How to Screw Up Your Kids
Tom Shrader walks through 1 Samuel 2:12-36, examining how Eli's sons Hophni and Phinehas desecrated the priesthood and faced divine judgment, while Samuel quietly grew in faithfulness alongside them. Against that backdrop, Shrader draws out three observations: actions have consequences, God's patience is not infinite, and God's plan cannot be thwarted. The second half of the teaching applies these themes directly to parenting, offering eleven common mistakes parents make — from living through their children to withholding discipline to refusing to apologize — and calling parents to invest in their children with love, consistency, and clear spiritual priority.
“If you love them, you will discipline them.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Samuel
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 55 min
Themes: parenting, discipline, consequences, faithfulness, obedience, God's patience, family, spiritual priorities, parent, struggling with discipline, raising teenagers, father, mother, new parent, feeling like a failure as a parent, family in crisis
Scripture: 1 Samuel 2:12-36, 1 Samuel 1:6-7, 1 Samuel 1:10, 1 Samuel 1:19, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, 1 Samuel 2:18-21, 1 Samuel 2:22, 1 Samuel 2:24-26, 1 Samuel 2:27, 1 Samuel 2:34, Galatians 6, Ecclesiastes 12, Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Acts 1:3, Mark 1
Theological Themes: divine judgment, God's sovereignty, biblical parenting, sanctification, priesthood, covenant faithfulness, repentance, providence
Full Transcript
Introduction and Context
Open your Bibles to First Samuel. We are going to look at a section from verse 12 to verse 36 of the second chapter, and that is going to lead us into a very practical discussion on parenting. If you need a Bible, raise your hand and the guys moving through the room will get one to you. It should open to around page 202 or 303 to get you close to where we are.
We are being reacquainted with a man named Eli, whose name was mentioned in the first week of this study. We are going to be introduced in more depth to him and to his sons. He has two sons, and they become the focal point of today's study. As I mentioned at the beginning of our study in First Samuel, we want to get the historical events accurate, but we also want to fast-forward and ask what they mean to us. So the lesson is split into two sections: first, understanding what the text is saying historically, and second, talking about some of the practical do's and don'ts we can pull from it, especially as they relate to parenting.
Recap of Hannah's Story
We saw Hannah in the first two weeks. She was childless, and it was a source of ridicule and embarrassment for her. In chapter one, verse six, her rival Peninnah was irritating her year after year. Hannah finally, in verse ten, breaks down — she is distressed, she prays, she weeps bitterly, and she makes a vow to God that if He blesses her with a son, she will present that son back to Him, dedicated to the Lord all his life.
Indeed, that happens. She conceives, and verse nineteen says the Lord remembered her, and she conceived and brought forth a son named Samuel. As we study this Old Testament, there are human characters — Eli, Samuel, Saul, David — but the main character is God. It is a beautiful story and study of God's sovereign love and persistent plan.
Hannah's Prayer and the Attributes of God
Now that Hannah has been given this child and has presented him back to God, she offers in chapter two, verses one through ten, a very personal prayer. In verses two and three, she mentions four attributes of God. These are not all of His attributes, but at this moment, this is what the Spirit brought to mind: that He is holy, that He is all-powerful — "there is no rock like our God" — that He is all-knowing, and that He is just. In verse three she prays, "the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed." There is a judgment that takes place.
We discussed this last week. Her prayer sounds very much like a psalm, where in one breath she acknowledges that the wicked seem to prosper, and in the next she holds to the promise and reality that God will take care of it. There are moments in our lives where we cry out and say, "This isn't fair." We see people who bend or break the rules, people who engage in things we know are wrong, and yet they seem to prosper while we struggle. God is very clear: vengeance is Mine, I will take care of it, I will weigh the actions. You keep your head up, you pray to Me, you love Me, you be obedient to Me, you take care of the things you can take care of, and get your eyes back on your own life and off those around you.
Eli's Sons: Worthless Men
In chapter two, verse twelve, we are told that the sons of Eli — whose names are Hophni and Phinehas — were worthless men. Literally, the word means they were good for nothing, unprofitable. At the core of this, though there are many things that contribute to it, was this: they did not know the Lord. They were priests. They held positions of respect and honor, sacred positions, so they certainly knew a great deal about God. They were not without a heritage that would teach them these things.
Yet when the text says they did not know God, what it means is that they knew all about Him, they knew His demands and commands, and they chose to deny Him and to be rebellious toward Him. In Hannah's prayer, four sin issues stand out. In verse three, she speaks of arrogance. In verse four, she says the bows of the mighty are shattered — they are broken, humiliated, humbled. In verse nine, she speaks of the wicked. And in verse ten, she says those who contend with the Lord will be shattered.
God's Judgment on Hophni and Phinehas
We then move directly to these two sons described as worthless, and God keeps His promise. He says, in effect, you will know that I am serious about this. Verse thirty-four declares: this will be the sign to you concerning these boys — on the same day, both of them are going to die. When God says in His Word that He will not be mocked, when Hannah prays that those who contend with the Lord will be shattered, God gives us in His Word a clear and perfect example of that in these two men. They were priests, and they desecrated the priesthood and violated its most sacred duties.
Verses thirteen through seventeen demonstrate how they did it. There were very specific commands concerning the meats brought to be sacrificed. They were to be boiled, the fat burned away, and then a three-pronged fork would be inserted, and whatever meat came out was the portion that went to the priests. But these men said no — they were not going to do that.
The Sin of Eli's Sons
God had given very specific rules, and they had said, "No thank you," to God — they would do it their way. Let me read verses 13 through 17 from The Message paraphrase. Ordinarily, when someone offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant was supposed to come up and, while the meat was boiling, stab a three-pronged fork into the cooking pot, and the priest got whatever came out of the fork. But this is how Eli's sons treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to God. Before they even burned the fat off to God, the priest's servants would interrupt whoever was sacrificing and say, "Hand over some of the meat for the priest to roast — he doesn't like the boiled meat, he likes his rare."
The man would object: "First let us burn off the fat — God's portion — let us follow the prescription God had given us, and then you take what you want." The servant would demand, "No, I want you to know I won't give in — I'll take it." And the concluding part, verse 17, reading now from the New American Standard: "Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord."
For the nation of Israel, as you read through these laws and prescriptions, it is down to the very smallest detail — even how to plow their land, how to leave edges on the side, what to wear. God was carving out a people for Himself that would be distinctive from the rest of the world, so that they could say, "We serve a king, and our king is Yahweh." And even if they had a human king, that king was a mere representative of God — different from any other earthly king because he was concerned about the things of God. These two boys had violated that.
Moral Collapse at the Highest Level
Beyond the violation of their priestly duties, verse 22 tells us that Eli was an old man, and he heard all that his sons were doing to all of Israel — and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting. There were prostitutes involved in Canaanite worship, and these men were having physical, sexual relations with them. Some suggest that beyond that obvious religious and moral decline, they were actually importing pagan prostitutes themselves, taking the corruption even deeper.
This was something impacting the whole nation. Verse 22 says Eli heard what his sons were doing to all of Israel, and as we read in the balance of the chapter, everyone was talking about it and everyone was impacted by it. So Eli, at least at this point, is enough of a man to go to them. He said, "Why do you do such things — the evil things that I hear from all these people? No, my sons, for the report is not good which I hear the Lord's people circulating. If a man sins against another, God will mediate for him, but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?"
So these boys are confronted by their father. And yet you see the outcome of that process — they do not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to put them to death. They do not know the Lord, they have sinned, God despises them, they have been confronted, and they refuse to listen.
A Reminder of God's Faithfulness
Then, in verse 27, a man of God came to Eli and said, "Thus says the Lord," and he takes Eli back on a journey through God's faithfulness — a reminder of familiar territory, of how God had provided for them again and again. When they were in bondage in Egypt, in slavery to Pharaoh, God raised up a leader and moved them out in a way that was undeniably supernatural. When they came to the Red Sea itself, God intervened in a marvelous way and parted the sea. When they were in the desert with nothing to eat, there was literally food on the ground every morning.
Again and again there is this call: remember. Remember what God did. Why? Because it reveals His faithfulness. And you can get back to that faithfulness even in moments like this one, when circumstances are pressing in on every side. Sometimes you forget what God did. You forget His power and His might and His faithfulness.
Samuel: God Still Moving
You will notice that as I led you through this flyover, I skipped verses 18, 19, 20, 21, and 26 — because in the middle of this story about Eli and his boys, there are little parenthetical inserts about Samuel. Verse 18 tells us Samuel was ministering before the Lord as a boy, wearing a linen robe. His mother made him a little robe and brought it to him year after year. Though she had given him to the Lord, she still served her role as his mother. And Samuel continued to develop — verse 26 says he grew in stature and favor with the Lord and with men.
In the midst of this blatant blight on the nation of Israel — this sin, this far more than a malaise, this downfall of wickedness at the highest level — God was still moving. In the middle of all of it, He was still at work.
Competing Forces in the Land
I do not want to draw unnecessary connections to the world we live in — I do not want you to read too much into what I have to say. But I do want you to get at least the gist of this. It seems to me there are competing forces in the land. There are people who genuinely believe we are on the brink of something very, very good as a nation — that there is something very special ahead, that there is hope again. Two million people gathered for the inauguration; I met the other night with a fellow who had been there, and he said it took him five and a half hours just to get inside. There is a genuine sense among many that a new day has arrived.
God's Sovereignty in Dark Times
There is another group saying we are doing exactly the wrong things. Philosophically, you look around and see billions and billions of dollars being spent with no accountability, no clear direction. They offer little symbolic gestures — giving every senior three hundred dollars, giving you a thousand dollars — and you have to ask: is that going to save your house? We are in a very real clash of philosophies, and I tend to spend time with people in that second group, who do not think this is our finest hour.
This puts me in a very odd role, because typically when people are down and they meet with me, I can take them further down. They hold out a ray of hope and I try to squelch it as fast as I can. But I find myself in the uncomfortable position, in a lot of meetings now, of saying: wait a minute, God is still on the throne. We sing about it, we pray about it. And this passage is a great reminder of that truth, tucked right in the middle of a real problem in the nation of Israel — God is working His plan.
Let me read what two different commentators say. The first: "Although Israel suffered under the arrogance, cynical, immoral priesthood clergy who savored prime cuts over godly teaching, who much preferred having a woman in bed than interceding for Yahweh's flock, it must have seemed to many like there was no hope of improvement, no exit from the night. But in the middle of the text, God seems to whisper, 'Don't forget Samuel.' You see, Samuel is serving. This is Yahweh's manner — quietly providing the next moment, even in the middle of the darkest moments."
A second commentator, taking that same prism and turning it just a bit: "Human resistance and disobedience will not stymie God's purpose. Rebellion does not send God into a state of helpless frustration. God will rule His people, if not through particular leaders, then apart from them and in spite of them. In God's time, He will remove these boys by judgment, and provide faithful leadership in their place."
God is on the throne — all the time. In these studies we can get distracted, swept away in the narrative, and miss the fact that God is in control. That truth applies directly to our own lives.
Three Observations: Actions Have Consequences
From this passage I want to pull out three observations, and then we will talk about parenting. They are straightforward. Number one: your actions have consequences.
Eli's sons had developed, apparently, a long pattern of sin in their lives. They may have even reached the point where they thought God did not care. But what you do today affects tomorrow. I find it interesting that I am talking about parenting today while Susan is sick with a cold, Sarah is sick and her kids are sick, and Tyler is out of town — so it is questionable whether Haley can even get here tonight. That, I will say, is a blessing from God. It does not sound like it, but I get to talk about parenting and marriage without any of them here. Normally they would be sitting right over there with very stern looks on their faces saying, "That is not the way it happened." But my memory is perfect.
When my girls were little, I tried to teach them that life is not like pictures from a camera, but like film. You take pictures from a camera and you develop them — now you plug into your computer — and you get fifteen independent images: one from Disneyland, one from the mountains, one from the ocean, one from a birthday, one from Christmas. Frame three is totally independent of frame four, and frame four has no connection to frame five. But in a film, it is all woven together. Frame three, four, and five are all connected.
I would try to tell them that your life is much more like a movie than it is a collection of independent photos. What you do today affects tomorrow. Those little things you do now have a huge impact later on.
Discipline and the Long Game
That principle shows up clearly in the business world. The men who were typically most successful in our business were those who had been successful in athletics — whether at the professional level, college level, or simply as highly disciplined competitors. An athlete understands that no matter how gifted you are, you can get by in Pop Warner, you might get through junior high, you might even get through varsity football. But the moment you play at the next level, you realize that talent alone is not enough. You are going to have to be disciplined. You are going to have to work. You may be a great swimmer, but now you are meeting swimmers from around the world. Discipline becomes essential.
Somehow, in your mind, you have to make the connection between the hard work done today and the joy of winning later. There are consequences to what you do — good and bad. You break the law, you pay the price. Actions have consequences.
Watching Your Children Become Parents
I see this truth all the time in raising my girls. The one real request I remember making to God for myself was this: I would love to see my grandchildren get married. That was a goal of mine, and I said it not because I knew the grandkids — at that point they were not even born. I wanted to see, and I cannot fully explain it, what kind of parents my children would become.
I have watched my girls over the last three years, and I will tell you something — they are incredible mothers. It is amazing to me how well they handle their children. And I do not use the word sacrifice, because I do not like that word. It implies that someone has been an inconvenience to you. What amazes me is the investment they make.
The Thankless Work of Motherhood
There has never been a time, moms, when you've changed a diaper and that kid has popped up and said, "That's a good one. Look at that. That's tight. Thanks, Mom." This never happens. What's their answer to a good diaper? Another dirty one. And if you have two or three of them, the minute you take care of one, there's another one waiting.
I remember coming home at night and my girls would be sitting out front on little stools. The highlight of their day was daddy coming home, and they'd come running up — Haley always wearing a dress, Sarah right beside her — and the whole thing would make Susan sick. She would say, "I didn't get anything like that all day. All I get all day long is 'no, no, no, no, no.' I'm dying. They can't have a conversation. They can't say anything to me. I need you right now to say something to me like an adult — speak a sentence to me."
So I would walk in and say, "What's for dinner?" which was exactly the wrong thing to say. But I used to tell Susan, "I'm sure somewhere there's a better mom on the planet than you, but if there is, I've never met her." I have three women in my life who are amazing mothers, and one of the reasons is that they understood a basic principle: you reap what you sow, and there is such a thing as delayed gratification in life.
God Does Not Have Infinite Patience
Here is the second thing I drew from this passage. God does not have infinite patience. Galatians 6 says, "Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked." These boys had sinned and sinned and sinned again. They knew better, and they sinned again. They knew better, and they sinned again. They had already been told. Now, as men, they were confronted, and they refused to listen.
I am sure when God struck them down, there was somebody who said, "I don't know what kind of God we serve. What kind of a hateful God is this?" But how long do you want Him to wait? What is fair? God is a patient God, but His patience is not endless or infinite, because there are consequences to your actions. You will indeed reap what you sow.
God's Plan Will Not Be Thwarted
The third thing is simply this: God has a plan, and it will not be thwarted. I am currently taking a class — a new training program we are doing on campus under Tyler's ministry. We are just in the very first classes, and I think I surprised everyone when I said I wanted to take it. I just wanted to be one of the guys, sitting in class like everyone else. They said there are some accountability parts to it, but I wanted to be in.
Part of what the class has us doing is reading through the book of Acts every day and journaling. I have taught the book of Acts many times — I have read it a thousand times — but here is what struck me again. Jesus is risen from the dead and is roaming the earth for forty days. Acts 1:3 says, "He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God."
Stop for a moment. Here is Jesus in that most critical window of time. Whatever He is choosing to teach at that moment is something we should want to get our arms around — and He is speaking concerning the kingdom of God. In Mark 1, John the Baptist is arrested, and Jesus comes into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Though I was familiar with the term, I decided to spend some real time studying it.
A Map for an Uncharted Ocean
I ordered four books on the subject, including one titled *The Kingdom of God* by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Some of you know that name. He is writing from what he calls an atomic age, so there is some historical context in the language, but he has some wonderful observations about people and mankind. He has one phrase I want to give him credit for here, and this will be the last time I mention him — from now on, as I have always said, I will simply share the idea as my own.
He says that God does not change, and it is equally true to say that man does not change. What he means is that we are all essentially the same people across every generation. He talks about our need for deliverance and where we look for answers, and then he says this: God had a plan, a purpose for this world, and it is a plan to deliver men and women such as ourselves out of the morass into which we have fallen — to give us, in the midst of this uncharted ocean, a map, a chart, a compass, a direction, a pilot, everything we need. God Himself has planned it.
This comes in the context of Jesus declaring in Mark that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. There are consequences to our behavior. God does not have infinite patience. And yet His plan — His plan to deliver us and give us everything we need — will not be thwarted.
Introduction
Even in the middle of what appears to be chaotic, God is working His plan. I wanted to talk a bit about parenting, and I've got about 20 minutes to do it — which is probably not enough time.
There are going to be a whole bunch of reactions right now. You might say, "I'm single and I don't need to know this." Yes, you do. Or you might say, "I'm done with that — I'm a grandparent." That's an obvious application. You may even be a kid thinking you don't need this. Someday you will. Wherever you are, what I've discovered is that when you grab these principles and ones like them, it's going to elevate you in a whole new position in the midst of the conversations you have.
The Two Emotions Behind Every Parenting Discussion
I've been doing this for over 25 years, and every time I talk about parenting, I realize how difficult it is. There are so many different theories on parenting. We offered a class here years ago called Growing Kids God's Way. It had wonderful principles in it, but I regret to this day the title of that class, because it implied that if you didn't do it that way, you weren't doing it God's way. There are lots of theories, lots of families, different personalities, moms, dads, single parents — all different.
What I really see is an undercurrent running through every discussion about parenting, and it fosters two strong emotions. The first is fear. I am continually meeting people who are parenting out of fear — afraid of a dark world, afraid of what's going to happen to their kids. And that fear affects the way they parent. The second emotion is guilt. I ran into an old friend this week I hadn't seen in a while, and he started sharing about his life and his daughter, who is now college-age, and how messed up her life is. Any discussion like this is so difficult, because even with the best parent, the best environment, the very best of everything, you can push one little button and you're plunged straight into guilt.
11 Things You Can Do to Ruin Your Kids
Against that backdrop, here's what I've titled the next 15 to 20 minutes: *11 Things You Can Do to Ruin Your Kids.* It's a hybrid of different things I've seen, and I'll go through them quickly. If you've been around East Valley Bible Church for a while, some of this will be very familiar territory — familiar stories. The reason I've left them in is that they are such good and perfect illustrations.
#1: Attempt to Live Your Life Through Your Kid
Number one: attempt to live your life through your kid. That will ruin them.
Susan and I have two girls. One of the biggest regrets in my life is that we didn't have more children, and we certainly could have. We had no problem having kids at all. But here's the honest reason we didn't have more: I was afraid we'd get a boy. I knew what a sick person I was, and I was convinced I would screw that kid up trying to live my life through him. That conviction came out of watching so many other guys do exactly that — ruining their kid's life by making them be the football player they never were, the business person they never were, the volleyball player they never were, the scientist they never were, whatever it was they themselves never were.
There is nothing worse — and you all know this — than going to an athletic event, or even a music event, and watching a parent who clearly never played, never performed, and yet is all over the kid, all over the coach, all over everyone. You can ruin your kid by living your life through him.
I'll add a note here. When Sarah got her first Iowa Basic Skills score, it threw me into absolute chaos, because it came back showing she was essentially absolutely average. I was devastated. I had to sit her down and say, "Listen, you're average, and that comes from your mother's side of the family — but I think we can overcome this. We shall overcome." And that experience made me think of Tyler. Tyler came home one day — his mom loves to tell this story — crying and not wanting to go to school. His mom finally got out of him what was wrong. He said, "Today is the Iowa Basic Skills test, and I don't know anything about Iowa." By the way, we've since corrected that. He knows a lot about Iowa now.
#2: Refuse to Fulfill Your God-Given Role
Number two: refuse to fulfill your God-given role. That means something specific for a dad, and something specific for a mom. Men, your boys need to see you as a man and to see what it means to be a man. Women, your girls need to see what a lady is. And if there is a husband and wife in the home, those children need to see what a godly marriage looks like. They need to see you in love. They need to see how you deal with disagreements. They need to see how a husband loves his wife, how a wife submits to her husband, and how those roles are faithfully fulfilled. We could unpack each of these in great depth, but we won't here.
#3: Give Them Stuff Instead of Love
Number three: give them stuff instead of love. That is a really huge deal. Newsweek did an extended story on parenting, and this is what they said: despite their good intentions, too many parents find themselves raising — and this is in quotes — "wanting machines" that respond like Pavlov's dog to the marketing aimed at them. Even getting what they want doesn't satisfy some kids. They just want more.
The Problem with Giving Kids Too Much
Experts and parents are beginning to think it's time to stop the madness and start teaching kids about what is really important — values like hard work, delayed gratification, honesty, and compassion. When young men join our staff, particularly through student ministries, Tim has to teach these young men how to work. It's five o'clock, but we have to finish. You don't leave now. They never learned to work. They never learned delayed gratification.
We understand that as a nation we have been foolhardy in extending credit, borrowing, and living beyond our means — and yet the proposed fix is to extend more credit, borrow more, and live even further beyond our means. We are absolutely stuck on stupid at every level. This simply does not work in a family, in a city, in a state, or in a country.
Saying no is harder when you can afford to say yes. Kids who have been given too much too soon grow up to be adults who have difficulty coping with life's disappointments. They develop a distorted sense of entitlement that gets in the way of success both in the workplace and in relationships. If you have always gotten what you want, being married is not an easy thing. Having friendships is not an easy thing.
And there is no end to the wanting. Whatever has "i" on the front of it — phone, pod, anything — they want it. And before they can figure out how to use what they have, a new version comes out, and they want that too.
The Fourth Way to Screw Up Your Kids: Withhold Discipline
The fourth way to ruin your children is to withhold discipline. Jim Dobson says the number one mistake we make in raising our kids is thinking that if we love them enough, we do not have to discipline them. In fact, it is the opposite: if you love them, you will discipline them.
Even secular psychologists are beginning to say that children need limits on their behavior because they feel better and more secure when they live within certain structures. Children learn self-control by watching how other people behave, especially their parents. This is just my personal view, but if you want to sit and lob bombs at junior high and high school kids because of how they behave, I guarantee you the number one cause of that behavior is what they have watched at home — and it starts with lousy parenting. Not saying you specifically — I am saying this as a pattern across the nation.
I listen to dads tell me what their kids do, and I think, you have got to be kidding me. A twelve-year-old goes down, closes his bedroom door, and does not come out? I would have the hammer and screwdriver out — actually, I would have Susan get the hammer and screwdriver, because I do not know where they are. We would knock those little pins out and take that door off its hinges so fast. You are the dad. Be a man. Your kids need discipline and boundaries, and that is hard work.
If your child is seventeen and you have never given them any discipline, walking in today and declaring it a new day with a new sheriff in town is going to be difficult. But even then, it is never too late to do the right thing in love. We do not discipline out of anger. It is not punitive — it is corrective.
I have an email here from a teacher who, knowing I would be talking about this topic, asked me to share it. She writes: "Parents are becoming more and more permissive with their kids. As a result, kids are getting harder and harder to teach. When I know I am going to have to call a parent about a child's behavior, my head starts to ache. I know I will likely hear a boatload of excuses about why the kid cannot be expected to behave, or that my expectations are too high. Many parents are caving in to their kids, and the kids are running the show." Well said. Enough said.
The Fifth Way to Screw Up Your Kids: Let Peer Pressure Drive Your Parenting
The fifth way to ruin your children is to let peer pressure drive your parenting — being driven by what other kids have, trying to provide it, competing with other families, or comparing your children to one another.
Here is a great illustration. I was at work one day, and a guy in our office had a daughter born around the same time as Sarah. At some point, when Sarah was maybe a little past two, he was telling me about something wonderful — no more diapers. I said, what do you mean no more diapers? He said his daughter was potty trained. I thought, wait a minute — your kid is potty trained?
When I got home I said, Susan, what is going on during the day when I am not here? This kid should be potty trained. She said, what are you talking about? I said, Bob's kid is potty trained. She said, what difference does that make? I said, what is the problem with Sarah? Why is she not potty trained yet?
She looked at me and said, let me ask you something — how many guys in your office are not potty trained? I said, well, there is one fellow in the back we are not entirely sure about. She said, Tom, what do you care? What difference does it possibly make to you whether she is potty trained at twenty-six months or twenty-nine months? But I know exactly what was driving it — pure peer pressure and competition. That is what was in there.
Never Tell Your Kids You're Sorry
What's at the core? What's the core root sin of all of that? Pride. My kid is going to learn to be potty trained faster than yours, and that's just the beginning of my child's domination in your life. This is stupid. It doesn't matter.
Here's a big one. If you want to screw your kid up, never tell them you're sorry. Haley was essentially easy to raise — you didn't have to do anything. Sarah is essentially the same way, but Sarah needed a little more explanation. Sarah and I are a lot alike. Susan will say to this day, I'll make a comment and she will say Sarah just said exactly the same thing this morning.
Because we are so much alike, I would bump up against her a little more. She was the oldest, and that's a burden. I had all sorts of personal issues I was living out, and so that was a problem for her. I came home one day — many of you have heard this story — and Susan said Sarah had come straight home from school, had been waiting for me, and was in her room and could not wait to see me.
So I went down and she was bubbling. I said, "What's up?" She said, "I got my report card — take a look. Four A's and a B." And I said to her, "How can you get a B? How can you possibly get a B?" She had A's in geometry and A's in other subjects, and I said, "I don't understand it, Sarah. I know you're smart. How does this happen?" And you could just see the air go out of her.
I walked out, and of course Susan was there. She said, "What are you doing? She's been down there for an hour and a half. She's got four A's and a B, and it doesn't even matter to begin with, and you're in there crushing her over a B." I went and sat in my office for a short period of time, and then I went back down to her bedroom. Sarah was just there. You could see she had been crying.
Saying Sorry Restores What Pride Destroys
I sat down on the bed, put my arms around her, and started to hold her. I started crying. I said, "I'm really screwed up. I'm sorry. I blew that. I am so proud of you — I am so, so sorry." Her head was down. You couldn't see her face, but you could feel her crying. And then you could hear a muffled voice say, "That's okay, Dad, you do it all the time."
And I did do it with her more than with anyone else in my life. By far, I apologized to her more than she apologized to me, or than I apologized to any other person on the planet. But even though Sarah and I clashed in those moments — and I don't want to overdramatize this, because there was very little of it, just more than I had with anyone else — we never had any sort of relational problem. And I'll tell you why: because of that. She knew I loved her. Not in a vague, distant way — she saw it.
I got an email from her recently. She thinks I need to be on Facebook, and I told her I am not looking for friends. So she emailed to say my Facebook account was all set up and she would explain it to me. At the end of the email, she added a little sentence: "I just feel like I haven't seen you much lately, Dad." Then she signed it: Y.D.I.C.J. This started when she was maybe in second or third grade — "Your Daughter in Christ Jesus." And I would always email back: "Your Dad in Christ Jesus." Corny, but we are on the same team.
When I blew it, she knew it. And when I came along and said I was sorry, she realized, "He's okay. He'll be fine." Because I was willing to say I was sorry, she knew she was loved.
Don't Raise Your Kids to Be "Open-Minded" About Spiritual Matters
Number seven: teach your kid to be open-minded, especially regarding spiritual matters. I meet people all the time who say, "We are just not going to make a religious decision for our kids." I do not understand that. I just don't even get it at all. You are not open-minded about any other area of their lives. You are not open-minded about math. You are not open-minded about what they eat. But when it comes to a religious decision, suddenly you don't want to influence them. And this is the thing that matters most.
I understand how difficult it is in this competing world, where you have sports and band and gymnastics and dance and speech and drama, and all of these things start to crowd and compete for time. All of a sudden, Wednesday night is not as important, Sunday night is not as important. Your kid is on a traveling volleyball team, a traveling football team, a year-round baseball team. Nobody has a baseball season anymore — it's year-round. You haven't been in church in a while, and you're following your kid to a tournament up in Flagstaff.
If you are cutting spiritual life out of that mix, I want to know what you are doing for that kid spiritually. My sense would be probably nothing. You are teaching them that faith is not as important — that it's for grown-ups, that you'll catch up on it later.
Don't Restrain Your Mouth
Number eight: don't restrain your mouth. When you say stupid, stupid things —
You're the Boss
You are the parent. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. We get asked regularly, "What is the church's position on schooling?" Here is what we think: your children need an education. It does not matter whether it is private school, public school, or homeschool. I know kids who have been through all three who have been screwed up, and I know kids from all three who have turned out great.
You are the parent. You are responsible for this. We are not here to raise your kids. There is no way that Matt and Ricardo and their staff can undo in one hour what you do in one hundred and sixty-seven. We are here to supplement you, to come alongside and complement you — that is why we are here.
And these guys, by the way, are terrific. Matt was just saying to me the other day that a typical junior high and high school staff rolls over about every year and a half. Matt has been on staff here for eight or nine years already.
Teach Them What Is Significant
You need to teach your children what is significant. At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said, "When all has been heard, fear God and keep His commandments." That is what you need to teach them. Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four through seven. And you cannot teach them what you do not know.
You cannot separate your actions from your words. If you are going to deliver this message to your children, they have to see it in you. I personally believe you can reach a point — and I do think this is true — where within the Christian community we can become a little unbalanced about parenting. A few years ago we were almost obsessive about it, as though parenting were everything. You can overemphasize this too. It is just another part of what God has called you to do.
Point Nine: Accept the Myth of Two Incomes
This one always gets tense, and I understand that, especially when times are tough. But in most instances, the money brought in by a second income, after you subtract all the hard expenses, is negligible. Rather than asking what that second job is going to pay, I think the real question is: what is it going to cost me? Especially with little children. I do not care if you have the greatest childcare provider in the world — they are not a mom.
Point Ten: Split and Say It's Best for the Kids
The tenth way to screw up your kids is this: when problems come up in a marriage, just split, and then say it is best for the kids. I hear this all the time. Couples are splitting up, and I will ask, "How are the kids doing?" The answer is always, "Great." Let me help you out — they are not doing great. They never do great. They may appreciate that there is no more fighting in the house, but your physical absence from that place is a scar they will carry forever.
Point Eleven: Hold On Too Tightly
The eleventh thing is to hold on to them too tightly. Let me tell you the story about my daughter Haley at Splash Mountain.
Haley hated rides. It would take you a solid hour to convince her to go on one. We always used to take the kids out of school to go to Disneyland. I just thought, why would I go when everybody else is there? Besides, I was committed to not letting school interfere with the children's education. I am all for school, but let us make it more interesting. So we would pull the kids out for anything — if I wanted to take a day and go do something, we just went.
On this particular day we were at Splash Mountain on a misty morning, which meant the locals were not there. You could ride it, get off, and walk right back on with no wait. Haley finally said, "All right, Dad, I'll go. But I'm really scared." So we got on. She was sitting in front of the two of us, and we went through the first small drop. She said, "Well, that wasn't so bad." I said, "I don't think that was it, Haley." Then you could hear it out there in the distance — that sound. She said, "Dad, what is that?" I said, "I think that's the splash on the mountain." She said, "Oh." You could see the light ahead, and then there it was, and she started saying, "Hold me tight, Daddy. Hold me tight. Oh, Daddy, hold me tight." And then we hit the bottom, and what did she say? "Let's do it again."
Fast forward five years ago. Haley and Tyler have just been married. They are standing right there singing a song, and I am looking at the two of them thinking, I hope this works — I think it will work. I still do not fully understand how they have had two kids; that still baffles me. But there they are. And I am looking at Haley and I am hearing her voice in my head saying, "Hold me tight, Daddy, hold me tight."
Here is the thing you need to know. "Hold me tight, Daddy" when you are ten is cute. "Hold me tight, Daddy" when you are twenty-eight is a problem. There is a time to hold them tight, and there is a time to let them go.
These Kids Need You in Their Corner
Let me close with just a short word of encouragement. These kids need you in their corner. Let me read you part of an email my daughter Sarah sent me about a year ago. At that point she was a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two. She was writing about being in church, about how familiar my voice is to her, and about how at a certain moment she got past the voice and really started listening to what I was saying. She wrote this:
"I thank God for making you a wonderfully gifted speaker — I just thought you'd want to know that, since you might not have gotten there yet" — none of you have, apparently — "I've had the privilege of growing up and listening to you, but I thank Him even more for letting me hear you speak."
You Are Their Biggest Fan
A 28-year-old mother of two wrote to her father: "Wife, I am so thankful for having you as my cheerleader, my coach, my fan, and most of all, my dad. I love you, Daddy." Children need that, and they never grow weary of it. That doesn't mean you blow smoke at them — it means you are in their corner, not beating them down. The world will do that enough on its own.
I was talking to somebody who said, "With our kids, we said no to them once in a while just to say no." I told them that in our house, we are always trying to find reasons to say yes. The world says no enough. We are trying to get our kids to dream.
They need you desperately. This is a very difficult job — it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can never let off the gas, and it demands being consistent. That is exactly why it is so hard.
Father, help us see Your word and apply it to our hearts. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen.