"The Freedom to Make Mistakes" (Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel)

Dear friends,

So yeah, it's been well over two years since I started this Reflections on Grace Based Parenting series based on Tim Kimmel's book, and a year and a half since the last post on it. Now it's finally time to finish up so I can pass along the book to one of my daughters who is expecting her first baby this spring.  I already gave a copy to her older sister, who has two little boys already.  It’s funny to be well into the grandparenting years while still parenting young ones of my own at home.

The final two chapters are “The Freedom to Make Mistakes” and “Evening Grace.”   Trust me, in 26 years of mothering, I’ve made a boatload of mistakes!  So glad for grace to change and move on! Here are some of the quotes from these chapters which are most helpful to me:

“Parents who embrace grace make their homes a safe place for average kids to develop into extraordinary people.  In these types of homes, weaknesses and inadequacies aren’t a big deal.  These families are overseen by shrewd mothers and fathers who see their children’s fragile features as opportunities for God’s power to shine through them.  They also know that giving their children a safe place to work through their vulnerabilities keeps these shortomcings from getting in the way of their true greatness.”

“If anything, grace should motivate you to a higher holiness.  Grace-based homes aren’t places where family members assume they can say whatever they want, see whatever they want, hear whatever they want, taste or drink whatever they want, or touch whatever they want.  That’s not grace.  That’s someone wanting to live his or her own life with no regard for what God has said or what He thinks.  But when grace is in place, there is clearly a different attitude toward sin in homes without grace…. People who walk by faith are far more capable of developing a godly and righteous lifestyle because they are finding their power for living in their personal relationship with the Lord.”

“It’s not that grace-based homes don’t take their children’s sin seriously.  Nor is it that grace-based homes circumvent consequenceds.  It isn’t even that grace-based homes do nothing to protect their children from attacks and temptations that threaten them from outside.  They do all these things, but not for the same reasons.  Grace-based homes aren’t trusting in the moral safety of their home or the spiritual environment they’ve created to empower their children to resist sin…. Bottom line: Grace-based families realize that their children will struggle with sin.  They consider it an honor to be used by God to show their children how to find true forgiveness in Christ.  They are not intimidated by the dialogue that brings the discussion of sin to light.  In fact, they are grateful to be able to come alongside their children with an unconditional love during some of their toughest hours.”

“A grace response to your children’s sin is to avoid condemnation.  You can evaluate their wrong actions, discuss their negative effects, and even voice the pain and disappointment that you have experienced as a result of it.  But you don’t want to condemn.  Condemnation corners them and doesn’t offer much hope.  Condemnation attacks their character rather than addresses their behavior.  When you condemn, it causes a reflex within them to defend themselves.  Often your condemnation oes little more than to make a bad situation far worse.”

“Providing consequences for sin is a loving form of grace.  It says, “I love you too much to let you continue in this pattern and grow up to be bad.” Meting out fair and consistent consequences for their negative actions tells children there is a mature and decent parent overseeing their lives.  Letting them get away with sin says just the opposite.  It tells them they have an immature parent who is more concerned about their comfort than with their children’s dignity.”

“You have been singled out to do a favor for God.  He is asking you to be His representative to a small but vital part of the next generation.  He needs someone to be His voice, His arms, and His heart. He chose you.”

I’m glad I read these chapters tonight.  They are good reminders for me.  A lot has happened in our family since I started the series.  There have been some really tough circumstances and hard decisions, as well as some positive progress and sweet memories.  Looking back and looking forward, I know that I need to be more consistently proactive in my mothering to help my kids deal with the complexities of life.  I have swung the pendulum from severe to lax, and need to find my middle rhythm in grace.

I sat down with my five younger kids for about 15 minutes this evening – nothing long and drawn out. I read to them Ephesians 2:1-10 (grace of course!) and then chatted for a little bit about asking God to help us grow spiritually so that we want to do the right thing from the heart.  We also talked about some of the ways we need to pull it together as a family in the areas of responsibility around the house.  I tried to keep our family meeting light and sweet, and I think I got through to them at least a little bit!   We need to do this more often.  I’ll also give them a detailed list of reasonable expectations about chores, meals, use of electronics, etc.  I’ll tweak it based on this evening’s discussion and give it to them soon.  They did get to choose the days they wanted to do dishes.  A little choice goes a long way toward cooperation.

How about you?  How do you embrace grace in your home? I’d love to see your comments.  If you’re a blogger or you’ve found something good about parenting on the Internet, feel free to link related posts!

My previous posts in this Reflections on Grace Based Parenting series are:

• Chapter 1: "Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short" 
• Chapter 2: "The Truth Behind Grace"
• Chapter 3: “A Secure Love” 
• Chapter 4: "A Significant Purpose"
• Chapter 5: "A Strong Hope"
• Chapters 6-8: "A Delivery System for Grace and The Freedom to Be Different and Vulnerable"
• Chapter 9: “The Freedom to Be Candid”

You might also like these related posts:

• Hypothetical
• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
• Mothering by Faith and Grace
• Amazing Grace for Home School Moms

Grace, 

Virginia Knowles

"The Freedom to Be Candid" from Grace-Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel

Dear friends,

Ready for another installment in my Reflections on Grace-Based Parenting series?  It's based on the book by Tim Kimmel. Today I am writing about the 9^th chapter, "The Freedom to Be Candid," but first I wanted to back up and give you an extra quote from the previous chapter, "The Freedom to Be Vulnerable."  It really ministered to me this morning, especially in light of the Major Mommy Meltdown I had yesterday. Fortunately for me, my husband came home, made dinner, calmed everyone down, gave me a good long back rub, and tried to humor me out of my despair. Anyway, here are the quotes...

“As adults, we know that those who follow the well-worn path to the base of the cross find ample room for heavy hearts and hurts that can't seem to heal. It's an amazing grace that doesn't trivialize the fickle nature of our personalities. There's no condescension waiting to counter our tendencies to become easily embarrassed. There are no lectures longing to straighten out the folly of our thinking. There's no mocking of our self-conscious thoughts, just a generous Savior with a gentle heart who knows how unsure we often are about ourselves... When circumstances scrub off the layers of their self-confidence, and their shortcomings wash away the foundation of their self-righteousness, Jesus isn't appalled by the blemishes He finds underneath. There's no sin too bad, no doubt too big, no question too hard, and no heart too broken for His grace to deal with.”

That's good new for me! How about for you?

OK, let's move on to "The Freedom to Be Candid" chapter.

Dr. Kimmel first points out that raw “honesty” is not always kind. It's really easy to ambush and then shred each other with toxic “truth.”  I've had it happen to me, and I've done it to others.  He goes on to contrast that with the concept of candor, which is really eye-opening for me. These are real-life, real-time issues at our house.

“That's why we need candor and not just honesty when it comes to the family. Candor isn't about catching people off guard to make them look worse than they are. Candor is several steps above honesty and is a way of communicating freely without prejudice or malice. Candor takes the truth and frames it in a way that helps rather than harms. There's also a high degree of fairness brought to bear within the true definition of candor... The third characteristic of grace-based homes is this: They are homes that give children the freedom to be candid. These are homes where what is on a child's mind can end up as dinner dialogue without fear of payback. That's because homes with candor create give-and-take between parents and children that promotes honesty dipped in honor... Grace makes the difference because it keeps honesty from getting ugly. It ratchets up the free exchange of heartfelt things to a much higher level of forthrightness – a careful forthrightness that guards the other person's dignity.”

Specifically, Dr. Kimmel notes that children need the freedom to be candid with things that are disappointing them about their parents (that's us), about their own sexuality, and about their spiritual lives. Here are some specific examples and my own comments on these topics:

Disappointments with parents: In the Kimmel family, starting when their kids were quite young, they often hosted “What's Your Beef?” evenings where each child could order whatever kind of food they wanted for dinner (picked up from an assortment of nearby takeout restaurants) and then get to hash over what was bothering them about mom and dad. The rules? The kids were not allowed to challenge moral rules or consequences, and the parents were not allowed to defend themselves! What about kids doing criticizing their parents rudely? Dr. Kimmel notes, “The best way to ensure that our children will speak respectfully when they are voicing their disappointment or disapproval over something is to make sure that is exactly how we speak to them when it's the other way around. Parents are dreaming if they think they can dishonor their children, bark and bite when they are addressing them, and then get anything less in return.” Ouch. Epic fail on my part yesterday. When our kids say things about us or to us, sometimes it is much easier to live in defensive denial and not openly acknowledge the pain we have caused. Humility accepts the possibility that there is at least a nugget of truth in their words.

Sexuality: If you won't listen to your teens talking about sex and then keep the conversation going, someone else will, and it may not be as reasonable as what you would say. They really do need to be able to say anything to you (including, “I'm pregnant” or "I think I'm gay") without you freaking out too much. Yes, conversations about sexuality can be awkward for parent and child, even if it is a six year old asking how babies are made. You could take the initiative by finding an age appropriate resource about sexuality and discussing it with your child, along with your own views. That could open up the on-going conversation for them to ask candid questions later on. If you are a conservative home schooling parent, you are likely to hear a lot about courtship among your circle of friends or in books, magazines and blogs. Please tread carefully here because a lot of the teaching is legalistic, rule-oriented and unrealistic.  It can actually harm rather than promote healthy boy/girl and marriage relationships. As I wrote in my book The Real Life Home School Mom: “We need to learn to finish well, with love and grace, not an obsessive need to control the lives and destinies of our adult children. I believe the process of our children finding their mates should be a joyous time of following the leading of the Holy Spirit and getting to know one another in natural ways. Yes, parents can be involved, but we don't need to depend on legalistic regulations and intrusions. We pray for our children, walk by faith, and wait to see what God will accomplish.”

Spiritual lives: Another excerpt from The Real Life Home School Mom: “You may even find that a teen whom you thought had fully embraced the Gospel message as their own, now realizes that he or she had just been following along with what you taught, and now has serious questions about whether or not it is true. Many pastors we have known have told us this is true even in their own families, so don’t feel like you are unspiritual. It is better for this to come to light, rather than for a child to dwell in the false assurance that he is a Christian just because his parents are. This is actually a great opportunity for teaching your teen in a very purposeful and positive (non-judgmental) way what the Christian message is all about. There are all sorts of great apologetics books out there that explain the truth for young people, such as the youth editions of Lee Strobel’s books The Case for Faith, The Case for Christ and The Case for the Creator. Please take the time to know each child’s spiritual condition, just like a shepherd knows his sheep. Draw them out gently in private. Make it safe to talk to you by letting them know you are not going to intimidate or interrogate them, and that you won’t react in massive shock if they tell you something that you don’t want to hear. This is so important, especially in the teen years. We all want to be our children’s spiritual confidantes. This isn’t going to happen if we don’t have a warm and open relationship with them.” Even if your teens are followers of Christ, they can have differences of opinion about what that means. I've had some interesting conversations with some of my teens about why our family switched churches two years ago, how that has affected people in our family, and the pros and cons of the doctrinal emphases at each church. (For instance, we believe in baptism by immersion on profession of faith, but we currently attend a Presbyterian church that sprinkles infants. Go figure! Unfortunately, we have several kids who weren't baptized before we left the last church, and they want a good dunking!)  We have allowed our teenagers to choose which church to attend.

Or, as Dr. Kimmel writes, “Grace-based families make room for their kids' opinions. They provide a safe forum in which to air their doubts, disappointments, and even their misguided beliefs. They especially provide an outlet for candor when their children's faith is on trial. Strident, unadaptable Christian homes have no clue what this looks like. They have rules that have to be kept and an image that has to be propped up. These are families that have distilled their faith down to a short stack of platitudes that stick like Post-it notes on the inner walls of their souls. These are not homes that encourage candor. They lead with critique and allow no rebuttal. Children in strident Christian homes have neither a voice nor a vote. For these parents, it's their way (but certainly not “God's Way”) or the highway. If you ever want to know how to close down your children's hearts to the deeper issues of the Spirit, just trade authentic faith for the cheap imitation that strident, graceless parenting has to offer.”

I know that this book and my blog post are primarily about parenting, but I would like to extend these three topics (relationship disappointment, sexual issues and spiritual struggles) to marriage and friendship. These are certainly areas that each of us needs to be able to discuss openly with a husband or wife without fear of ridicule or recrimination, even (and especially) when we are at our lowest points of doubt and despair. The same is true of our friends, to a more limited extent. I have several long-time friends who have walked away from conservative evangelical Christianity and embraced different worldviews and/or alternative sexual lifestyles. Usually there is a story behind such a drastic change, such as a family crisis or disappointments with churches. It is not my job to lecture them or try to reconvert them, but to listen well to their story and keep an intelligent conversation going. I find myself learning candor and compassion as I go, sharing my own stories with them, as friends do.

I'd like to close this post with three Bible verses from the chapter on candor that apply to all kinds of relationships.

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ... Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” ” Ephesians 4:15, 29

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

It is my hope that when my children talk to me, they will find grace, mercy, and truth to meet their needs.

My previous posts in this series are:

Chapter 1: "Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short" 

Chapter 2: "The Truth Behind Grace"

Chapter 3: “A Secure Love” 

Chapter 4: "A Significant Purpose"

Chapter 5: "A Strong Hope"

Chapters 6-8: "A Delivery System for Grace and The Freedom to Be Different and Vulnerable"

You may also wish to read these related posts:

• Truth and Grace in the Stories of Our Lives
• Grace Will Lead Me Home (Poem and More) 
• "Teaching Our Children to Walk With God" by Shiela Catanzarite

• Mothering by Faith and Grace
• Amazing Grace for Home School Moms

What do you think about all of this?  Please leave a comment!

Grace,

Virginia

A Delivery System for Grace and The Freedom to Be Different and Vulnerable (Grace-Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel)

Dear friends,

I guess it's been a while since I wrote another installment in my Grace-Based Parenting series on the book by Dr. Tim Kimmel.   I'm sure you'll give me a little grace on that, won't you?   

If you are new to the series, you can read the other posts here:

Chapter 1: "Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short" 

Chapter 2: "The Truth Behind Grace"

Chapter 3: “A Secure Love” 

Chapter 4: "A Significant Purpose"

Chapter 5: "A Strong Hope"
 

In today's post, partly to make up for lost time, I am going to cover three chapters:

• Chapter 6: A Delivery System for Grace
• Chapter 7: The Freedom to Be Different
• Chapter 8: The Freedom to Be Vulnerable

Here we go!   Dr. Kimmel's words from the book are in italic, interspersed by my commentary in normal font.

A DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR GRACE

In this chapter, Dr. Kimmel again contrasts parenting by legalism vs. parenting by grace.

"In one sense, legalism is a lazy man's religion.  It's an empty Sunday suit that doesn't require much of a personal relationship with God. It doesn't require much thinking either.  You simply memorize the list of things that good Christians do, and then you try to check off as many as possible during the week.  You also study a much longer list of things that Christian's don't do.  You have to work overtime to avoid doing those things, while at the same time avoiding anyone who does them as well.  My parents slipped into the narrow groove of legalism and found its predictability quite soothing."

"There's something instinctive about turning a belief system into a checklist and faith into a formula.  It's also easy to distill beliefs into programs and rituals that substitute for true intimacy with God.  When God gives you children, you head to church to see if someone has some answers in a prepackaged and predictable plan for turning them into strong Christian kids."

How do you walk away from that kind of legalism, either what you grew up with yourself, or what you have already imposed on your own children?  First you have to recognize it for what it is.  Then you have to form a picture in your mind of what you want instead.  What does grace look like to you?  What does it need to look like to your children?

"One thing I knew:  I didn't want my children to grow up in a home where they felt that God's pleasure was determined by their behavior.  Nor did I want them to feel that there was no latitude in how they lived out the different nuances of their personalities.  Strident parenting formulas have a bad habit of using spiritual molds to create look-alike, sound-like, and act-alike Christian kids.  I wasn't interested in that.  It ran counter to the way God operates in his grander relationship with His creation.  There's nothing about that kind of plan for parenting that encourages an original relationship with God, let along original kids."

After 20 years in the Christian home schooling movement, it is easy to see the kind of peer pressure on parents to make their families conform to some outward ideal or standard.  I certainly got sucked into this for a while, and unfortunately, I even promoted much of it in my own writing.  This is ironic, since one of the beauties of home schooling is supposed to be the freedom to be creative to meet the needs of your own children.  And yet like Dr. Kimmel says, somehow home schooling gets turned into a lifestyle checklist of sorts.  Ultra-conservative curriculum with Bible verses sprinkled liberally (oops, that's a bad word, isn't it?) throughout?  Check!  Ban network TV, Disney videos, and all secular music?  Check!  Girls wearing home-sewn skirts and dresses and preparing to be only wives and moms?  Check!  Courtship only? Check!  Go to church with a bunch of home schoolers?  Check! Homesteading?  Che...  No, wait, I never got to that one, though I have made my own yogurt and once or twice I attempted to grow strawberries and tomatoes!  And we have a pet bunny. Does that count?  To be honest, we never did completely comply with all of those rules.  But they sure looked attractive, and we sure dabbled in them!   And there are many good things to be said about living that way. Unfortunately, we also made it seem like outward performance was what really mattered.  Compliance with our sometimes arbitrary rules was mandatory, and dissent or even reasonable appeal sometimes brought swift and harsh parental judgment.  We're still working our way out of these negative patterns of parenting.  It's hard when it is ingrained!

I just looked up from my keyboard to see my 17 year old daughter sitting on my bed across from me with her sketchpad.  Today she drew a potted plant, a green apple and an onion on the dining room table.  Now there seems to be no model in sight for her to draw -- except for me?!?  Yes, she is sketching me!  I'm curious to know how she sees me, her 48 year old mother with tired eyes and gray hairs popping out left and right.  She is giggling, telling me that her drawing is "humorously bad."  But I'm even more curious to know how she sees the inside of me. Hopefully it is not humorously bad.   Does she see a passion for living and loving well?  Does she see a heart of acceptance and grace?  Does she see her own value and worth reflecting in my eyes?  Does she see someone she can trust and respect?  I hope so!

"Grace-based parenting works from the inside out. Fear-based parenting works from the outside in.... Grace-based families are homes where children are given:

1. The freedom to be different

2. The freedom to be vulnerable

3. The freedom to be candid

4. The freedom to make mistakes"

The next four chapters of the book cover these four freedoms.  In this post, I'd like to go over the first two, the freedom to be different and the freedom to be vulnerable.

THE FREEDOM TO BE DIFFERENT

"It is not a grace-based home when parents allow their children to be free but then punish them for being different... Declaring war on his differences just because they don't fit our fancy is a good way to snuff out a child's sense of wonder and amazement for a lifetime."

Of course, finding the wisdom to give our children the freedom to be different can be very tricky!  What is a matter of taste and what is a moral issue?  What is a senseless fad and what is a trend to embrace?  And what are the true meanings of worldliness and godliness?  To tell you the truth, I have an almost allergic aversion to the words "worldly" and "godly" because I've seen them so misused over the years.  I confess that my disillusionment over this needs to give way to a more positive discernment!  Why totally ditch the words when they still have some good use in them?  Why not use their power for grace rather than for legalism?

So what is real worldliness?  According to Kimmel, "If we want to understand how the "world" shows itself, don't like at things or actions but rather at attitudes: the lust of the flesh (the desire for sensual pleasure), the lust of the eyes (covetousness or materialism), and the boastful pride of life (pride about our position in the world).  This means that almost anything can have a worldly or a redemptive application depending on who (or Who) we're focusing on in our hearts."

"I'm not advocating raising out-of-control, over-the-top kids.  But inside the boundaries of respect and honor, there's room for our children to be the creative individuals God made them to be."

So does it really matter if your son wants to dye his hair purple if his heart is already gold?  Sure, there might be practical ramifications to discuss, but is even the mention of it seen as rebellion?  What if your daughter tends to laugh a lot and be a bit rambunctious, and you are naturally a quiet introvert?  Should you project your preference as being the "godly" way for a "lady" to live and disapprove at her "prideful" attempts to "call attention to herself"?  Is there the freedom to be ourselves?  (I just ordered a Christian book called Strong-Willed Child or Dreamer? by Ron Braund and Dana Spears. I think it will address the topic of kids who just want the freedom to be creative rather than boxed in by rigid rules.  I'll let you know what I think after I read it!)

If you want respect as parents (and you should), then you should be willing to grant that same courtesy to your own children.  Listen.  Respond, not react.  Look at the heart through the lens of grace.  Don't be quick to judge.  Seek to understand, then to be understood.  Go for a workable and cooperative relationship -- and this goes both ways!  I know that the same goes for our spouses.  We are different, but do we grant each other that freedom to not think or act the same?  Is the popular phrase "being on the same page" used to unite or divide?  (As in, "How can we understand each other and come to some sort of agreement?" rather than "You don't think like me and I know what's right, so you obviously must be wrong!")

Slice-of-life side note: Because we have a large family, when I bake chicken thighs, I do two pans.  We each have our own different tastes, which I try to reasonably accommodate, so I usually do one with teriyaki sauce and one with barbecue.  I usually end up eating both kinds!  I got up from the computer a little bit ago to get our dinner  in the oven, and asked my 11 year old daughter to get out the barbecue sauce and pour it over some of the chicken.  She wasn't exactly wearing a frilly apron; in fact, she was standing on her skateboard, right there in the kitchen, just like a modern day Caddie Woodlawn!  

THE FREEDOM TO BE VULNERABLE

"One of the great things about God's grace is the safe haven it offers to a transparent heart.  He doesn't require masks in the throne room."

"There's no sin too bad, no doubt too big, no question too hard, and no heart too broken for His grace to deal with."

"Children are born with an unsophisticated set of emotions.  It's not that their emotions are underdeveloped.  It's simply that they haven't had the time to temper them within the crucible of daily life.  Their immature emotions can often prove unreliable for the situations they find themselves in.  They are prone to vast mood swings, vain imaginations, and inordinate fears.  They need to be in a home where parents don't overreact, underreact, or write them off."

Yes!  I agree!  Wow, these childhood years can be full of fluctuating emotions.  We expect them to think and act rationally.  Do we even always think and act rationally ourselves?  Add in a night of poor sleep, a bad day at school, or a friend who has slighted them, and it gets even more complicated.  Our homes and communities are laboratories for learning how to deal with the realities of life. It's a lot of trial and error.  We shouldn't expect the right answer the first time we do the experiment.  Remember Thomas Edison, failing 999 times to get the light bulb right?  It took all of those failures to get to the one success!  Hopefully it won't take us that many failures in a row to figure out basic parenting, but I'm sure I've made at least 999 motherhood mistakes -- each year!

Also, as Dr. Kimmel reminds us, our feelings don't always match up with the facts.  That improves with time and maturity, as we learn to interact intelligently with our surroundings and not get jerked around by momentary impressions.  For a child, though, this is particularly challenging.  They need us there to help them think it through, to ask questions, to clarify impressions, to counter false information, encourage their hopes, and console them in their disappointments.

I want my children to know that they can talk to me about anything, that I won't react in shock, horror, hasty assumptions or harsh judgments.  At times, I've done a halfway decent job at this.  Other times, I have failed miserably, and I know how hard it is to regain a child's trust after I've broken it again and again with my lack of discretion.  I hope I have learned my lesson and that my kids will  know deep down that it is safe to be vulnerable with their mother.


I know that I need to feel safe being honest with God.  It seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?  But if you've been disappointed with life and especially with other Christians who seemed to have all the answers, it might not seem like he is a loving Heavenly Father after all.  That's when it helps to remember that grace is not based on my performance, but on the sacrifice of Jesus for you and me.  How much more loving could God get than to die for sinners, taking their punishment, and, much more (!) offering them true, intimate fellowship with himself?

As I am reading these three chapters, I see how much I need grace as a mother.  I must get a good grasp of it in my own life before I can ever hope to deliver it to my children.   Our home can so often be filled with chaos, conflict and confusion.  There are so many areas where I personally need inner healing, true godly wisdom, and a reasonable perspective for handling the challenges of each day.  How about you?

A few last words from this chapter....

"Children with parents who find their ultimate love, their profound purpose, and their supernatural hope in Jesus Christ have parents who can show them how to face their vulnerabilities with a love that is secure, a purpose that is significant, and a hope that is strong."

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

You can find the book here: Grace-Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel at CBD.

You might also like to read:

• Web Links about Parenting with Grace Instead of Authoritarian Legalism
• Manifesto of Liberty and Responsibility in Christian Families
• Mothering by Faith and Grace
• Amazing Grace for Home School Moms

• Joyful Liberty!
• Tender Compassion for Mothers

And, from one of my other blogs, www.watchtheshepherd.blogspot.com

• On Walking by Grace Instead of a Focus on Mortifying Indwelling Sin
• Wisdom from Letters of Direction by Abbé de Tourville  (see quotes from it below!) 

"Encourage with discretion all that is good in your pupils; let them feel your support without being embarrassed or hampered by it.  Education, as the very word shows, means helping someone to develop himself, to draw out all that is good in him.  It is the greatest of all benefits.  That too is the meaning of the expression to direct¸ direction.  Unless interpreted in this sense, I like the word formation less; it seems to me to carry the suggestion of a preconceived form into which one is to force people whether they like it or not.  But people do not lend themselves to this kind of treatment and so the form remains empty. 


Remember that it is our souls which are God’s joy; not on account of what they do for Him, but on account of what He does for them. All that He asks of them is to gladly accept his kindness, his generosity, his tolerance, his fatherly love.

Do not worry any more about what you are or are not. You are the object of His mercy. Be satisfied with that and think only of that."  


Abbe de Tourville


Grace,
Virginia Knowles
www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

A Strong Hope (Reflections on Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel)

“Anything—minus hope—equals nothing. Hope is the human equivalent of oxygen when it comes to a person’s ability to live effectively. Take it away, and everything else becomes irrelevant. Without hope it is impossible to live a balanced life. Far worse, without hope, people surrender too soon and die too young… Any parent who wants to raise his or her children into strong, confident and resilient adults has got to grasp the reality of children’s fundamental need to a strong hope… Kids groomed in a grace-based environment find it easier to be visionaries, to trust in a better future, and to long for a greater good…”

Welcome back to my series of reflections on the book Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel! I thought the quotes above would provide a great introduction for this chapter called “A Strong Hope.” It’s the start of the Christmas season as I write this, and hope is certainly a relevant topic at the moment. Hope is often hard to come by, even as the holiday music serenades us in the shopping mall and advertisements promise us a jolly life if we only buy their shiny stuff on sale. My own kids are working on their wish lists right now! In the midst of the holiday hoopla, despair and disillusionment can creep in and take over not only the “world out there” (with wars, human trafficking, poverty and other social maladies) but also our own homes and churches. I know. I’ve been there. It’s a black hole. And yet Jesus Christ came to bring us hope—for the peace and presence of God, for our future in eternity, and for building communities of faith with others in the here and now. I could use a good strong dose of that hope right now.

This is a really long chapter—over 30 pages long—but I’ll try to distill the essence into one blog post! Dr. Kimmel's words, as well as Scripture verses, are in italics.

“One of the first things we need to understand is the role that helplessness plays in building a strong hope into our children. Their early ability to trust us in the areas where they are helpless to meet their personal needs weighs heavily in their ability to ultimately trust God as they grow older… If he can’t trust the adults in his life when he is helpless, why should he assume that he could trust in a God he can’t see—especially if that trust in God is preached to him by the parents who failed to help him in his time of need?”  

Dr. Kimmel writes this to introduce his comments on the rigid feeding and sleeping schedules advocated by some child training authors. He doesn’t mention which ones, but the obvious frontrunners are Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo of Babywise, who have been sharply criticized by many in the medical and parenting fields, especially since this has led to dehydration and malnutrition in young babies. Infants need responsiveness from their parents, not strict clock watching. When a baby is genuinely hungry – which isn’t always on cue from the parents – he learns to trust those caring for him when they are feeding him.  That doesn’t mean that parents are slaves to their babies, but that they orchestrate a reasonable, flexible routine. When my first baby was born, I tried to stick to a four hour feeding schedule. She might be crying loudly to be fed, but I would look at my watch and say, “No, five more minutes until you can eat!” Then it was ten minutes of nursing on one side, then ten minutes on the other side, and we were done for the next four hours. If she was asleep when it was “time to eat” I would wake her up. Really! At least that’s the way we started. I eased up considerably as we went along, just because it seemed the sensible thing to do.  When her sister was born 22 months later, I entirely ditched the four hour plan and fed when it was a good time for both of us.  If she seemed hungry, I nursed her.  If we were about to go somewhere and I knew I wouldn’t be able to discretely breastfeed her, I would nurse her before we left. If she was taking a nap, I would “let the sleeping baby lie”! If it was time for bed and she was awake, I would give her a milky “nightcap” until she fell asleep, even if she had just eaten an hour before that.  And that’s the way I fed the next eight babies, too. That responsiveness also meant that I had to start the last four babies on a mostly formula diet – though still nursing on a flexible schedule -- since by my late thirties and early forties I couldn’t produce nearly enough milk no matter what I tried. If I had listened to eager moms who thought cow’s milk was poison and insisted on breast only, my babies would have seriously failed to thrive.  I needed to set aside my mommy ego and do what was best for my helpless babies.  They were developing their most basic trust in me, whether it was by breast or bottle! I have watched that first sweet baby girl grow up to be a responsive and responsible mommy to her own little guy. (Sally Clarkson has just written a blog post related to motherly responsiveness to feeding needs here: Do Unto Your Children As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, and Tulip Girl has a series on the pitfalls of various aspects of Babywise parenting.)

Feeding is a profound metaphor for our spiritual needs, too. Jesus knows we are hungry and thirsty. “I am the bread of life!” and “I am the living water!” are two of his most poignant promises to those who come to him, whether it is the woman at the well, or the hungry crowd of thousands on the hillside, or a 21st century family in the suburbs.

As parents, we need to be aware of our children’s real life needs, so we can come alongside and offer loving nourishment and help. They will certainly need leadership and encouragement in their spiritual lives. Otherwise: “They have no idea how to find the way, know the truth, or gain the life… Passivity when it comes to their spiritual life signs their death warrant in advance. Few find their way through to God on their own. They need loving parents enthusiastically leading the way.”

Then there are the practical needs in their lives. Yes, they need to start learning independence. But first they need guidance and a tactical boost. Maybe it is tutoring in a weak academic area, or help choosing a healthy breakfast, or intervention with an irritable sibling, or tips on filling out college scholarship applications, or a small loan to start a lawn mowing business. Whatever we do, we can train and equip them for success in the future.

“Fortunately, children don’t stay helpless forever, and eventually they become old enough to feed themselves, groom themselves, communicate clearly, and even stand up for themselves. Their minds develop well enough to think inductively and deductively. Our mistake is when we fail to relinquish our control over these areas once children have gotten to where they can handle them on their own.  Parents who run their children’s lives and make most of their decisions discourage them from individual thinking.  This can damage their ability to learn to lean on God. It also confuses their ultimate choice to put their hope in God and could mislead them into thinking that God likes to keep them hopeless, too.”

God does not isolate us from worldly traps that could bring us down. He wants us to become mature enough to function around them and not be influenced by them. He doesn’t want us to remain as spiritual infants, fed only on milk, though that is where we all rightly start. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14)

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

So as parents, we must transition from protecting our children to preparing them. We give them more options, knowing that they will make some bad choices and learn from them. “Eventually they’ve got to stand on their own two feet.  God gives us their childhood (especially their teenage years) to let them practice making decisions under our roofs. Simple logic would say that if children are going to struggle and make bad choices, it’s better that they do so while they remain involved with loving parents to help them through it. When parents don’t let them practice, children often overreact to the freedom when they go to college or go out on their own. Unfortunately, those mistakes can do greater harm to them (and to others).  Grace-based parenting is shrewd about helping children grow up and develop independence before they are sent out on their own.”

We’re teaching our kids to trust in God, that there is hope for a good future, but what happens when things don’t seem to turn out all right? I have a young adult daughter, still living at home, who has faced a lot of tough circumstances this year. It seems no matter how hard her effort, something comes up to wipe out any gains. She is learning endurance through all of us, and I’ve reminded her of how much more compassionate she will be with others after struggling so much herself. As Dr. Kimmel writes, “Now, there’s one more area where God wants to use us to build their hope, and that’s when God chooses to solve their problems in ways that wouldn’t be of their own choosing… In these types of scenarios, they are hoping for a physical miracle, an intellectual epiphany, or a relational windfall to suddenly make everything right. The God we trust in doesn’t always deal with these problems in ways we expect or hope for. Sometimes He answers our pleas with answers like “No” or “Wait” or “Later.” When He does, it’s because He is working to make us better and stronger and to draw us closer to Him. He has a bigger plan that this setback fits into. Children need to have a hope in His love that enables them to trust in His character while walking down these painful corridors of their lives. For the child facing these crises, the grace that has surrounded him, the love he’s been shown, and the character of the parents who gave him that grace and love provide a natural springboard for him to rest in God’s final answer to his pleas. It helps him hope when everyone else would give up.”

I feel like I’ve already learned so much from this chapter, yet there is still so much more!  How about “A Checklist for Building Strong Hope”? Here are the bare bullet points in bold italic, which Dr. Kimmel expounds on for several pages, along with my brief comments on each one in parentheses.

1. Children develop a strong hope when they know their parents recognize their God-given abilities and liabilities and turn them into assets for their future.  (Dr. Kimmel applies the Proverbs 22:6 verse “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” as meaning we should not only train our children in God’s ways, but discover the individual way our children are created and called to be and equip them for success in that.  We also need to determine what their specific weaknesses are and help them to overcome in those areas.  They are not mini clones of us!)

2. Children develop a strong hope when their parents lead them and encourage them to live a great spiritual adventure.(One of my favorite phrases about life and parenting is “the grand adventure” so he instantly has my ears on this one.  What he’s getting at is that our goal shouldn’t necessarily be “the safe life” for our kids.  Over-sheltering leads them to be critical of others, and naïve about the dangers they will face.  Life is inherently risky.  Will they be ready?  Not to mention that Christians are called to risk their lives for the gospel anyway, whether they are foreign missionaries or not.  Yes, we should be shrewd.  We don’t throw a defenseless child to the wolves.  But we do teach them to rely on God, to discern good from evil, to make wise choices, to deal with the inevitable dangers.  Much of what we do as Christian parents is a reflection of our middle-class suburban sensibilities.  Parents in Third World countries don’t have our options, yet they can still raise spiritually savvy children who can withstand whatever cultural pressures and socioeconomic circumstances they encounter.  Speaking again of over-protective parents, Kimmel writes, “These protected environments don’t allow a system of spiritual antibodies to develop within the character of the child. This produces a generation of people who must within a spiritually sterilized environment in order to survive.  These are nice systems that produce nice kids who marry nice kids who go to nice churches and hang out with like-minded friends.   Meanwhile, the lost people in the world around them continue in their doomed condition.  In these environments, there is little spiritual adventure.  God is nice, Jesus becomes a plush toy that we cuddle, and we become irrelevant.”  I cried when I read Kimmel’s analogy of the ship that never goes past the harbor entrance.  That’s because of a simple quote my second daughter taught me when she, at age 19, traveled by herself to spend three months in the remote (and very hazardous) mountains of Bolivia: "A ship in harbour is safe, but that is NOT what ships are built for" (William Shedd).  I know I linked these in the post for last chapter, but here they are again: A Ship in Harbour is Safe..., and And They Are Strong and Bold... (Girls and the Grand Adventure) and Come With Me Here. Those who have children in public school may wish to read Going Public: Your Child Can Thrive in Public School by David and Kelli Pritchard.  I just received my copy yesterday, so I haven’t read the whole thing, but what I’ve read so far is very good and very stretching.  I am still home schooling several of my children, as I have for 20 years, but also have two in public school.

3.Children develop a strong hope when their parents help them turn their childhood into a series of positive accomplishments. Equip, equip, equip!  I often tell my kids, “I am here to help you succeed!”  But I need to follow through more with this for sure!

And in all of this, what do they need?  Our own example!  They need to see us exercising self-discipline, growing intellectually and spiritually, and taking on new challenges with gusto.   With our kids, we sometimes also need to “learn the graceful art of ‘pushing carefully’ by establishing realistic standards and then shoving them in the right direction.”  Yow, that one hits a little too close to home for me.  I tend to lean more toward being lax in making my kids work hard at school and chores, and it has come back to bite me.  Other parents might lean into pushing their kids to over achieve – which doesn’t make them better people, just more proficient in certain areas.  “They need to see their commitment to achievement as a way to glorify God as well as a way to make them more valuable to others.  Grace helps us keep achievement in its rightful place, as a means to an end.”

Kids won’t always win. They also need to learn to lose gracefully, to get past their failures, and to try again.  Parents make powerful cheerleaders when the going gets rough. And when we are discouraged in parenting, we need a little cheer of hope to keep us going, too:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7-9).

There are six more chapters in this book.  I hope to write about them soon, but for now, I’ve got some work to do on my own harvest!

You can read the complete series here:

• Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short
• The Truth Behind Grace 
• A Secure Love
• A Significant Purpose
• A Strong Hope
• A Delivery System for Grace and The Freedom to Be Different and Vulnerable
• The Freedom to Make Mistakes
• The Freedom to Be Candid

Grace to you,

Virginia Knowles