We all desire our children to be a blessing to our family and others. I believe that this starts with teaching our children to obey. When our children have a heart of obedience, they lay down their own desires for honoring their parents. Follow along as we discover six essential ingredients when teaching Biblical obedience in a Christian family.
What does obedience mean for a Biblically-Minded Family?
When God created us, He created us with a will, personality, and choice. He did not create robots — beings who were programmed to do everything that He said. God gave people a choice — a choice to obey, a choice to love, a choice to feel. With that choice also came the first sin. God gave man the choice to follow the commands or not and to love God or not. This choice was hard for God the Father. He could have prevented His children from walking away from Him. But isn’t this choice more rewarding for the Father when we choose obedience and love? Yes. The same is true when we have children who choose to obey us — not out of fear or obligation but because they genuinely love, respect and honor their parents.
This is what it means to obey in a Biblically-Minded Family. Children obey because they have been taught from before they are one year old to honor their parents as the God-given authority in the home. Obedience comes when you have a relationship with your children that is based on love and respect. You love your children and have earned their respect and honor in the home. The children cherish the relationship and choose obedience more often than disrespect.
What are the six essential ingredients when teaching obedience to your Biblically-Minded Family?
1. Biblically-Minded parents expect immediate obedience from their children.
I have served in various ministries with children in the United States, the Carribean, and in Africa. Some were large programs with hundreds of children while others contained just a handful of students. One thing was the same no matter the context: we needed children to obey and listen to the directions so we could have order and therefore, fun!
Several ministries used a counting method to get the children’s attention. They would yell, “One!” while holding up one finger. Then, “Two!” while holding up two fingers. The children were instructed to stop talking and fidgeting and pay attention to the leaders as soon as they heard the counting begin. They were supposed to be quiet before the leaders got to the number five. “Three!” Many of the children were still talking as the leaders yelled again. “Four!” Do you know what this was communicating to the students? They don’t really need to obey until the leaders get to the number five. They can delay their obedience until they really need to.
Delayed obedience isn’t true obedience, is it? Delayed obedience is disobedience. This is not teaching these students what the Word of God clearly communicates. Their obedience to God and their obedience to adults needs to be immediate obedience.
Immediate obedience gives the children no doubt about who is in authority. Children will know who the authority is and have a respect for them as the Bible intended. “Honor your Father and Mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12, the fifth commandment). This is seen in the life of Jonah. As a parent, do you look to Jonah to teach obedience to your children? You may use him as a negative example — someone who did the exact opposite of what God commanded him. I have never heard anyone use Jonah to teach that his delayed obedience was true obedience. You see, he DID obey after he was swallowed by a great fish and spit out on land. He went through the motions, but his heart did not have an attitude of obedience. That’s our next point.
2. Biblically-minded parents understand that obedience is a matter of the heart and not just a matter of the hands.
Getting our children to conform to our instructions is the easy part, but touching their hearts so they want to obey from a heart that loves you and loves the Lord is the hard part. Obedience is not just a matter of outward compliance but a matter of the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit we would be hopelessly lost in our sin. God tells us that our obedience to Him is an indication of what is happening in the heart. We want our children to have a heart of obedience because it has been transformed by the Holy Spirit.
3. Biblically-Minded parents teach obedience even before the child’s first birthday.
If you don’t start teaching obedience well before your child’s first birthday, it is almost too late! Set this foundation before your child is one year old.
When our oldest daughter was just learning to feed herself in her highchair, she struggled getting her pudgy little fingers around the Cheerios and then getting them into her mouth. Initially she would just slobber on her hand and the Cheerio would stick to it and then find its way into her mouth. It didn’t take long, however, for her to realize that she could make those Cheerios fall onto the floor and hear them make a little sound. After a few days of her experiments, we realized that we needed to do a little teaching. While it was cute to see our little girl figuring out the laws of gravity, it wouldn’t be as cute seeing her later on dumping her soup on the floor to see what happens.
We told her in terms that she could understand to not drop her food on the floor. If she did, we were going to spank her hand. She seemed to understand our little daily lessons, but on day number 5, she was going to test us. She took some of her dinner in her hand, slowly moved that little hand from over her highchair to over the floor, and then got our attention. With her eyes fixed on mine, she unclenched her fists and released the food, watching as it hit the floor. Immediately after it landed there, our little girl, not yet one year old, spanked her own hand. Yes, she understood our teaching, she knew the consequences, and she chose to disobey anyway.
Since she clearly understood what we instructed her, we had to discipline her as we told her we would even though she spanked herself. Letting her discipline herself would not have been effective for the short-term or long-term benefits that we desired.
If your children are older than one, do not lose hope! If God is able to part the water of the Red Sea or heal the lame man or create the Universe, He is more than able to help you teach your little one obedience. This will take great determination and consistency, though, as they have already learned to disobey which will need to be unlearned.
First, decide with your spouse that you are not going to let disobedience continue in your home. Then discuss the areas that you have seen this and create a plan to be more consistent. Together decide consequences for disciplining disobedience so you will know what those are before the behavior happens. Finally follow through with your plan and lovingly help each other stick to your commitments so your children will grow their obedience muscles. “No discipline is pleasant at the time, but in time it yields a harvest of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).
4. Biblically-Minded parents simplify the instructions for their children.
Have you ever been given multi-step instructions and needed to look back several times to have them repeated? The same thing happens to our children. We need to be aware that our children can’t handle more than a two-step set of directions until they are a little older. Your instructions need to be clear and short. Sometimes your children are not able to obey your directions because they can’t follow the given steps. They do the second step or the fourth step but not the first or third. Remedy this by giving simplified instructions with limited steps or by using pictures or written instructions.
There are times that I still give my eleven-year old boy only two or three step instructions. While he can usually handle more than this, he is more successful when I give him simple instructions. I can’t discipline him for failing to obey me when the instruction I give him are too lengthy for him to remember. For this reason sometimes I write down the instructions for those who can read and use pictures for those who cannot. This drastically increases the probability that they will fully obey me.
While there is a time to increase the length and complexity of directions, choose those teaching times carefully and increase them incrementally so success happens often. As your children mature so will their abilities to follow your multi-stepped or complicated instructions.
5. Biblically-Minded parents inspect the outcomes of their children’s obedience.
Our children must clean their rooms. Knowing my child’s inclination toward laziness, though, it would not be wise of me to take them at their word to tell me it is clean. I must instead inspect what I expect. Going the extra mile to look closely at the work they have done to make sure there are no clothes under the bed or all of the Legos stuffed into the nearest box is our duty as parents. Full and total obedience is the only kind of obedience for Biblically-minded families. When we check the outcomes, we make sure that total obedience has happened. (Your child’s future employers will thank you!)
6. Biblically-Minded parents discipline their children immediately.
Proverbs 22:15 tell us, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”
Children need their parents to discipline them immediately for their lack of obedience. This lets them know that the action or lack of action in this situation was not pleasing to the parent. They are able to connect the two things together and therefore, make better choices in the future. I get frustrated when I hear some parents delay the discipline of their small children to when the other parent gets home. Your child cannot understand the delayed discipline (especially young children). They are not able to attach the action and the punishment and build meaningful connections for the future. When you see your son hit his baby sister, remove him from the area and discipline him right away. Your words and actions teach them your expectations.
If your child is older, discussing the problem with the other parent later is a good idea, but they must feel the consequences immediately for most younger children.
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