I made her cry
As a parent, my ultimate goal is to lead my kids to God so they can discover His best for them. It’s a simple idea, but it has a weight that isn’t so simple to execute.
And my kids are born with a self-serving heart…and it looks a lot like my heart. So that complicates things even more.
So when I see my kids act in a self-serving way, I don’t stand appalled…I stand in front of a mirror. They exhibit the same qualities that are found in my unredeemed soul.
We are to teach our kids the hard lessons that God will be expecting them to live as responsible adults. The idea is to discipline, love, and celebrate them in a way that is in rhythm with how God disciplines, loves and celebrates us…but scaled down to their maturity level.
One particular truth has to do with stewardship. “To whom much is given, much will be required.”
Over the past several months our daughter hasn’t been the best at keeping her toys picked up. So we set out to teach a powerful lesson. I gave her 15 minutes to clean up the play room. The toys that remained on the ground after 15 minutes were to go into a trash bag with the threat that she may never see them again. She reluctantly set out cleaning the room with the pace of a snail.
When the timer went off, about 1/4 of the room still need picked up. With a look of horror on her face, she began to sob, weep, and beg for mercy. What were we to do? She had obvious remorse? But her lack-luster attempt should carry consequences…right? Bethany and I looked at eachother and had the single unspoken thought, “Crap, now we have to carry out our threat.”
I got a white trash bag and began filling it. One particular item led to hightened drama. White. ”White” is Olivia’s blanket, which she adores. But it wasn’t picked up and put away. Should that go in the bag? With great tears and cries of anquish, it did.
All in all, there wasn’t that much that she hadn’t picked up. But she had ample time to do the job and respect our wishes. Her lack of obedience needed to carry some ramifications that could be redeemed.
So we made a deal. If she could keep things picked up for 3 days she could get her stuff back.
I imagine some people will read this and consider me a bit cruel. And I’m okay with being misunderstood. I love my daughter without reserve. And she knows that. But she doesn’t experience my love by getting her way, she experiences my love when I lead her to becoming a person who can live and experience God’s best.
There will be times in her life when God calls her to take steps of obedience and faith. As her parent, my job is to prepare her heart, so when that day comes it’s conditioned to respond to Him with loving obedience. As her parent God has positioned me to teach her specific lessons. I’d rather her start learning those lessons now at the age of 5, not when she’s 25.
Update: Below is a short clip of her getting her toys back and recounting the lessons learned.
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11 comments
I think you did the right thing. We have four small ones (ages 8-18 months) with one more on the way. And our kids are normal, just like yours–they make a mess (get what they want) and leave it all over the place (avoiding responsibility). We, too, bag up everything they’ve left after a prescribed time period, then “throw away” the bag (consequences) with the option to earn them back (redemption) with good behavior.
And like you, my wife and I sometimes wonder if we’re avoiding the harder, but maybe deeper lesson of finality–when you’ve made a choice to disobey, God will always love us, but sometimes our actions bring terrible consequences that are with us for ever. So, one time–ONE TIME–we actually did dispose of their toys. (It wasn’t much, they were things the kids really weren’t going to miss, and we donated them to the local secondhand store rather than actually trash them.)
I’d like to say that they keep their rooms picked up… but if the children of Israel could keep making the same stupid mistakes in their wavering faith, and if I as their FATHER am prone to do the same, it should come as no surprise to me that my kids will do the same.
Kind of makes me appreciate the conflict God experiences between his immeasurable love for us with his unwavering demand for justice. Praise His name for the work of Jesus on the cross to provide our way of escaping God’s fair punishment!
Sorry, didn’t mean to be so long. I… have a way with words… usually the LONG way…
@ Michael
Thanks for the feedback! and I love how you articulated the process and parallels of this stuff. My thought after I read what you wrote, “Exactly!” Kudos.
(P.S. Have we met, you seem familiar.)
Seriously a great lesson for kids to learn. I can only imagine how hard it was to follow through on that threat. But I can say with experience that I’ve known way too many parents that let their kids run the house more than them. This might be more than some people would want to hear, but, I can’t understand how a parent wouldn’t find it embarrassing to have the house torn apart by their kids from room to room.
I understand, kids will be kids and I understand the whole toy aspect. Maybe there’s a connection between earning toys and being responsible for toys? Or maybe it doesn’t matter unless theres an eminent risk of losing your toys.
This whole issue reminds me of a quote from the movie memoirs of a Geisha ” In the temple there is a poem titled “loss” and underneath where the words are written they have been scratched out so where you can no longer read the words. Why, because loss can not be read but only felt.”
Maybe, just maybe the feeling of loss might have been a greater lesson? Then the desire to feel that emptiness. The same emptiness our Lord fills in our lives. Some times through wants and needs other times through relationships and things. Like drawing poison from a wound that was alway there.
Philippians 4:7 “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus”
@ Jesse. – It’s actually pretty amazing how quickly the house fills up with toys. Most of which are gifts from other people.
To reduce the “stuff” we have the kids go through a toy purge about every 6 months. We give them 3 big bins to sort their stuff in:
1) Stuff you want and will play with.
2) Stuff you want, but aren’t playing with right now (so it goes up in their closet)
3) Stuff you don’t want. Which means it goes to a charity.
We do have the kids earn toys by saving their allownce (link below). It’s pretty amazing at how those toys stay picked up and well cared for. The stuff that comes easy, usually goes easy.
http://captureyesterday.com/site/how-we-do-allowances/
That’s a pretty clever idea. And I have to say those Ben 10 characters are pretty cool looking. Katie and I were walking around a toy section recently( I’m sure reluctantly on Katie’s behalf) But, I went off on a tangent about how these Ben 10 characters though kinda lack luster action figures(few points of articulation) are designed really cool.
It actually kinda amazes me how many toys kids have these days considering the amount of addictive video games are out there. I have no personal issue with either video games or toys since they are apart of my life as an adult. And I’m sure I’m speaking out of turn since we don’t have kids yet. But that child-like desire still wells inside me when I see a cool toy. It capture your imagination. I think its something about our inner being that craves these things. If you’ve ever taken an art history class one of the things they like to talk about is this idea that the creative desire to sculpt or paint comes from a desire to control the world around you. I’m not sure exactly if its exactly true?
However, it reminds me of that old clash of the titans film, the one with all the cheesy claymation visual effects. And all the people shamelessly being used a playing piece on a chess board. I think its a good example to always be reminded how thankful I am to have a loving Heavenly Father who always knows whats best for me.
Hey Milo,
Thanks for the parenting post. It gets to what a lot of people (including myself) find hard with parenting. I think we all know what is best for our kids, but often its the follow through that is so hard. I’ve found that the two areas where it’s hardest for me to follow through and make the right parenting choice are when the item (or activity) being lost as a consequence is dear to their heart and when I’m feeling lazy.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of or taken the “Love and Logic” parenting class, our Church offered it and somewhat reluctantly I went (my wife thought it was a great idea). Of course it was a great idea. The class reaffirmed many of our parenting choices and provided us with some new ideas and tools for dealing with our children both now and as they grow. One of the psychologists with the group that developed the ideas talked about the taking away of toys if they are not picked up. He believes that kids nowadays have too many toys to begin with and that toys shouldn’t be returned. We’ve done this, and it tears my heart to pieces. However, I know that not following through and not providing times of lessons would be ultimately more harmful to my kids.
This brings me to a book that I’ve got: “Your kids are your own Fault” by Larry Winget. In it he talks about deciding who and what type of person you want your children to be when they are adults, and then make a plan on how to steer their path in that direction. Making a plan makes it much easier to make the right choices in the spur of the moment.
I’m probably preaching to the choir
but thought I’d respond to your post with some thoughts.
@ Nate. Thanks for the feedback and the book ideas. Haven’t read either one of these, but they are going in my Amazon “wish list” cart. Cheers!
Thanks for the ideas Milo. Just took a 18 week parenting class through our church so the timing of the lesson today was good.
I think your approach as parents was right on in alignment with the scriptures (from what we just learned). A healthy balance of justice and mercy to deal with disobedience.
Happy parenting!
Milo & Bethany Curtis, parents at Grace, have a blog where they share about their lives. They recently posted a story about one of the ways they helped their daughter learn about stewardship. I thought it was a great idea, and there’s even a video.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
Dude, I thought I was the only cruel one. One time CJ had a small heart shape toy that she kept putting it in her mouth. After the 2nd time of warning, I said one more time and it’s out the window. She forgot and it went out our car window. She was shocked and was torn. She cried hysterically say “Daddy threw away my heart” (I almost cried) but after explanation and much console, she calmed down. After 15 minutes of driving, I made a u turn stopped in the middle of the intersection, got out, looked for the heart, as people were honking, found it, and brought it back. I want her to understand sin and it’s consequences. But more so, I want her to understand undeserved GRACE.
@ Vara. You crack me up. I can totally see you stopping traffic to get your kids “heart” back. Kudos on working towards the balance of law and grace. Tough stuff.