Setting Boundaries with Your Children
Exodus 20:12 You must honour and respect your father and your mother. Do this so that you will have a full life in the land that the Lord your God gives you.
The relationship between parents and their children across society seems to have changed quite a lot over the course of my lifetime. But not all change is good change … not at all!
Bringing up children in this day and age is a challenge isn’t it? With all their 24/7 connectivity to their friends through their technology, it seems that those friends are having more of an influence on children’s lives than their parents are, and that … right there … is pretty scary when you think about it.
In fact, many parents, guilty as they feel for the paucity of time that they actually spend with their children these days, are intent on compensating for that with “things” – with giving their children whatever they want – by treating the children as their friends rather than their children.
Let me let you in on a little secret. God never intended for you to be your child’s friend. He intended for you to be their father or their mother – not just when they’re young, but for the rest of your life.
Exodus 20:12 You must honour and respect your father and your mother. Do this so that you will have a full life in the land that the Lord your God gives you.
Our biggest job as parents is to teach our children to honour and respect their father and their mother. That means setting boundaries. It means disciplining them. That’s an awesome responsibility. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes persistence and it will cause you a great deal of frustration. But that’s the calling, because at the end of all that – according to this fifth of the ten commandments – lies a great blessing for your children from God.
The calling is to be a parent. “Friend” doesn’t even come close.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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