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His Words,
Training Up
This post titled "Civility in the Christian home"by Jen Wilkin on her blog The Beginning of Wisdom was awesome. Here’s a summary of what God is teaching me through it. My words in bold, except when using quotes. Unbolded is all direct quotes.
(P.S. don't pray for God to prepare your heart to become a mother of 3 unless you're ready to be killed. A lot. He's been leading me to so much really good, really hard stuff since I prayed that.)
Christ commanded me to treat others, including my children, not just fairly but better than they deserve.
"When Christ
admonished us to love our neighbors as ourselves he pointed us not toward fair
treatment of others, but toward preferential treatment: We want others
to treat us better than we deserve. We should treat others that way. However,
as parents we sometimes forget that our children are our neighbors."
If I want my children to treat me kindy, I have to treat
them kindly. So easy to agree
with, so hard to put in practice everyday (when I’m tired, hungry, super busy,
cranky, etc.).
"But this is
precisely the problem: too many of us wait until our children are teenagers to
realize the importance of civility, understanding its value only as we watch it
walk out the door."
Why do I use a level of incivility with my children that I
wouldn’t dare use with a stranger?
Commanding, sarcastic, condescending tone, sighs. Lots of sighs. My child - the “smallest neighbor they
are called to love preferentially.”
"Civil children are the product of
civil environments. Many parents feel free to speak to their children with a
level of incivility they would not use with anyone else they know. They bark
orders. They raise their voices. They use sarcasm and contempt: “Seriously?
That’s how you cleaned your room?” They poison civil language with contemptuous
tone: “Ryan, please put your shoes on.” They patronize. They
eye-roll or sigh. They construct a cocktail of word choice, tone, and body
language that they would not serve to a co-worker, a friend, or a stranger on
the street. And then they serve it liberally to an under-aged consumer - the
smallest neighbor they are called to love preferentially - their own child.
Yet they are
shocked to end up with an adolescent who is fluent in the language of contempt."
My home must be a place where both parents and children are respected. "Children do not hold equal authority but they do hold equal personhood.” Christ commanded me to treat them like
every other human being - kindly.
Even when they disobey.
"Many of us have
wrongly defined our homes as places where parents are to be respected
rather than as places where everyone is to be respected. Children do not
hold equal authority in the home but they do hold equal personhood, equal
dignity. They are image-bearers of God, every bit as much as their mothers and
fathers. As such, they deserve kind words, level tone, neutral body
language. Even when they disobey. A child who is consistently treated with
respect is far more likely to treat her parents with respect, no matter what
her stage of life."
Some questions to ask myself:
"Parents of young children, look
toward the adolescent years by asking yourself some critical questions now:
•
Do I address my child with kindness
and respect, even in conflict?
•
Do I use my tone and body language to
communicate civility or contempt?
•
Do I guard my child’s exposure to
media sources that model uncivil exchanges between children and adults?
•
Do I teach my child that civil words
are not merely “magic words” that achieve a desired result, but are “moral
words” that obey the Great Command of preferential love?
In the civil word
of the gospel is found our redemption. May it be spoken in our homes as it is
written on our hearts."
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