to dealing with our fearful and hopeless feelings as moms
Fast-forward six years later to another Sunday morning. The service is over and I am pushing a double stroller with another emotional toddler through the crowded church lobby—my three-year-old son, Hudson. Only this time I have a one-year old in the front and two older girls beside me. It is Caly all over again, with three more children in tow.
Except, this time, I’m not on the verge of tears. In fact, I can almost manage a half-smile. Sure, I’m tired, exhausted in fact; and it is tough caring for another emotional child. This time around, though, I have more hope.
Caly is walking beside me, calm, obedient, and helpful. She is a reminder to me of the faithfulness of God. She is a reminder to me to persevere in teaching Hudson self-control, in hope.
And I have hope, that because of the abundant faithfulness of God, one day—even if it is one day far away—I might leave church and no one will be crying.
Teaching our little ones how to handle their feelings is some of the “grunt work” of mothering. It doesn’t feel fun, for us or for our kids, but it creates an environment in which we can experience wonderful, bonding, moments with our children. More importantly, we are tilling the ground for gospel seeds. Here are a few practical thoughts on teaching little ones self-control with their emotions.
Model Self-Control: Instead of panicking when they panic or getting angry when they scream, we demonstrate a self-controlled response to the situation. My husband and I often try to help our children by responding with affectionate amusement when they overreact. My husband tries to make them laugh when they cry over nothing; they feel his care and at the same time they learn how to exercise emotional self-control.
Practice Self-Control: Emotional self-control is easier when a child has learned self-control with their speech and actions. Consider: How can you make “practicing self-control” part of your daily life? Listening without interrupting at the dinner table, set times of sitting still and reading, staying on their bed at night, not grabbing toys, or holding your hand when outside—all of these practices will help your children learn the valuable virtue of self-control.
{Don’t Always} Discipline for Self-Control: We must be very careful to distinguish between childish exuberance or exhaustion and true disobedience. An over-tired or teething child who won’t stop crying is in need of a good night’s sleep. A child who is noisy or silly or gets on your nerves might need forbearance more than discipline. On the other hand, we as parents must be discerning and diligent to deal with defiant, repetitive, behaviors that reveal a concerning lack of self-control.
Teach Self-Control: There is a lot to teach your children about handling emotions, but self-control is the place to begin. In age-appropriate ways we can teach our children what God’s Word says about the importance of self-control.
~Make learning fun for the whole family by acting out a right and wrong way to respond.
~Sing songs about self-control. To Be Like Jesusand Seeds of Characterinclude songs and Scriptures set to music that talk about self-control.
~Tell and/or read stories that show the blessings of self-control. Saturate their hearts and minds with narratives that highlight the blessings of self-control.
~ Have self-control sticker charts or contests among the kids. Encourage them to notice and encourage self-control in each other.
Helping our children build a wall of self-control is a lengthy, unglamorous, process, but the end goal is beautiful, fulfilling, and God-glorifying for our families. Don’t lose sight of it!
