Parenting

Tom Shrader delivers a guest sermon at Redemption Arcadia on the topic of Christian parenting, structured around ten common mistakes that undermine healthy child-rearing, drawn from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. He addresses pitfalls ranging from living vicariously through children and overindulging them with material things, to withholding discipline, refusing to apologize, and holding on too tightly out of fear. He closes with practical encouragements rooted in the conviction that parents cannot effectively lead their children toward God without first growing in their own relationship with Christ.

“You can't aspire in this parenting thing to be this incredible parent if you don't know and grow close to God.”

— Tom Shrader

Recorded: 2015 at Redemption Arcadia

Duration: 47 min

Themes: parenting, discipline, family, children, overindulgence, forgiveness, fear, spiritual growth, parent, struggling with parenting, raising children, new parent, overprotective parent, family stage, father, mother

Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Ecclesiastes 12:13

Theological Themes: deuteronomy 6, shema, covenant family, spiritual formation, sanctification, biblical parenting, discipleship, loving god

Full Transcript

Introduction

From the book of Deuteronomy, chapter six, verses four through nine: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

I was assigned the topic of parenting today — I didn't choose it. Frank called and said, "I would like you to teach on parenting," and explained that the church has so many young families, so many people getting married, so many people who are expecting, and around 90 kids downstairs. When I came in today, I also talked with someone who is a grandparent, and they said, "I'm here taking notes." So it's a big topic.

I want to mention that in the lobby I found some cards advertising a parenting conference with Paul David Tripp. I don't know anything about the specific material, but I know Paul David Tripp, and I guarantee it will be good. The conference is coming up March 27 and 28, so you may want to grab one of those cards on your way out.

I have learned over the years that parenting is one of the most difficult topics to address. This is a body that encompasses people from all different backgrounds and all different views. Each family is different and unique. Some of you are parenting in a single-parent environment. Many are in blended families. I recall a statistic suggesting that something like 17% of children in this country are living with their biological mother and father, so that old model is really being shattered.

What I have realized in talking about parenting is that it tends to scratch at scabs and produces all sorts of guilt and fear. That is not my goal today. My goal is to be helpful and encouraging.

10 Things You Can Do to Ruin Your Kids

You might be surprised, then, that the title I chose for this talk is: *10 Things You Can Do to Ruin Your Kids.* This is my year of trying to be positive, and I have had about two and a half months of it — and I have had enough. So I want to give you 10 things you can do to ruin your kids.

Let me first give you the overarching principle I held in child rearing. I have two daughters, and the goal was this: to raise our kids to be independent of us, but dependent upon God. That is the motto, the mission statement — independent of us, but dependent upon God.

Number One: Attempt to Live Your Life Through Them

In my life, I have a lot of regrets. When I meet somebody who says they have no regrets, I think to myself: you are either an extraordinary person or you are not paying attention. How can you not want to

The Trap of Pride in Parenting

One of the regrets I have is that we just had two kids. We had Sarah, and then 18 or 19 months later, we had Haley. We had some decisions to make right then, and my fear was that we would have a boy. I didn't want a boy because I was afraid I would try to make him into the guy I never was. He'd get the game-winning hit. He'd score the buzzer beater. He'd catch the touchdown pass.

I've discovered in my life, and I'll say it in yours too, that your besetting sin is pride. When it comes to kids, pride is that subtle kind of motive that hangs around. I was afraid that if I had a boy, I'd ruin him through my pride. And I had it even with the girls.

Sarah, at the end of her first grade year, took an Iowa Basic Skills test. The results came about the middle of June, and I opened them up and read, to my dismay, that Sarah was average. I had to sit her down and say, "Listen, I've got some news for you. You're average. That comes from your mom's side of the family, but we can work our way around this." Susan said, "Tom, this is stupid. It doesn't make any difference." But I wanted that kid to be extraordinary — a strange cross between Margaret Thatcher and Mother Teresa and Shania Twain.

Here's the thing: I didn't want her to be extraordinary for her own good. I wanted her to be extraordinary so you'd look at her and say, "She must have a heck of a dad." If you want to mess a kid up pretty quickly, start trying to live your life through them.

Fulfilling Your God-Given Roles

Here's the second thing that can ruin your kids: refuse to fulfill your God-given roles. Guys, the best thing you can do for your kids is let them see you love their mom. Wives, one of the best things you can do for your kids is to respect your husband and let them see that. There is great security children draw from witnessing that.

They live in a world — and I was oblivious to this — where many of their friends are watching their families shatter. I had a friend whose kid came home one day as a mess. He asked, "What's the problem? Can I help?" The kid said, "Are you and mom getting divorced?" He said, "No, why would you think that?" And the kid said, "Because everybody's parents are getting divorced."

The Bible teaches how a marriage should run. Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. When your kids see you living in those roles, it provides a sense of security and stability. When they see you hold hands and kiss, they may say "ugh," but inside they're thinking, "Yeah — that's my mom, that's my dad."

Giving Stuff Instead of Consistent Love

Here's the third thing you can do to ruin your kids: give them stuff instead of consistent love. One article I read recently put it this way: "Despite their good intentions, too many parents find themselves raising wanting machines who respond like Pavlov's dog to the marketing that's aimed right at them. Even getting what you want doesn't satisfy some kids. They only want more."

This is not a Christian-based article, by the way. This is just someone looking at common sense and the human condition. A growing number of psychologists, educators, and parents think it's time to stop the madness and start teaching kids what really matters — values like hard work, delayed gratification, honesty, and compassion. I love this sentence: "Saying no is harder when you can afford to say yes."

Kids who've been given too much too soon grow up to be adults who have difficulty coping with life's disappointments. They have a distorted sense of entitlement that gets in the way of success, both in the workplace and in relationships. Experts say parents who overindulge their kids may actually be setting them up to be more vulnerable to future anxiety and depression.

They're going to fool you, because they're going to come to you and say, "Here's what I want. Can I have this? Can I have that?" I watch our grandkids on Christmas Day. There are stacks of presents, and they rip through them. They open the one I poured time, energy, and effort into, and they say, "Yeah, yeah, thank you," and rip into the next one. As parents, your responsibility is to control that. They need your love more than they need stuff.

This idea of "I want to give them what I never had" — meaning stuff — misses the point. They don't need what you never had. They need what many of you did have, which was a loving home. I remember one time, getting ready to do a talk on parenting, Sarah was about five or six and I asked her, "Do you need quality time or quantity time with me?" She said, "I don't know what you're talking about." So I explained it, and she said, "Oh — I need quality time, and lots of it." That is what kids need. The world is marketing to them, their peers are marketing to them, and there's a lot of bad parenting feeding into it. It's hard to say no when you can say yes. But these are, and I love this phrase, little wanting machines.

The Danger of Withholding Discipline

Here's the fourth thing you can do to ruin your kids: withhold discipline. James Dobson said the number one mistake we make as parents is

Discipline and Structure at Home

If we love our kids enough, we think we don't have to discipline them. For those of you who are parents, let me get practical and give you two times in the day you have to control: dinner time and bed time. You cannot have dinner where the children sit down, you got them exactly what they asked for that morning — chicken fingers and corn — and then they say they don't want it. You say, "That's fine," take it away, and when they say they're hungry, you tell them to think about how hungry they're going to be at breakfast. Dinner cannot become a chaotic run to every pantry to grab whatever is available.

Bedtime should be the end of a very important day — a time to settle down — and as the parent, you have to take control of that. When our kids were small, a lot of people thought we were very authoritarian and were critical of it. We had really tight boundaries, and if the kids stepped over those boundaries, there were immediate consequences. We didn't stand in the corner and count to three. All that proves is that you can count to ten. One boundary crossed, one consequence.

You have to discipline. You have to provide that structure and stay on it consistently. If you've ever watched Cesar Millan — the dog trainer — just take everything he does and apply it to parenting. That's the best parenting material I've ever seen.

One expert writes this: "Children need limits on their behavior because they feel better and more secure when they live within a certain structure. As adults, we don't like it when other people tell us what we can or can't do. To children, it doesn't feel that way. Children learn self-control by watching how other parents behave. Today, parents put more hours in at the job. And at the end of a long weekend, it's tempting to buy peace with a yes rather than to mar precious family time with conflict."

That is absolutely true. I used to sit in my office and watch guys at the end of the day who would just sit there and talk when it was time to go home, and I couldn't figure it out. Then I realized — they don't want to go home. It's easier at the office. You can bark orders, get clear responses, and everything is under control. Then you go home and a child looks at you and says, "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

The Cost of Permissiveness

So number one, parenting is hard work when you're there. Number two, you've been working hard all week, and it's difficult to go home and engage in that battle. This is a constant struggle, and on a general basis, the kids are winning. I received an email from a junior high math teacher who said she had been teaching for more than twenty years and that parenting skills are at an all-time low. Parents are becoming more and more permissive with their kids, and as a result, the kids are getting harder and harder to teach.

This is about discipline — not about being a tyrant. Here is what happened in our home: we had tight parameters when the children were young, and as they got older, those parameters gradually loosened. This may surprise you, but I had two teenage daughters — attractive girls, cheerleaders, good students, popular — and we had no set curfew in our house. We had trained them over the years and we parented them case by case.

The girls might come in one day and say, "We're going out Friday, getting something to eat. He's picking me up around six — what time do you want us home?" I'd say nine. They'd push back: "Nine? That's so early." I'd tell them that anything they were going to do after nine, they could do before nine. But if they said they needed more time because of a late movie on another occasion, I'd ask what time the movie got out and adjust accordingly. That's how trust works over time. You cannot walk into the teenage years and clamp everything down without a great deal of friction.

Don't Let Peer Pressure Drive Your Parenting

The fifth thing is this: do not let peer pressure drive your parenting. Do not parent as though others are watching you and judging you. I was working at Coldwell Banker when my daughter Sarah was — I want to say about twenty months old, though I'm not entirely sure. She wasn't potty trained yet. I was having lunch with a friend who had a daughter a couple of months younger, and his daughter was already potty trained.

I went home and said to my wife Susan, "What are you doing wrong?" She asked what I meant, and I said Sarah was twenty months and not potty trained. Susan said it didn't matter — that it would happen in the next couple of months. I kept pressing: "But so-and-so's daughter is already potty trained. Something seems wrong." Susan told me to relax, that it didn't matter.

The Danger of Comparison and Pride

Is there anyone in your office who isn't potty trained? I said, well, there's one guy in the industrial department we're not really sure about. That was so big to me. All of a sudden, you're parenting and driving your kids — and there's that pride again.

About 20 years ago, there was a product — see if you remember this infomercial — "Your Baby Can Read." Do you remember that? You had these three-year-olds sitting there, and after about a year they shut that down as a scam. Here's what they discovered: when you gave a three-year-old a copy of *Old Man and the Sea*, he was more likely to chew on it than read it. But you saw that three-year-old, and you didn't want that three-year-old ahead of yours. Those kids aren't your responsibility. These kids are, and when you let that spill over, it's going to mess you up.

Never Tell Them You're Sorry

Here's number six, and this will really ruin your kid: never tell them you're sorry. Don't ever apologize, even when you're clearly wrong. This is one of those things that happened to me that is almost like a movie.

I came home one day, and Susan was there. She said, "Sarah has been waiting for two hours. She is so happy, she is so excited, she can't wait to show you her report card. She is floating, Tom." And I walked in, and there Sarah was with this big smile. I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Dad, look at this — five As and a B."

And you know where this is going. I said to her, "Sarah, how can you get a B? I never got any Bs." I never got any As either, but I said, "Sarah, how can this possibly be?" And you could literally see this girl deflate — all the steam went out of her.

I went back out, and Susan said, "That's as bad as it can get, right there." I said, "Well, what should I do?" And she said, "What do you think you should do, Bible teacher?" She didn't say that. She wanted to. I said, "I think I should tell her I'm sorry." I went down, and Sarah was sitting there with tears pouring down her face. I sat down next to her, put my arm around her, and said, "Honey, I am so sorry." And here's what she said: "That's okay, Dad, you do it all the time."

Now, some of you will stop when your child says "that's okay" and think you're off the hook. When they say that's okay, you say, "No, it's not okay. It's not okay for me to respond like that." Sarah and I went at it like this for most of her life, partly because she was a lot like me. But we remain very close to this day, because I was quick to say I'm sorry, and she knew I loved her.

Teaching Spiritual Openness — Or Closing It Down

Here's the seventh thing you can do to ruin your kid: teach them to be open-minded, especially regarding spiritual matters. I meet a lot of people who say — and generally these are not Christians, because most of us understand we need to direct our children — but I will meet people who say, "I'm trying to raise my kids to be open-minded about spiritual things."

Isn't that interesting? You wouldn't do that anywhere else. You don't tell them to be open-minded about trans fats. You don't tell them to be open-minded about math. When they come home and say, "My teacher graded me hard — I put five for two plus two and she marked it wrong," you don't say, "Well, let's be open-minded about that." You close it down in every other area. You need to close it down in spiritual things as well.

Men especially — and I want to speak very directly here — you need to take the lead. You are the leader of the house, and you are the leader of the house in spiritual matters. That plays itself out not just at home, but here at church. One of the challenges in almost every church, especially one with a lot of young kids, is staffing children's ministries. And one of the reasons that's a problem is that men don't go down there and serve. If you have a child in children's ministry, I think you ought to serve down there. The whole dynamic in children's ministry will change when men are in the classroom.

We have a guy at Gilbert who was a starting tackle on the USC football team. He is huge, and when he walks into that three-year-old room he is like a human playground — they are all over him. But when he says stop, that room comes to order. And when he says, "Let me tell you a story about God," every child listens.

The Power of Words Over Your Children

Here's the eighth thing. If you want to ruin your kid, don't restrain your mouth. Tell them they're stupid, tell them they're lazy, tell them they'll never be any good. Some of you really feel the pain of that one, don't you? You were told that. You had a parent or a teacher say, "You're stupid."

I remember just how much words hurt. I was in kindergarten, and Ms. Julie was the teacher. We were coloring a picture of two kids playing in the snow in their snow suits. We colored them and passed them in. Ms. Julie held one up and said, "Whose is this?" I looked around and it was mine. At the age of five, I thought, this is the equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize — she is going to acknowledge me. I said, "That's mine." She said, "And you are?" I said, "Tom." She said, "All right, everybody look up here. See this? See how he has a red snowsuit and orange gloves? You never, ever, ever put red and orange together."

Now, that was sixty years ago, and I'm over it. And then — isn't this amazing, sixty years later — I've lost track of Ms. Julie. I presume she's passed on, and I presume she is in hell, chained for all eternity with a kid in a red snowsuit and orange gloves.

If you want to ruin your kids, you start telling them —

Ruining Your Kids: What Not to Do

You can't hit, you can't run. You're not smart, you're fat, you're dumb. Speak those things over a child, and you will get a slow, dumb, fat kid.

Here is number nine: when problems come into the marriage, split up, because you think it's best for the kids. I deal with forty-year-old men all the time who are still careening from the reality of a divorce that took place when they were teenagers. I can tell you what's best for the kids. What's best for the kids is for you to fix this and start acting like a grown-up who loves Jesus. That's what's best for the kids, that's what's best for you, that's what's best for the church, that's what's best for the culture, that's what's best for society.

When tough times come — and they do come in a marriage — life is tough. Add a second sinner to it and it's tougher. But when it's tough, you don't split up, and you don't use the kids as an excuse.

Holding On Too Tightly

The last thing you can do to ruin your kids is hold on to them too tightly. We raised our kids to be independent of us and dependent upon God. I think especially among some of us who became Christians as adults, when it comes to parenting, we parent out of fear.

I don't know if you know Cody's dad and mom, but they have written some of the best material there is on parenting — grace-based parenting. Do yourself a favor and get it. Not parenting out of fear, but out of grace.

Haley never liked to go on rides at Disneyland. Our first trip there was awful. She didn't want to go on anything — she didn't even want to go on the merry-go-round. There's a Peter Pan ride where you just sit in a chair and it glides through the room, and I tried to get her on it and couldn't. Finally I got her on it on the way out of the park, and then I couldn't get her off it.

One day she decided she was going on Splash Mountain. So I've got her on the ride — it's the log, the two of us. She's sitting in front of me, and we're going through Splash Mountain. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. All of a sudden there's a small drop — she goes down, and she says, "Well, that wasn't so bad." I said, "I don't think that's it." Then you could see way down there some daylight, and you hear people screaming. We're getting close. And here's what she's saying: "Hold me tight, Daddy. Hold me tight, Daddy."

I remembered that moment the night of her wedding. We had done the ceremony and were waiting, and as the music finished I looked at her and thought of that moment. If you're six years old saying "Hold me tight, Daddy," that's pretty cute. If you're twenty-six, that's not so cute. You want to mess a kid up — hang on to them. Parent out of fear.

Helpful Things You Can Do

Let me give you some helpful things quickly. Number one: remember you're the boss. Marsha Moritz, who is the founder of Parent Engagement Network, writes this: it's almost like parents have lost their parenting skill. They want to be their kid's best friend and make sure they're having fun. But what the kid really needs is for parents to be parents.

You're the boss. Quit dressing like them and acting like them and trying to get down with the same music. You aren't their buddy. I remember telling my girls, "Guys, I don't like saying no all the time. I'd love to be your friend, but that isn't going to happen for a long time." They're going to fight you and fight you and fight you, but you're the boss.

Here's the second thing: there is no one-size-fits-all approach. To me, it's a little like schooling. We would get calls every year — are you a Christian school church? A homeschool church? A public school church? Yes. They're your kids. You figure out where they need to go.

I never had formal devotional times with my kids. I never had a Bible memory time. Now, if you go over to Tyler and Haley's house — I was down there one night and all of a sudden Brayden said, "Okay, it's chapel time." I said, "What?" Chapel time. We all sat around, they pulled up a song on YouTube, we sang it, and then Yale taught a Bible lesson. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. You have to figure out what works for you.

Teaching What Is Truly Significant

Here is your third helpful point: teach what is truly significant. At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes this: *"The conclusion, where all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments."* The passage we read today from Deuteronomy 6 says: *"Write down these commandments I give you today in your hearts. Get them inside of you, and then get them inside of your children. Talk to them wherever you are, sitting at home, walking in the street. Talk about them from time to time, when you get up in the morning, when you fall into bed at night."*

Here is what Solomon is saying: when you melt everything else away, these are the things that are truly important. You need to teach your children to fear God and keep His commandments and love Him. You need to teach them that God loves them, that Jesus came and died for them, and that this is the most important thing. You need to teach them all day long — when you walk, when you sit, when you stand.

I took the boys to a spring training game the other day, and the whole experience was an opportunity to teach — from my own impatience driving into the parking lot, to standing in line, to saying thank you when someone hands your ticket back, to looking at the sky and the mountains and talking about how majestic it is that God created all of this. You are constantly teaching them what is truly significant. And this gets really tough here, because —

You Can't Teach What You Don't Know

You can't teach them what you don't know. I was with a guy not long ago, and we were talking about his faith. He said, "You can't expect much — I'm a baby Christian." I had seen him in a lot of studies, so I asked how long he had been a believer. He said seven years. That is not a baby Christian. You are not going to live this out in the tough, nitty-gritty grind, day in and day out, with your kids and your grandkids, if you don't know Christ and aren't growing close to Him.

I did a men's conference — one of the last ones I did — and it ran Friday night through Sunday. Sunday morning, the man running it came in and said he was really disappointed with the weekend. I thought the food was pretty good, so I asked him what he meant. He said it was the teaching, and that he had hoped we would get material on parenting and marriage. I told him: I am a better husband to Sandy when I love God more. You cannot aspire to be an incredible parent if you don't know and grow close to God.

Your Actions Cannot Be Separated From Your Words

Your actions cannot be separated from your words. Children can smell a hypocrite a mile away. Haley said to me one day, "Dad, everybody asks me the same question — what are you like at home?" I asked her what she told them, and she said, "I tell them you are at home the same way you are at church." I get that question a lot. Did your kids have any resentment toward the ministry? No, because I believe they saw the consistency of it in our life.

A word of caution: parenting can be overemphasized. A few years ago it felt as though parenting had become the supreme thing. We have probably now swung to the other side of the pendulum, where it has become too lackadaisical.

Your Kids Really Need You in Their Corner

Your kids really need you in their corner. I received an email from my daughter Sarah eight years ago. At that point she was twenty-seven, a wife and a mother. She wrote, "I love listening to you talk today. I can remember at one point thinking, 'That's my dad — I'm so proud.' But then I actually heard what you were saying. I thank God for making you a wonderful, gifted speaker that I've had the privilege of growing up listening to. But I thank Him even more for letting me hear you. I am so thankful for having you — as my cheerleader, my coach, my fan, and most of all, my dad."

Parenting is a difficult job, and there will be times when you wonder whether it is worth it. But let me tell you something: it really is worth it. It is a tough job, but by God's grace — as we do in everything else — we approach it.

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Father, thank you for this truth, so practical and facing so many of us — challenges that stretch us. Thank you for the grace and mercy You give us to be the moms and dads and grandparents that You have called us to be. Take these things and help us see that this is a task, a duty, a responsibility You have given us. Let us do it to Your honor and Your glory. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.