Most parents do not sit down and intentionally decide on the kind of parents they are. (I think I'll control my kids with emotional outbursts – or – I think I’ll withdraw and avoid conflict.) Most of us just react "automatically" without really thinking, without reflecting. Why is this? Could there be a better way?

What determines a parent’s style of relating?

James 4:1 – James asks a very basic question.

What causes fights and quarrels among you?

Why do we respond the way we do to our kids?

James attributes the root cause of problems in relationships to

"unmet" desires.

During the last session we talked about what goes on in a person’s heart:

• His unmet desires
• His plans and strategies to get that desire
• The pain he experiences when those plans fail

James 4:1-4 – "Lusts" is translated "desires or wishes" (LB)

Rom 8:6-8 – It leads to sin when your motives are to gratify self other than God.

When a person looks to relationships to meet his deepest longings,

he takes the first step towards creating destructive relationships.

See Jeremiah 2:13

1. Casual Desires

These are mere preferences like dressing, how they keep their rooms, how they spend their leisure time.

2. Critical Desires

Critical desires parents consider vital to their children’s well being – like choice of friends, school, entertainment.

3. Crucial Desires

1. We look for responses from our kids that convey the sense of love and impact that we long for.
2. We make our kids extensions of ourselves to order to win some sense of love and approval from others.

It is usually the mark of an unhealthy parent-teen relationship when we look to our children to help meet crucial desires.

When these desires are unmet, we experience pain, disappointment and conflict.

1. Control their kids more; push them to be perfect.
2. Deny its presence; withhold emotionally fearful of the pain.
3. Appease by giving them whatever they demand.

Isa 55:1-3 – God knows we have deep longings and He tells us "He" is the only

one who can truly fill that longing. He says, "Come to Me."

Our deepest longings are met through Christ alone.

Jer 2:13 – When we allow the well being of our souls to be dependent on a

"person" or "relationship", we experience emptiness.

This is what the Bible calls "hewing broken cisterns".

Digging – idea of looking for satisfaction in the wrong direction.

John 4:13-14 – We do not "satisfy our thirst" from people but from the Lord.

This is a key factor in having a to a successful relationship with

our children.

Ps 118:8-9 – Who are we depending on for love and happiness?

Ps 107:9 – Only God can satisfy our need for love. God uses these legitimate

longings and desires to direct us to Himself because when we direct

these towards others, we experience profound disappointment.

We discover the depravity in ourselves and in others

(selfishness and self-centeredness).

As we study God’s Word, we learn to look inside ourselves. We learn to ask ourselves, "Why am I doing what I am doing? Why do I respond the way I do? What is my motive? Is it to gratify myself?"

What are some of the goals you have set for yourselves and your children? We often feel disappointment and frustration in our relationships with our adolescent children because of 3 errors in our way of thinking.

1. Misguided Focus

When I focus on changing my adolescent’s behavior – my focus is misguided.

A parent whose focus is misguided insists that the solution to the problem is someone or something else beside himself.

James 4:1-3 – Essentially, what is James telling us?

Where do we shift our focus?

James 2:4 – When do our motives become evil?

When we focus on changing people’s behavior in the midst of pain, we start to believe that controlling others is the solution to life’s difficulties.

I must focus on my relationship with Christ.

What makes it difficult to focus on our own action instead of our children? Pride, fear.

2. Misdirected Goals

A parent’s goal is misdirected when she aims at getting her desires met through people and circumstances.

When my goal is directed at something or someone else to fulfill my needs and longings. It is misdirected.

Ps 106:13-15 – What happens when you have misdirected goals?

We experience problems, leanness of soul, frustrations.

Someone said, "Child abuse is when you get your child to meet your need."

I must fulfill my deepest needs through Christ.

3. Misplaced Dependency

1. Examine my motive. Are my motives self-centered? Do I minister to myself or to the needs of my child?
2. Get to know myself a lot better. Take some time to observe and understand the forces within that cause you to relate to your kids the way you do. Forces described by James 4:1-3.
3. As I understand myself better, I must bring the deepest part of myself in submission to Christ.

The result? I will begin to experience the freedom and strength to parent in healthier ways.