PAdo-11

PARENTING ADOLESCENTS

Session 11

GIVING YOUR CHILD A TASTE OF GOD

We give our kids an authentic an attractive taste of God?

UNCONDITIONAL INVOLVEMENT – A taste of God’s grace

It is the commitment to stay relationally involved with your children no matter what problem you see in them or what situation they get into.

Have you ever received God’s kind of grace from someone? If so, what did it look or feel like?

Being forgiven when you really hurt someone, or receiving kindness from someone who owed you none.

UNCOMPROMISING RESPONSIVENESS – God’s values

It is the commitment to do whatever you can to help your kids attach the same significance to their actions as God does.

A response that reflects God’s price tags addresses not just outward behavior, but also inner goals, strategies and pain. It does not just punish for a broken rule; it helps a teen taste and understands the ultimate consequences of using people to get personal needs met. An uncompromised and creative parent might take a bullying son to visit a jail or invite an immodest daughter to reflect on why she might feel desperate to attract boys.

What does a teen-ager learn if his or her parents’ responses are compromised with . .

No discipline when it is needed?

Permissiveness- it teaches a child that God does not care what he does, that God isn’t just and sin does not matter.

Disciplining for outward behavior, but no attention to heart issues - inner goals, strategies and pain?

Legalism – it teaches him that God cares only about externals and appearances, but a corrupt heart does not matter.

Most Christian parents very much want to give their kids a taste of God’s grace. But what makes it tough to stay involved with a teen-ager no matter what?

Obviously, it’s hard to stay close to someone who consistently hurts you.

Someone may raise the issue of tough love. Aren’t there times when you have to expel a teen-ager from your home because he has violated right conduct? The answer is yes. Involvement without uncompromised responsiveness is wishy-washy permissiveness. Tough love means attaching the true price tags to your teens actions. If the true price tag is expulsion from home, then you should do it without fear of rejection. But you are not putting and end to the relationship. you are committed to staying involved even though you won’t permit your child to enter your home until he agrees to cease the violence of drug use or whatever. God’s grace never indulges us, because it doesn’t encourage us to think we can sin without incurring the consequences.

As we become more aware of whom we are, the grace of God will compel us to continue to trust God for ourselves and for our adolescent.

As our kids see grace in how we deal with them, perhaps they will come to deeply believe that everything they want is available in a Savior who forgives them for being everything they shouldn’t be. The effect of that kind of belief is humble, God honoring maturity, the character that every Christian longs to develop in his kids.

BIG IDEA

INVOLVEMENT/RESPONSIVENESS

APPLICATION

What warning signs could you look for in yourself that would alert you to being "I’m being conditional" or I’m being compromised?"

Unwillingness to spend time with your teens
Strong anger (although anger is not always wrong)
Contempt
Shouting
Punishment beyond the offense
Punishing an adolescent for something you do
Avoiding conflict
Avoiding discipline
Avoiding reflection
Avoiding discussing goals with your teen.

Confess these to the Lord. Thank him that He stays involved with you no matter how often you fail and that He is ultimately in charge of how your kids turn out.
Tell him to remove the barriers in you that make your love conditional and responses compromised. Also ask Him for the strength and resources to offer your kids a taste of His grace and justice.